By Faith: Bless Your Children

1 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. 2 Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. 3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. 4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.”

Children are a blessing to their parents. They are an awesome gift from God. Children also need blessing from their parents—and they need God’s blessing above all. God intended that faithful parents would be one of the main conduits of his blessing. In Bible times it was common for fathers to pronounce God’s blessing on their children. That was an act of faith.

In our abortion-riddled society the first blessing parents pass along to their children is God’s gift of life. For Christians, bringing children into our troubled world is an act of faith.

Neither toys, money, words of encouragement, praise, love, nor even the parents’ gifts of time and presence are the highest blessings parents can give their children. The best blessing is for parents to help engrave on the hearts and minds of their children that they belong to God.

Remind your children of God’s blessings promised to them in their baptism. In baptism they were adopted into the great royal family of God. They are heirs of God’s kingdom.

With this sense of identity they are blessed with answers to our deepest human questions: Who am I? Why am I? What is my life all about?

Parents, grandparents—bless your children!

Lord Almighty, bless and keep our children. Give them strength to defeat all of life’s enemies. Let their lives be shaped by love and service to you and to their neighbors. Amen.