How Do We Teach Our Children How to Obey God?

How Do We Teach Our Children How To Obey God?

        This is an essay that ask a very important question.  How do we teach our children how to obey God?  According to Deuteronomy 6:7 says: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.  This means our primary emphasis is to teach our children how to love the Lord God.

        This also means that we are supposed to love the Lord with all of thy heart, soul, mind, and strength.  When it comes to teaching our children about the Bible, they learn by watching their parents.  If the parents are reading the Bible to their children, teaching their children how to pray, and taking them to church all of the time, and conducting themselves like a true Christian, then a child will never forget about the Lord.  According to proverbs 22:6 says: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he gets old, he will not depart from it.

        I remember when I was growing up in the Dayton, Ohio Area from 1970-1990.  I attended church with my grandmothers on a regular basis.  My Great Grandmother indicated that she was taking me to church, so that I can grow up and be a real man.  She read the Bible to me on a regular basis.  I attended Bethel Church of God in Christ in Dayton, Ohio.  My Great Grandmother stated to me that she was raising me because my mother suffered from postpartum depression.  This is a mental illness that affects pregnant mothers worldwide.  My mother made a decision to take me to my Grandmother’s house and I had a lot of fun.

        At first, I did not understand what was going on with my mother at that time.  I went through a lot of changes myself because on May 30, 1972, I went to live with my mother and afterwards, I started drinking and smoking marijuana at the age of 7 years old.  However, I was born with alcohol inside of my bloodstream because my mother was drinking alcohol during that time.  My mother was also responsible for taking me to church on a regular basis herself.  One mistake that my mother made was trying to change my name.  My birth name is Anthony Joseph Hopkins.  She changed my name because she was married to a man that was not my own biological father. 

        I had to make changes to my own school records because I told my school counselor that the name that I was using Anthony Joseph Russell was not my real name.  I officially changed my name because it did not make sense what my mother had done to me as a person.  My own mother tried to alter my identity.  I have forgiven my mother for what she had done to me.  I will admit that I felt ashamed about having that name.  I used to examine my birth certificate and social security card and say to myself, why did Mom do this to me? 

        I have read the Bible over and over for the past 40 years.  I have always wondered why all of the bad things happened to me as a person.  My own stepfather stabbed me when I was a senior in high school.  I had to protect my own little brother on November 25, 1985.  If I didn’t put my arm in the way shielding my little brother, he would have been dead.  Therefore, I got stabbed with a hook knife.  To be perfectly honest, I almost bled to death from my injuries. 

        I will admit that there are things that I had done to my own mother and stepfather when I was much younger.  Like they say in Ephesians 6:1, Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.  There are times when I was a child that I even resented my own stepfather.  I even got into a fist fight with him immediately after he stabbed me with the hook knife that he had in his possession at the time.  There are times when I have actual flashbacks from the things that I had to endure in my personal life. 

        Finally, I am very sorry for mentioning all of this, but I have to tell the truth.  My name is Anthony Joseph Hopkins, and I am a 53 year old man from Dayton, Ohio.  I used to live in Charlotte, NC for 12 years.  I have been incarcerated a total of 26 times within the past 21 years.  I graduated from the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio on June 12, 1993 and June 17, 1995 respectively.  There are times when I meditate about the past and there are times when my own family members argue with me about the past.  God loves me and this is all that matters to me right now.  I have come a very long way in my personal life.