Deuteronomy 6:5-9 NIV

5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.9 Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

In order to be a good parent, first, you must be a good “Son of God the Father”. You must be able to represent and reflect the image of God through your own deeds. Parents who have a heartfelt love for God will leave their children a precious legacy—an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father.

I have witnessed how religious my Dad is since I was a kid. He had no particular role in church that time, but he has a deep love and fear of God, which made him a good servant. In 2005, he officially became an acolyte, just before I graduated from college.

Every Sunday, he encourages us to dress up and go to mass. Sunday is used to be our family day, and we always start it with a morning mass. We used to walk for about four kilometers to attend the mass, but we never feel any exhaustion because we were happily chatting, playing and running after each other.

We always pray before meals and we can’t start eating without thanking God first for His blessings. He will assign one of us to lead the prayer before and after a meal. He always makes a point to increase our faith and nourish our spiritual being. We even have the “Last Supper” painting in our dining area hanging on the wall with the grace before and after meals.

The grace before meals: Bless us, O Lord! And these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen. The grace after meals is “We give Thee thanks for all Thy benefits, O Almighty God, who lives and reigns world without end. Amen.”

These were the two prayers I’ve learned while growing up, except for “Our Father”, which I’ve learned from attending Mass.

I didn’t realize before what it means until I had my own family. My brothers and sisters would always rant about these family rules but we began to love what we’re doing later because we already found joy in serving and worshipping God. He never explained to us why we have to serve and worship God but as we grow old, we learned to understand the meaning and importance of living by God’s grace and mercy. The spiritual beliefs of my Dad is beyond comparison to the belief of other men I have seen. When he is at home, we usually see him listening or humming worship songs and he will gather us together to sing some Christian Songs like Amazing Grace and Ilocano Christian song, “Denggentay,” (Let’s Listen) and he will read us some bible stories and pray before we go to bed.

We were guided throughout our childhood and it was planted to us as we grow older. My dad taught us that to be a servant of God, you have to be a righteous and just at all times. His strong spiritual beliefs he passed unto us will be treasured for the rest of our lives.

A good parent who knows how to teach his children the importance of spirituality is a good parent indeed. He should let his children grow spiritually by teaching them how to pray and guide accordingly through God’s words.

The parents should lead their children to pray. They must bear in mind that “A family that prays together stays together.”

To meet the spiritual needs of your children, you must:

• Read the Bible together as a family.
• Pray together at all times.
• Give your tithes and offerings.
• Hold worthwhile family home evenings.

What has the Lord command us to teach to our children? A good parent must make sure that his children have learned and understand the gospel first at home. Parents should take these opportunities to get closer to their children by listening to their problems and about their goals in life, giving them guidance and spiritual advice that they need.

Time management is one of the most important thing that parents should master. You must know how to balance your time for your family and work.

The joy of living by the gospel of Christ must be shown in your life through religiously giving tithes and offerings and keeping the commandments of God.