A few months ago, I read a post by a mom who had decided to stop telling her kids how to do anything a better way. Instead, when they ran up to her for her approval after doing something, she chose to say the words, “I just love to watch you ___ (dance, play soccer, read).”
She talked about how rested that made her kids, and how it gave them far more joy in their activities than they had previously experienced.
If we are to parent the generations after us well, we can’t go far wrong with her advice. “Did you see how clearly I heard God speak? Did you see how many times I prayed for people? Did you see how I was able to get that insight into God’s character from that Bible verse? Did you watch me preach to that friend?”
“I just love to watch you connect with God and let that overflow to those around you.”
Some think that mentoring is about squishing the desire to shine out of growing Christians, when the truth is that we are all designed to shine in our own ways. A mentor’s job is to focus back to the root of it all — the joy of knowing Jesus — and shining with that joy is always encouraged.
