“You need to go and study because your friends are,” I told my daughter several years ago, hoping to persuade her into study mode. She was only seven, but I wasn’t prepared for her answer. It was something like, “I know what my friends are doing, and they’re not studying.” She obviously knew her friends more than I did.

I still remember that conversation as though it was yesterday, but one thing was clear from that day: I needed to encourage my daughter to study not because her friends were but to succeed so that she could become all that God had called her to be.

The Bible encourages us to provoke one another to do good works no doubt- Hebrews 10:24. Still, we must be careful not to develop a competitive spirit of trying to keep up with the “Jones” because we all have different paths, evidenced, of course, by the challenges we go through.

So encourage your children to be all that God has called them to be but never compare them with other children even in the home.

Now, some children will be more gifted than others, but no child is without a gift. And that’s why it’s crucial for us as parents to pray for our children, individually and regularly, so we can receive specific instructions on how to raise them in line with their assignments.

And when God tells us about our children’s future as with Jacob and Esau, let’s not see one child as being more valuable or better than the other. Let’s not create an unnecessary rivalry in our homes for what God has said or promised to give because every child is unique, and so are their destinies.

Our responsibility as parents is to help discover and nurture our children’s giftings so they can be all that God has called them to be.