Preseason this year has been a lot of fun because I get to come home each night after practice to take on the role of husband and father. Each day I leave the field, looking forward to seeing the faces of my wife and son.

Lately, Mikaela and I have really been challenged to establish firm family boundaries for ourselves and for our son, Micah. We want to build our family on a solid foundation and Biblical standards. For every circumstance and unique situation that we have faced—and will face—in parenting, we first go the Word of God to see how He wants us to handle it. We want to raise our kids and build our family on His principles so that, by them, people can recognize our faith in Jesus. To do that, we’ll have to stand firm on what we believe and stay consistent with what we teach our kids both now and further down the road.

This can be difficult because everyone around you will always have a strong opinion about what you should teach your kids and how you should raise them. As we seek to follow God’s plan for our family, we don’t want to insult or disregard others, but we need to answer to our Heavenly Father first. Ultimately, Mikaela and I are responsible for Micah and we want to do everything we can to lead him to be a strong man of God.

“If serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” —Joshua 24:15

Kids are like sponges, even at an early age. They take in all that they hear and see to create their reality and beliefs. What we expose Micah to at an early age will help shape the type of man he will be down the road. Mikaela and I are trying to be very intentional about what we talk about, listen to, and watch in front of our son. We are mindful of how much television we watch with him, how much time he sees us spend on an iPad or iPhone, and what sort of content he sees. When I was growing up, most kids watched a lot of MTV, and that’s not OK with us. We want to raise Micah, we don’t want to let television raise him. Spending our time with him, enjoying who we are as a family, and teaching him how to grow in the joy of the Lord is extremely important. This is how we want to parent, this is how we want our family to live—freely and intentionally, filled with the love and joy of Christ.

Even though Micah is only three months old, and can’t yet understand all the boundaries we are putting up, he will see the standards that we are setting in place as he grows. Being a Christian in today’s culture looks very different from how it looked when we were growing up. Standing firm in your faith looks very different from the way it did ten years ago and it will only continue to change, but what won’t change is our identity in Christ. By standing firm now, we hope to create a strong structure for Micah so that he can successfully navigate the difficult waters ahead and rely on God for his strength and discernment. We know that ultimately Micah will need to choose to follow Christ, but we will be sure to do all we can to bring him closer to God through the way we follow Him and love each other. We want Micah to know that our family’s objective is to love Jesus and love others.

—Steven Souza

Steven Souza is a regular contributor of The Increase, providing monthly articles and opinions.

Check out Steven’s full profile on The Increase Baseball: http://theincreasebaseball.com/author/steven-souza/
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