Cultivating My Child’s Covetous Heart

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“A man is given to covetousness when he overloads himself with worldly business…(H)e has scarce time to eat his meat, but no time to pray.” (Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments, 176)

Last article we saw how a covetous spirit is evidenced in us when we begin to neglect the spiritual aspect of living in pursuit of the common, or worldly. When we begin neglecting our private or corporate worship these are clear signs that we are longing more for the things of this world than for fellowship with God. But we are not only responsible for our own covetous desires. We also bear some responsibility to those who live around us. In no relationship is that responsibility more obvious than between parents and children. And yet, however well-intentioned we may be, there are ways we, as parents, contribute to a spirit of covetousness in our children.

  1. Failure to teach contentment. It is difficult to teach contentment in our western culture. Our children are constantly being bombarded with commercials and catalogues which encourage them to want just a little bit more than they already have. From our children’s perspective, every commercial and catalogue will present them with something they “need” rather than just “want.” 1 Tim. 6:6-10 clearly teaches a love for the riches of this world is destructive. The apostle’s list of needs is quite small: food and clothing. We have to teach this truth to our children and show them how grateful we are for what God has already provided. We can do so by speaking about how the Lord has blessed us beyond measure. This action may seem insignificant, but it will make a big impact.
  2. Failure to teach our children to love the heavenly things. So much of what we model to our children is caught rather than taught. We can constantly tell our children they need to set their eyes on the things above, but unless our actions corroborate this teaching, our children will learn to ignore our words and look simply to our actions. We have to model being heavenly minded in our work and play. We have to lead our children in faithfully study and practice of God’s word. We have to lead our children to value the Lord more than anything else including the fleeting riches of this world.
  3. Failure to restrain the lusts of their flesh. When we give our children unbridled access to their heart’s desire, we are training them to direct all their energy to the pursuit of those things. It could be sports, arts, play time, book learning, or anything else. As parents it is our God-given responsibility to set limits for our children. If our children are always allowed to pursue their own desires, this pattern of behavior will follow them into adulthood. If we insist our children participate in the work of running the family, cheer for their siblings’ successes, do special things for their mother on Mothers’ Day and a host of other options, they will understand they are not the center of the universe, a helpful disposition to encourage contentment rather than covetousness.

Covetousness is one of the great sins of our time. And it will show up in our hearts and our children’s hearts. However we do not have to encourage them in this regard. Instead let us set them a healthy example which they can follow as their little hearts are shaped and molded by the Holy Spirit.

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