Building Trust: God, Our Father and Role Model

By Nancy C. Gaughan

God tells us to call Him Father and to trust Him. This book examines God our Father and the role He plays in our lives. It examines who our Father is, how we can be more like Him, and how we can parent our children as He parents us. Each chapter is headed with a Bible verse and study questions for all the chapters follow the text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490854465

Nancy C. Gaughan

Nancy Gaughan is a Jewish Christian, coming to faith in her forties. She has been researching, writing, teaching, and speaking about the Bible ever since. She has two master’s degrees and is a busy wife, mother, and grandmother.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Building Trust

Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way she should do and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Not only did Jesus refer to God as His Father over and over, anywhere from 40 to 50 times, depending on the translations, He referred to God as our Father anywhere from 20 to 30 times, depending on the translation. Yet, few of us have thought about God as our Father and a role model for parenting.

When it comes to our parenting, learning from our own parents’ example can be a terrible handicap, for none of us had perfect parents. Some had unspeakably bad parents. While we can look to our parents to see what they did right and wrong in raising us, we have a far better role model in God, our perfect Father. In this chapter and throughout the book, we will see how our Father has built in us the confidence and given us the strength and guidance to live in the world but not become corrupted by it.

As God’s children, we gain confidence and strength when we trust and obey God. Most people know the hymn, Trust and Obey. It is important that the trust comes first. It is the foundation upon which all behavior and attitudes grow. This book is about learning to trust our Father and teaching our children to trust us, their parents whom they can see, and God, their Father whom they cannot not see but is as real and an even better parent than we are.

That is the ultimate goal, to train our children to trust God, to trust and obey. There are those who sing, Trust and Obey, but only hear the Obey when it comes to their children and their parenting. That is because we can require obedience of our children without developing trust.

As parents, the question is, How are we to follow Proverb 22:6 and train our children in the way they should go? How do we begin to prepare our children to live in an evil world and to trust and obey God? We, of course, need to talk to them and warn them about the world, but children are notorious for not listening to or believing their parents. That was you, this is me. That was back in the dark ages. You always worry." People, especially children, learn from imitation and example even more than by lecture or reading.

Our sons were Boy Scouts. Every week they recited an oath in which they pledged on their honor to do their best to do their duty to God and their country, to help other people at all times, and to keep themselves physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight. It is a code all parents should teach their children to live by. No one forced them to be Boy Scouts and recite this promise, so it was their choice and their commitment. It is a promise that was and will be difficult to live day by day all their lives because every day they will be faced with choices which the world will test. At the very outset, the world mocks this pledge.

For example, part of the pledge is to be morally straight. In 2013 our judiciary struck down several state’s laws that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. They required the states to issue marriage licenses for homosexual couples. The news stories came complete with pictures of two men kissing. That we even had to try, but then could not pass a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one male and one female and the change in Boy Scout policy to admit openly homosexual boys shows that the definition of morally straight has changed in this country. To the country at large being morally straight no longer refers to how we conduct our sexual lives.

When he was in middle school, our younger son was dismayed that most of his male classmates saw nothing wrong with premarital sex and intended to have sex by the time they were out of high school. In the school yard there seems to be little honor in the world at large. Yet, our sons and their fellow scouts from every age stand firm on their honor that they will do their best to do all the things in this pledge, including be morally straight.

The issue of being morally straight is only one difficulty a young person will have with keeping this promise. The promise is to try to do his duty to God and his country. A duty is an obligation. Those who recite this are stating they realize they have an obligation to God and to their country. Most of our country laughs at the concept of feeling one has a duty to God and country. A generally accepted statistic is that eighty to ninety percent of the work in a church is done by ten to twenty percent of the people. Where is our duty to God? If our youth all had a sense of duty to country, we would not have three of the branches of our volunteer military seriously understaffed, as they were for several years until the government decided we did not need a large military to keep us safe. A neighbor boy frequently said about his parents, They owe me. That sentiment is the opposite of having a sense of duty and responsibility, which says, I owe them. In 1961 Present Kennedy told the country during his inaugural address, Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. It is a foreign concept in today’s world.

Beyond battling outside opinion, it is contrary to our nature to always be helping other people. It is impossible to always do one’s best. And from the world’s point of view, mental and physical successes are to be for self -gratification and reward, not for honoring God and country. So to encourage and help our children live by this code, we must teach them to be able to stand against popular opinion and to live lives that reflect this pledge.

As parents we want our children to make Godly choices, to have the courage to live in the world and not be corrupted or beaten by it. It takes tremendous confidence to be able to face a braggart who is surrounded by adoring classmates and say, That’s not right. or stand in a crowd of classmates talking about an R rated movie and say, I won’t watch that or to answer Because it isn’t right when questioned why he or she doesn’t do or think a great many other things the world condones. In short, it is difficult to live a life of honor.

There are those who argue we need to shield our children from the many immoral pressures they are bound to encounter in the world. But we cannot shield them forever. Eventually they will be out in the world, and they must be prepared for it. We, their parents, must prepare them. Even as we would not think of sending our military to war without training, we must prepare our children for the temptations that will surround them. As they grow up, they will be tempted to cheat and lie and become self indulgent, selfish and proud. Every day living is a battle between good and evil, as Paul explained to the Ephesians, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Eph. 6:12)

Although as children we hated to hear it, as adults we still sometimes say, Because I said so! When that is the answer we give, we are really saying, I want obedience whether you trust me or not. A better response, although it takes more time is, I can’t give you the answer right now; but if you trust me, you know I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it was important.

Obedience without trust is based on fear and breeds resentment. While we are told throughout the Bible to fear the Lord, obedience based on trust is wholly different than obedience based on fear without trust. The Hebrew word for fear in the bible is the same word for revere or stand in awe of. When we contemplate the power and love of God and His righteousness, we should be humbled and awed and even afraid.

But it is not out of fear that He wants us to behave. We are to obey because we love Him and trust that He always has our best at heart. He tells us throughout the Bible what He wants of us and that all of His commandments are for our own good. Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 10:12-13, And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear (revere) the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

Paul said in 1Cor. 7:35: I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. And Jesus said that the obedience must be based on love and trust. If you love me, you will obey what I command. (Jn. 14:15)

When we trust, the desire to please and to obey flows as an outgrowth of that love and trust. Trusting God and trusting us, their parents, shapes our children’s behavior and attitudes. For example, trusting that the rules are for our own good, we do what we are commanded with gladness, even when it is difficult or unpleasant or when we cannot see the good.

As adults, when we tithe, or forgive someone who has hurt us, or refrain from immorality or prideful boasting or gossip, we often cannot see the good it does for us. Yet, over time we will see that the more we obey God, the more the rules are for our own good. We feel the freedom from the oppression of anger when we forgive. When we are tempted by immorality or boasting or so many other sins the world condones, we feel the strength of the Holy Spirit helping us turn away and take joy in knowing He is within us. When we trust and obey Him, we feel closer to God and our faith and conviction is strengthened.

If we trust that God loves us, we do not rebel against the rules and do not resent the punishments when we fail, repent and confess. We know, as Solomon said, The Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. (Prov. 3:12) We accept God’s discipline as the Holy Spirit reveals our sin to us.

This trust also affects our attitudes. Having the bible to show us God’s promises and direction for us, we can go through life with confidence. The confidence comes in knowing we always have God to turn to and that help is always at hand. We develop this trust by learning and believing God is who He says He is in the bible and that He can and will do all He has promised. In short, our confidence comes because of who God is, not because of who we are. We have no merit on our own apart from the sacrifice Jesus made for us. So while we are learning to trust God, we are also learning humility. As God’s character has