By Lydia Teh

Mothers, we are concerned about our children’s academic performance. So we send them for tuition classes and study camps. We want our children to be well-rounded; all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So we enrol them in extra-curricular activities such as music, art, and swimming.

What about our children’s spiritual welfare? Are we just as zealous in shaping them up spiritually? Do we bring our children for Sunday School and when they are older, encourage them to attend Youth class?

Are we like Timothy’s mother, Eunice and his grandmother, Lois who taught him the scriptures from a tender age?

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also,” Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Tim. 1:5.

“¹⁰But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance… ¹⁴ But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” 2 Tim. 3:10, 14-15.

Today’s Eunices would read bible stories to her young children, pray with them, teach them good values, and bring them for services. Spiritual education starts from the home and grows in the church.

Mothers, let’s guide our children to the pathway of right. Even if it means “sacrificing” tuition with the best Math tutor who can only teach on Sunday mornings. Or missing out on badminton lessons with the ex-Thomas Cupper. There will be other opportunities.

But if we put stumbling blocks in our children’s spiritual development, we might not get the chance to steer them back in the right direction.

“Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it” Prov. 22:6.