Although I am not a parent, I've recently thought about the responsibility of raising children. In my personal scripture study, I've taken to thinking about the ways in which I could teach what I'm reading to my future children. What would I want them to know? How could I explain it to them? So today, I just wanted to ask that question: What do you think are the most important (religious) concepts/principles to instill in a family?
I'm still thinking about it, but the beginnings of my list are as follows:
1. The love, mercy and grace of God
2. The Atonement (which is certainly related to 1)
3. The story of the life of Christ
4. The story of the fall of Adam
5. Divine revelation (personal, prophetic, scriptural, etc.)
What do you think?
For more information about why I list "the story" of the life of Christ and of the fall of Adam instead of "the doctrine," see the post from Jan. 2011 entitled "The Story," and its comments.
ReplyDeleteI think humility is high on my list. In this is included a sacred respect for the other. I think entitlement is one of the things that hurts peoples happiness the most. It has mine.
ReplyDeleteAnother lesson that I am grateful to my parents for is simple kindness. They were more proud of me when I was kind to someone, or included someone, or befriended someone who was friendless than anything else. I knew what was important to them. It became important to me.
Truth (things as they really were, are, and are to come); if we teach them truth, they can be truth-living and truth-loving as Pres. Faust says. I think sometimes even the gospel truth is surprising to us too, because we've been taught false traditions or whatever, but it's important to teach the real truth at home so kids can learn it somewhere even if no one in the world will ever teach them. The truth will still be true even if they don't know it and live by it.
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