Section 4—The Growing Personality
Chapter 19—Parental Influences (Part 3)
Mothers Are an Example—If mothers would have their daughters come to womanhood with healthful bodies and virtuous characters, they must in their own lives set the example, guarding them against the health-destroying fashions of this age. Christian mothers have resting upon them a responsibility which they do not realize. They should so train their children that they may have firm principle and moral health in this age of corruption.—Manuscript 76, 1900.
When the Wish of Child Is Law—In some families the wish of the child is law. Everything he desires is given him. Everything he dislikes, he is encouraged to dislike. Indulgence is supposed to make the child happy, but it only makes him restless and discontented. Indulgence has spoiled his appetite for plain, healthful food and for the plain use of his time; self-gratification has done the work of unsettling his character for time and for eternity.—The Review and Herald, May 10, 1898.
Satan Seeks to Control Children’s Minds—Parents, you know something of the inducements by which Satan tries to lead your children into folly. He is working with all his powers to lead them astray. With a determination that many do not dream of he is seeking to gain control of their minds and to make the commandments of God of no effect in their lives.—Manuscript 93, 1909.
Parents to Bind Children to Their Hearts—Do not let your children see you with a clouded brow. If they yield to temptation, and afterward see and repent of their error, forgive them just as freely as you hope to be forgiven by your Father in heaven. Kindly instruct them and bind them to your hearts. It is a critical time for children. Influences will be thrown around them to wean them from you, which you must counteract. Teach them to make you their confidant. Let them whisper in your ear their trials and joys. By encouraging this, you will save them from many a snare that Satan has prepared for their inexperienced feet.
Do not treat your children only with sternness, forgetting your own childhood and forgetting that they are but children. Do not expect them to be perfect or try to make them men and women in their acts at once. By so doing you will close the door of access which you might otherwise have to them and will drive them to open a door for injurious influences, for others to poison their young minds before you awake to their danger.—Testimonies for the Church 1:387 (1863).
Strong, Even Discipline—The happiness of every child may be secured by strong, even discipline. A child’s truest graces consist in modesty and obedience—in attentive ears to hear the words of direction, in willing feet and hands to walk and work in the path of duty. And a child’s true goodness will bring its own reward, even in this life.
The early years are the time for the training process, not only that the child may become most serviceable and full of grace and truth in this life, but that he may secure the place prepared in the home above for all who are true and obedient. In our own training of children and in the training of the children of others, we have proved that they never love parents and guardians less for restraining them from doing evil.—The Review and Herald, May 10, 1898.
Jesus Manifested a Peculiar Loveliness of Disposition—As a child, Jesus manifested a peculiar loveliness of disposition. His willing hands were ever ready to serve others. He manifested a patience that nothing could disturb and a truthfulness that would never sacrifice integrity. In principle firm as a rock, His life revealed the grace of unselfish courtesy.
With deep earnestness the mother of Jesus watched the unfolding of His powers and beheld the impress of perfection upon His character. With delight she sought to encourage that bright, receptive mind. Through the Holy Spirit she received wisdom to cooperate with the heavenly agencies in the development of this child, who could claim only God as His Father.—The Desire of Ages, 68, 69 (1898).
Preoccupation of Mind Rules Out Low Thoughts—Educate the faculties and tastes of your dear ones; seek to preoccupy their minds so that there shall be no place for low, debasing thoughts or indulgences. The grace of Christ is the only antidote or preventive of evil. You may choose, if you will, whether the minds of your children shall be occupied with pure, uncorrupted thoughts or with the evils that are existing everywhere—pride and forgetfulness of their Redeemer.—Letter 27, 1890 (Child Guidance, 188.)
Surrounded by a Wall Not Easily Broken Down—Every Christian home should have rules; and parents should, in their words and in their deportment toward each other, give to the children a precious living example of what they desire them to be. Purity in speech and true Christian courtesy should be constantly practiced. Let there be no encouragement of sin, no evil surmising or evil speaking.
