Making disciples

Sitting on the Skarie's couch, holding squirming Alex, commanding him quietly not to throw a temper tantrum and waiting until he had quieted, I thought how little I could use scripture to instruct him at this age. I saw Jonathan playing quietly three yards away and considered the wee bit of scripture he now knows, and yet there is so much he has yet to learn to be mature enough to be instructed by scripture alone. Christ's great commission to us is that we make disciples. As I watched Alex's face and as I prayed for his little life, those words came to me. Then I considered all the "baby" Christians I know. How I would (if only they could make me the minister!) pound them over the head with the scripture and get them into line! Then I considered how tender and gracious the Lord had been to me to teach me by example over these past few years how inexorably maturing takes place little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept. The picture of these covenant children I am babysitting gives me new patience for the less mature in Christ. It also gives me more zeal for the proper raising of children, that we, their parents, would see them as disciples in the making from babyhood. And may God encourage parents everywhere to see their calling as a most holy one, especially the mothers whom the world little esteems as they lay their lives down for this making of disciples.