Who is your role model?

Who did you want to be like when you were a child? A movie star? Maybe a sports personality? Or it could have been someone closer to home like an older cousin or one of your parents? While celebrities and popular figures can make for great inspiration, I think that God places us in families so that from the earliest of ages we have people around us who we can model our behavior on.

Your kids watch you for a living. It’s their job; It’s what they do. That’s why it’s so important to try your best to be a good role model. – James Lehman

Number 1 fan

I have a two year old at home. He’s just discovering how the world works and finding out where he fits in the pecking order. I would love to tell you that he thinks that I’m the best thing ever, but sadly Mom pales in comparison to the bright shining light that is Dad! My little boy thinks that his father is amazing! He follows him around and wants to show him things he’s found. If Dad goes away, you would think that my son’s world has ended. When Dad is fixing something or cleaning something, guess who wants to be in on the action? It’s wonderful to witness how much this little boy looks up to his daddy.

For better or worse

My husband is a great dad. Yes, he sometimes makes mistakes but every parent slips up from time to time. On the whole my boy has picked a wonderful person to model himself on, but if his dad wasn’t a good father or didn’t have such great qualities I think he may still have chosen to copy his dad’s behaviour. Even if that meant picking up some of the less desirable or less lovely characteristics on display.

Mirror image

The human race was designed to look up to or worship something. You just have to look at how many celebrities and idols there are to see that people want role model they can try to emulate. You can also see that sometimes the people who are being idolized don’t always possess the best ethics, manners or necessarily make the wisest life decisions. Yet people still want to be like them! The bible tells us that right at the beginning God made us to be like him. We were created in his image. The ultimate and perfect Creator intended that we should model our lives on who he is. He also gave us a choice to either pursue the goal of imitating him or lowering our sights and modeling ourselves on something less.