by Aerynne Aiudi

Created on: May 04, 2009

The most effective way to teach values is to model them.

I don't believe, firstly, that any of us will ever be perfect on this side of time in the sense of having all the square pegs in all the square holes perfection. We are all in the learning curve at various points in our lives, and can learn from even the youngest individual that our paths have the blessings to cross. My daughter when she was five years old, for example, taught me the value of what she called, "Giving from your heart, and not just from your face."

We were living in the projects at the time, and I made myself project den mother as I set about the task of feeding all the other children because they were all so poor and unfortunate, and it was my way of developing a greater sense of community. I would give, sometimes to the detriment of my little family of my daughter and I, and she would see that and scold me by telling me not to give out of a sense of duty or obligation, but out of a sense of true love and helpfulness from the heart. People of course took advantage of us, one woman who's boyfriend and father of her children provided for his family of five, would always make it a habit of coming to our apartment around dinnertime because she knew of my soft heart, and being lazy and not wanting to cook for her own three children, she knew I would feed her and her brood, and so I gave from my face in that situation. To conclude this story in my favor, my daughter now wants to go on and serve as a missionary to Africa while this woman's children are rebelling against her because she refused to model values and morality before them. They are growing up in a spiritual vacuum, and time will only tell what types of adults they will result in being.

While going to church, reading the Bible, volunteering in your community and helping when you can are great things to model, all good works make no one any more a Christian than standing in a donut shop makes one a donut worker or a donut itself! Really, when the rubber meets the road, the acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord of one's life is what enables an individual to have the moral, intellectual, spiritual and emotional fiber necessary to be a role model for one's children, and even moreso children at large and one's neighboring community, and ultimately the world. The Lord Jesus Christ gives us the power of love that we need to meet the needs of the less fortunate, even when the recipients of our love are, in a word, unlovable. People have been so wounded in recent years that, if someone models genuine love and helpfulness, the person on the receiving end thinks that the giver of love has an ulterior motive for "being nice." But don't be deterred because as the Bible says in 1 John 4, "Perfect love casts out fear." The perfect love given to our hearts by the power of regeneration in Christ gives us the capacity to model love and forgiveness, kindness and sincerity to even the most sin hardened individual.

And so what is my conclusion? Values of the positive sort need to be embraced, lived and modeled on a daily basis. And as far as doing the latter out of a system of perfection? The Greek word for perfection actually belays a concept of maturity instead of order and perfunctory aesthetics. One can be perfect if one maturely models the system of behavior that goes the extra mile to do unto others as you would have them to do unto you. Modeling same will ensure that your offspring and those in your care learn the practice of love and helpfulness instead of the impoverished mindset and heart-set of greed and selfishness.

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