Parents Provoke Not Your Child

Let us muse today from Colossians 3:21 where the word father can be translated parents. Parents are told not to provoke their children. When we provoke our children it makes it very difficult for them to obey. The word provoke means to rouse to anger, to excite, or irritate. The word discouraged means to have the spirit broken before the will is broken. One of the greatest ways we provoke our children is not being consistent and balance in our child rearing. Let us be careful when we swing between extreme permissiveness and extreme legalism. We will find between the two there is a balance and we mus find it, stand there, and not move.