five things

Five things I hope & pray that my children learn to consistently do well ...

(tho' it seems that I, the one who should be teaching them, am a

 'jack of all trades and master of none' 

here so I'm not quite sure how they're ever going to learn them from me) 

 1. Live by the "Golden Rule" 

(- and if I could only teach them only one thing, this would be it) 

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

 ²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”   ²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
 ²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and,
 ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
   ²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

Luke 10:25 - 28

While I would love to be the one to teach my children to do this but in all honesty I'm still trying to figure out how to do it.  I will say though that it's amazing - how, even in my feeble attempts toward this end, everything else I've learned has helped me understand that this is at least how much God loves us (see John 3:16 -21)!  And if that is all my children learn from me in this regard then I will know I've done something right. 

 2. Make good choices

If you know me,  you know that I'm convinced that choices, good or bad, and their consequences are the basic elements that living boils down to - and when I consider where the consequences of even one bad choice can lead - well ... enough said.

3. Do their personal best at whatever they put their mind to do 

To "just do your best"sounds so simple but to really do the best that one is capable of doing requires hard work which I'm confident would set my children apart in this world and lead them to opportunities even beyond their wildest dreams.  Their Daddy is the best example I know of for them to follow here.

 4. Be content with what they have

&  

5. Make nothing less than the best of whatever circumstances they find themselves in 

If they can do these two things,  I'm believe that they will then have what it takes to be as happy as they can possibly be - at any given time.