The Children for Christ by Andrew Murray

Nineteenth Day – Parental Weakness
`Thou honorest thy sons above Me; them that honor Me I will honor, and they that
despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.’ 1 Sam. 2: 29, 30. `I will judge his house for
ever, for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile,
and he restrained them not.’ 1Sam. 3: 19.
Some men are born to rule; it costs them no trouble, it is their very
nature; they often do it unconsciously. Others there are to whom it
never comes natural; they either shrink from it, or, even if they attempt
it, utterly fail. They appear to be wanting in the gifts that fit them for
the work; it is always a struggle and an effort. In ordinary life men can
choose, or are chosen for, the situations they have to fill as rulers or
commanders. In family life we see a strange and very solemn spectacle:
every parent has to rule, whether he be fit for it or not. Nor does the fact
of his unfitness take away his responsibility; the terrible consequences
of his failure to rule are still visited upon himself and his children. The
picture of feeble old Eli, faithful to God’s cause and ready to die for the
ark of God, but unfaithful to his duty as parent, and unable to restrain
his sons, suggests to us the very needful inquiry as to the causes, the
consequences, and the cure of parental weakness.
1. We have spoken of natural incapacity for ruling as one cause. But this
is never so absolute that determined effort could not to some extent
remedy it, much less that the grace of God could not change it. We must
therefore look for other causes. And of these the chief is the want of
self-discipline. A Christian may not ask what is easy or natural, what he
likes or what appears possible. His one question must be, What is duty?
what has God commanded? There is wonderful strengthening, even for
the weakest character, in giving itself up to the Divine ‘ought’ and
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