Teach the children and youth to respect themselves, to be true to God, true to principle; teach them to respect and obey the law of God. Then these principles will control their lives and will be carried out in their association with others. They will love their neighbor as themselves. They will create a pure atmosphere, one that will have an influence to encourage weak souls in the path that leads to holiness and heaven. Let every lesson be of an elevating, ennobling character, and the records made in the books of heaven will be such as you will not be ashamed to meet in the judgment.
Children who receive this kind of instruction will not be a burden, a cause of anxiety, in our institutions [educational, medical, publishing, etc.]; but they will be a strength, a support to those who bear responsibility. They will be prepared to fill places of trust and by precept and example will be constantly aiding others to do right. Those whose moral sensibilities have not been blunted will appreciate right principles and will practice them. They will put a right estimate upon their endowments and will make the best use of their physical, mental, and moral powers.
Such souls are constantly fortified against temptation; they are surrounded by a wall not easily broken down. All such characters are, with the blessing of God, light-bearers; their influence tends to elevate others for a practical Christian life. The mind may be so elevated that divine thoughts and contemplations come to be as natural as the breath.—Letter 74, 1896.
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/77.841#873
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for the privilege of a family molded in Christianity. Thank You for Your Word, which encourages us in the total, true and right development of character and mind culture, resulting in healthy Christian marriages and families that present a unique witness to the world that You are the Eternal God of Life ad Love. Please bless us truly to contemplate the life of Jesus and to allow Your Word to develop within us that true religion, which ennobles the mind, refines the taste, sanctifies the judgment, and makes us partakers of the vibrant health, purity, and the holiness of Heaven. Because we ask all these in the Awesome name of Your Son, Almighty Jesus the Christ, our Savior, we say Thank You and Amen.
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DID YOU KNOW THIS…? Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.— Proverbs 22:6 KJV [The WORD OF GOD—It’s the only flesh that is safe to eat (meditate on) to live forever!]
Do you feel sorrowful, disconnected—without a place to feel at home or useful? I pray this might show you the way forward. Watch…
https://www.youtube.com/live/2QB6fcwVuws?si=fsEvZU-rkI-BngfD
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FREE HEALTH TALK* open to the public Thursdays at 5pm at Country Life Natural Foods Store and Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurant, 1217 Eberhart Avenue, Columbus, GA. The topic for Thursday, June 4, “Air for Healing” with Jai Hewlett.
*Exception: $10 for cooking classes
WHGR 91.5 FM went LIVE noon on Thanksgiving Day 2025, for Hurtsboro (my childhood home town) and surrounding areas, including Tuskegee, Alabama.
If you want to support Christian radio programming for these final days, please visit
https://www.ucheepines.org/radio
Thank you!!!
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I coordinate wonderful health and worship events and conferences online and onsite as a gospel medical missionary at Uchee Pines, a total plant-based health retreat, where doctors and practitioners specialize in lifestyle medicine. For event details, visit https://www.ucheepines.org/events
Therefore, if at any time you fail to receive this post as a text, please visit
https://baiom.org/author/audreystovall/
where devotionals are first posted daily (almost without fail). From there devotionals are publicly shared to my page on FB, LinkedIn, and Signal (in My Story), and to a response-restricted group on WhatsApp (once again when I am able to find the time to successfully rebuild it).
NOTE: These began as daily texts to encourage my academy roommate and dear friend of nearly 50 years, until she suddenly passed March 2023. Now I continue to compile and send them to anyone who will receive them and to her family in honor of their mom. Lately, I have begun featuring consecutive chapter portions of a select Bible-based book.
If you agree to continue receiving them, then this is my personal gift to you; and in this way, I not only honor God but the memory of a very dear friend whom I desperately miss.
My personal prayer is that God will bless me to find ways to multiply this gift, so that we all may be encouraged to be found faithful in the sight of a Holy God, whenever Christ returns or our eyes are shut in the sleep of death.
It is a prayerful process that leads me to share from my personal study.
So please feel free to forward to your loved ones or to anyone, as God leads you. I’m calling them Barb’s Devotionals.