Training in Grace

Recently I have been convicted and somewhat confused as to what it meant to give grace to your children.  I was thinking, young children don't need grace, they need discipline.  Otherwise its sends confusing messages to them as to when they need to obey and when its ok to do what they are doing.  So I thought, well I guess grace comes later.

Well God has been showing me on the side how he has been showing me grace on a day to day basis.  I started to realize that He doesn't stop from disciplining me, but he shows me grace in how he disciplines me.  He doesn't give me the full punishment of what I deserve - death.  He doesn't yell or become frustrated with me when for the umpteenth time I've had a complaining spirit (like my daughter, wonder where she got that from!) 

Romans 5:20

New Living Translation (NLT)

²⁰ God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.

So I began to realize that that is how I am to be gracious to my children.  Instead of getting annoyed and tired of the complaining or arguing.  I need to respond in love and grace and TRAIN my children in the moment.  There is a difference between teaching and training.  I always new this and have actually been practicing this in our home, but it really was made clear when reading this post from Woman Living Well blog.  As she writes:

Teaching is giving my children the information they need to succeed. 

But training is giving my children the discipline to carry out what they have been taught.

So yes I discipline for disobedience.  But when they are not responding correctly to life situations, I show grace by not becoming angry that he have done it AGAIN.  But instead train them in how they should have responded.

I pray that God will give me just an ounce of the grace that he shows me.

Ephesians 2:7

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁷ So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.