Lamentations 3:27 says, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Don’t ever get the idea that children should not have to work when they are children. I hear people say, “Wait until they grow up; then they will work. Let the children play when they’re children.”

My dad believed that his boys ought to work. My brother and I had to cut the grass. Do you know what kind of grass we had in our front yard down in Florida?  We didn’t have the kind of grass we have up here. We had a grass called “bitter blue.” When he would say, “Cut the grass,” I was both bitter and blue.

We didn’t have one of those edgers with a string on it. We had a little half moon thing that you put on your foot and went around stomping and trimming. All day long my brother and I would work on that yard. It was hard work in the Florida sun. My dad would come home and inspect it and say, “Boys, that’s a good job.” I tell you, that felt so good! I felt I had really done something.

There’s nothing wrong with instilling a work ethic in your children. There’s a time for work and there’s a time for play. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”

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