Bad parenting

Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honour your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?’ Therefore the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.’ But now the Lord says: ‘Far be it from Me; for those who honour Me I will honour, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. – 1 Samuel 2.29-31

We don’t know all that happened it Eli’s house while Hophni and Phineas were growing up, but here we have a hint at part of why things went the way they did.

‘Why do you honour your sons more than you honour Me?’ God asked Eli.

This is a great lesson in parenting, even if it is a negative example. Eli’s problem was that he wasmore concerned about pleasing his sons that he was about pleasing God. His son’s wants and desires came before doing right by God.

I’ll admit it can be a very hard balance to find. While we need to love our children and provide for them and do what we can to take care of them and meet their needs and even some of their wants, we cannot do so at the expense of honouring the Lord.

While we are not to ‘provoke our children to wrath’ we also are to ‘bring them up in the nature and admonition of the Lord.’

It is great to give our children nice things. We like to give them gifts. It's not even wrong to ‘spoil’ them just a bit – but when we cater to them without regard to teaching them God’s way we do everyone harm.