[Day 3] Life Goals and Ambitions
As a result of today’s education, children have become self-centered, pleasure-seeking, and self-focused. Today, we are not worldly parents, but godly parents. We should not educate our children according to worldly education, but according to the will of God, the purpose of God, and the discipline and warning of the Lord, so that they will have lofty goals and righteous values. In other words, we parents should also have lofty life goals and righteous values. For this, we must first have the following understanding and visions.
Every child is born with talent. We should encourage children to study hard and forge ahead, fully develop and utilize the gifts and talents from God. They should try their best to create wealth and value: material, psychological and spiritual. Today we all have to change our thinking. Whether smart or not, our children are all given by God; they are precious. Today, we should have a goal in educating our children, that is, to give full attention to the innate talents given by God to our children. This should be the goal of our education so that they may see that it is shameful to bury and waste their gifts and talents because of laziness and negligence. They might be rebuked and condemned by the Lord. But don’t expect to cultivate the child’s one talent into five talents, which is impossible, because he doesn’t have that many gifts or talents.
The responsibility of parents is to give full attention to the gifts and talents given by God to their children, and try their best to let their children create wealth and value. This includes three categories: material, psychological and spiritual. As for material wealth, for example, if children are well educated, they can earn $100,000. A child who can earn $100,000 should earn $100,000 and give full attention to his talent. This is called material value. Regarding psychological wealth, it is not measured by money. For example, my wife wrote several books, but they were not sold for much money. However, these books have been helping so many parents. This is called psychological value. In terms of spiritual wealth, brothers Nee and Lee have produced many spiritual works. Every article in each volume of Watchman Nee’s works and The Collected Works of Witness Lee help people to be saved, love the Lord, serve the Lord, build the church, complete God’s economy, and become overcomers. This is very valuable and is called spiritual value. Another example, if you write about your experience of salvation as a testimony, put it on the Internet, or give it to your friends, someone might be saved. If you write your experience of dedication and love for the Lord as a witness to help others love the Lord and help them abandon the world. This is also the spiritual wealth and value.
In terms of material wealth, for example, if a child can earn $100,000 a year, but he only needs $80,000. So how should he use the remaining $20,000? If he spends the $20,000 on pleasure and extravagance such as driving a high-priced car, living in a big house, or taking luxury vacation. In the eyes of God, this is a vain and shameful expense, which indeed does not please Him. The wealth and value you create are not to be used to squander in indulging your “self”. It is worthwhile to use the wealth and value made to your family by honoring your parents, helping brothers and sisters or relatives, giving back to society, helping poor and hungry people, etc. Then a higher and nobler way to spend, that is to use their labor and efforts to create wealth and value for God who created us, loves us and makes us reborn to complete His purpose.
Therefore, I want to solemnly tell parents that one day your child will grow up. If he wants to participate in full-time training, don’t stop him. On the contrary, we should encourage children to attend full-time training, receive more spiritual education, and become a useful vessel for the Lord. Moreover, if children want to go abroad to preach the gospel in backward and poor countries, support them. In the future, this experience will be very valuable. Then, we should help our children be ambitious from childhood, and please God always (2 Cor. 5:9). Paul is a good example. Before he was saved, he had been a man of initiative and pursuit of goals. He said that he was, “more advanced than many people of his own age” (Gal. 1:14); we should help the children grow up to be more advanced than people of their age.
