She was a tall, thin woman in her mid 20’s. Her dark eyes were complimented by her long, dark, naturally curly hair that spilled loosely around her shoulders. I was sitting next to her mother when the young woman arrived to pick up her toddler. She hesitantly walked over to where we were. The two women exchanged a brief, strained conversation, after which the young woman called for her son to join her and quickly left. They never made eye contact.
“Your daughter is beautiful!” I exclaimed to the young woman’s mother. “Oh, really?” she answered, “Her father and I made it a point to never tell her she was beautiful. We didn’t want her to become prideful. We feel it’s wrong to compliment our children or tell them they are beautiful.”
I was stunned!
I knew their story. They had created a very strict, rules oriented home. From a very young age the young woman was not given much encouragement or affirmation unless it was related to how she was supposed to act, think, or feel according to the Bible. She graduated from high school, got a job, and began attracting the kind of attention and affirmation that she had never received at home. She married a man her parents did not approve of, after becoming pregnant with her son, and she now lived with the cloud of her parents’ disapproval hanging over her head.
The young woman’s mother – now a grandmother – had done what she thought was right. But I left that conversation feeling very sad, resolving not to follow in her footsteps. My children were very young at the time and I couldn’t imagine NOT encouraging them in any way possible!
This sad story caused me to search the scriptures and evaluate how we might approach encouragement and praise within our family.
4 Ways to Praise Your Children to the Glory of God
1. As parents, we are called to be humble, authentic believers who live out the gospel before our children.
It is our calling to nurture, instruct, guide, love, point out God’s goodness and the truth about who and what they are (the good and the bad), and to share the gospel with them.
2. We can help our kids learn how to deal with the pride that is already in their hearts (Proverbs 22; Psalm 51:5; Genesis 8:22).
And how to handle the lies of our culture that might feed into the pride that is present in all of our hearts from birth. Teaching our children how to fight the fight, and letting them know that their parents are fighting the fight as well, will help equip them to see things from God’s perspective.
3. God has created every single aspect of our being to be used to bring Him glory.
We are made in His image, which means we are a reflection of Him physically, mentally/emotionally, spiritually, and in our gifts and abilities. All of these facets reveal God’s goodness and are gifts from His hand. They can cause us to focus on Him with a grateful heart, if we see them from His perspective.
4. We give affirmation to our children because God has made them beautifully and uniquely.
The act of pointing out these aspects of our children can be used to glorify God for his good works. I’m not talking about flattery or “building self-esteem,” nor do I mean feeding the prideful desire for human praise. I am talking about praising the work that God has done and is doing in another person. Praising people to the glory of God.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
I wonder if that precious young woman would have made different choices if she had been encouraged and affirmed? If she had learned how to handle the attention she would receive outside of the four walls of her home and church, learned that she was created in the image of God, and that her beauty and abilities were a reflection of HIS image, maybe things would have been different. I don’t know. But ignoring the fact that she was beautiful didn’t make her beauty non-existent! All it did was make her feel like she wasn’t anything special, instead of equipping her to point others to God.
I can think of nothing better than pointing my children to God and His goodness, or expressing gratitude for how God has made them and what He is doing in them. It enables them to see God’s great work, but also helps them to see Him as the source of every good gift. I am looking for every opportunity I can to encourage my children in this way, so that they are refreshed and so that God receives the glory He deserves.
SOMETHING TO PRAY
Lord, I believe there is beauty in every person created in Your image. Help me to give my daughter an opinion of herself that matches Your opinion of her and teach her to keep her eyes on You. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
EXTRA PRAYERS
Psalm 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Ephesians 2:20 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Genesis 1:2 7“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Proverbs 12:25 “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, But a good word makes it glad.”
James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
