PARENTHOOD
a divine stewardship

The Issues of Character: Diligence

The Lord has assigned to every parent the responsibility of raising up children who will be useful to the Lord in the fulfillment of His plan and purpose. It is not merely a matter of education; it is also an issue of training. For one to be useful to the Lord (or to man), he or she must be instructed in righteousness and trained up in character to be fully equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:14-17). In particular, the character of each of our children must be developed in a proper manner. Our usefulness depends on the quality of our character.

Watchman Nee in his book titled The Character of the Lord's Worker, points out that "many are not qualified to do the Lord's work because of flaws in their character and personality…." He goes on to warn that we "should never despise the training of our character…. None of the basic training in our character can be overlooked. If we are constituted in our character, we can work for the Lord. Without such a character, we cannot work for Him."

In this issue, we are reviewing some of Brother Nee's fellowship concerning diligence as a part of the development of character. The Lord Himself and all of His useful servants were diligent. We should have a sense of responsibility to our children and to the Lord to raise up persons who are trained in their character to be diligent. The one-talented servant who hid his talent in the earth was described by the Lord as a "wicked and slothful servant." He did not do what he should have done because he was slothful in his nature. He was not trained to be diligent in the carrying out of his responsibility. We might imagine that his mother always cleaned his room for him, made his bed for him, and never required him to help with the household chores. If we fail to train our children to diligently complete the tasks they begin or if we neglect to reward them for jobs well-done, we may be, in fact, training them to be slothful. They will not have a diligent character. Eventually they may be disqualified from effective service both to God and to man.

The daily life of a Christian worker often determines whether he is qualified for the Lord's work. Some young people manifest qualities that give you the confident expectation that they will develop into useful servants of Christ. From the very beginning, they give others the impression that they are good seeds and that they will blossom and bring forth fruit. There are others who are quite confident of themselves and who consider themselves quite highly, but before long, they fall by the way. In addition to being useless, they also bring dishonor to the Lord's name. They chose a way that is too broad and too wide. Still others are not very conspicuous at the beginning. However, they prove their worth before the Lord in later years.

You may ask how we can account for these wide differences. Let me answer frankly that there are certain fundamental features in the constitution and character of every person which account for his usefulness and without which no one can be of any use in the service of the Lord.

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