How’s that working for you? Spiritual Parenting (by Dr. Bill Senyard on 03/03/13)

How’s That Going For You?

Spiritual Parenting Weekend

 

The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.  So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. (Gal 5:14-18 NIV)

 

So, here’s the question?  What do I need to do to raise godly children? OK so, I am going to share with you two things that I think that I did well as a parent.

 

Our hidden agendas

First, it is good to realize that all parents have hidden agendas, huge vast blindspots when raising their kids.  These hidden agendas almost always make matters worse.  Here are a few

1)     We want a reputation of being a good parent.  We are invested in that.  We need people to acknowledge us as successful.  But, our children haven’t quite understood how important that is to us.  Many times they are just in the way of us getting the Parent-of-the-Year Award.  When they act out in public or disobey us particularly when others are around, they aren’t with the program.  This upsets us.  We often take this out on our kids.  And it makes matters so much worse when that family with the perfect kids are sitting just in front of you, perfectly behaved.

2)     We are invested to raise our kids differently than we were raised—because well just look at us—I am committed to not make that mistake.  But ironically, we usually do.

My fam!

There’s mom, with uncle Hushpuppy and cousin Bubba.  We don’t want to make the same mistakes, but that’s not a good strategy in and of itself is it?

3)     We don’t want to be the attention of our kids counseling sessions in years to come—like our parents were in ours.  “Why am I so messed up?  Let me tell you what my parent’s did to me.” In the Senyard family, I told the kids early on that I didn’t want them to waste their first counseling session.  I wanted them to be ale to clearly articulate “I’m messed up because of these particular things that my dad did to me!”

4)     We think that successful parenting is having obedient kids, who learn job skills.  That’s how we raise pets, not kids. We are very unclear about our end game.  What do we want to come out of the parenting exercise for us and our kids?  Survival?  More or less getting along? No one murdered?

5)     We often use our kids (unaware) to fill our beat-up leaky cups.  We are empty cups look around desperately for filling from our jobs, our friends, our relationships, our financial prowess—and of course our kids.  “My kid’s must love me, honor me, like me, obey me, make me look good.  This is empty cup mentality.  Kids just do not fill empty cups consistently.  The truth is that they are born empty cups that dysfuntionally need filling.  Competition and frustration happens when we realize that our kids are better at the game.  We find out that kids have their own agenda and demands that end up drawing down our cups over and over again.

6)     Here’s a big one.  We often act as if we could care less about what is in our children’s heart (mind, will and emotions)—the complex that defines their motivation and intentions than we do their behavior.  As long as they look right and obey (at least better than our friend’s kids), do the things we want, we think that they are good to go.
So, how do you imagine your little child’s heart?  Is it like this?  (picture on screen)

Of maybe better, like this? (2^nd pic on screen)

Or this?  I don’t want to get into a discussion on original sin at this point, but suffice it to say, your child’s heart is not pristeen and innocent.  It has an innate bent toward selfishness, impatience, anger, rage, argumentation, independence, disrespect, unbelief —I could go on.  Its their heart (I am using the heart as imagined by the ancient Hebrews, the composite of mind, will and emotions that generates decisions on their actions and perceived wants and motivations.  Your child has a real problem.  But looking at you I can see where they got the genetics

You tell me.  On the left is your child’s natural heart.  On the right, your heart.  Do you see any similarities?

 

Let’s just take innate selfishness for an example (This is one of many bents—but just for teaching purposes we will pick selfishness).   They want that toy that their sibling is playing with.  I get that.  They look over, it looks like their sibling is having a grand time.  They want to have a grand time  They can only see one direct path.  They should be playing with the toy.  Straightforward.  So, they take it.  Then the parents step in when the yelling and screaming begins.  “Baby-girl, don’t take that toy.  Give it back to your brother and say you’re sorry!”

 

But its not just about giving it back.  The crime is much more complicated than just putting things back where they were at the beginning.  The perp, “Baby-girl” was being empowered by envy, selfishness, rank consumerism at its worst, insensitive to the well-being of her brother.  Her insensitivity is even worse because it is laced with competitiveness.  Not only did she want the joy that her bro had, she was determined to take her bro’s joy away from him.  CS Lewis says that this is one of the core hallmarks of pride.

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man… It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.”

 

It is part of all of humanity’s natural fallen bent.

I love Richard Lovelace, a theologian from Gordon-Conwell.

“Revival takes place when people [in this case, we parents] stop seeing sin as an isolated act of disobedience and they begin to see it as an organic network of compulsive beliefs, behaviors and thoughts that issue out of their basic alienation from God.” (Richard Lovelace)

 

So he is speaking about spiritual revival, but he’s also speaking about your little angel.   Within their heart is an organic network of compulsive beliefs, behaviors and thoughts that issue out of their basic alienation from God.

 

So, what do you do?  Path 1 and Path 2

Path 1-

Consistent discipline targets change to their behavior

Prov. 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.   

 

If you do this consistently and lovingly according to the Bible then you would expect that they will choose to become unselfish.  Then they will choose to reform and begin to act lovingly toward their sibling.  Isn’t that the goal?  No!

 

By the way,  I want to ask, which of the Biblical characters actually raised their kids God’s way (Mary doesn’t count)?

Abraham’s son Isaac- pimped out Rebekah to save his skin

Isaac didn’t do so well either.  Jacob?  Esau?

David—not so good.

How about Solomon?  He likely wrote the verse about training children.  His son was the fool who split the Kingdom.

 

Path#1’s philosophy of parenting is this:  If you consistently and lovingly shape performance through discipline: reward and punishment, your child’s heart and their motivation will reform.  It’s a fool’s bet.  You may change behavior, but you cannot change their heart’s bent, their motivation to love others over themselves.  There is a big difference between doing loving acts, and actually loving others.  Such works discipline may actually work short term to change behavior but ultimately it enflames sin and the “organic network of compulsive beliefs, behaviors and thoughts that issue out of their basic alienation from God”.  It has no power to change hearts.

Rom. 5:20 ¶ The law [God’s raising humanity God’s-way program—discipline based upon performance] was added so that the trespass might increase.

 

Rom. 7:5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.

Rom. 8:7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so

 

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. (Gal 3:23-25)

Path 2-

1) Recognize your child’s biggest problem—it is not just disobedience—that’s just a surface manifestation—it’s the deeper heart behind the disobedience.  There is an innate self-centered power behind their choices.  It is not that they act out selfishly—they have selfish heart.  Just like you—just like me.  If you really want to change their performance, you must change their heart’s motivations, which means they need a change within their heart.   Their performance—choices that they are indeed accountable for is largely motivated by their selfish hearts.  Left unaddressed, the selfishness will only get worse-(look at the person next to you if you need proof).

2) Use discipline that is designed to expose their heart’s bents and motivations.

But keep in mind, the goal of this discipline is to expose, not to reform.  Good, well designed discipline can teach performance, can make the child aware of their tendencies, but has no power to change their hearts.  It can change performance short term, but that organic network of compulsive beliefs, behaviors and thoughts that issue out of their basic alienation from God is still motivating them to act selflessly.

3) Invite and model running to God to be filled with His Spirit to get a new power (that comes only from God), that empowers your little one with a new desire and new motivation which by nature will do good things for others—will be pleased when others are served and made happy.

INJAM slide

Sound familiar?  This is core for us, 1) Come as you are into the presence of God, 2) be filled with His Spirit, new power, new motivation and power to love others, then 3) Go and love others.  Its so easy.  This is exactly what we should, or could be doing too.  Your child’s hope (and yours and mine) is to quickly repent and run to God to be filled with a bigger power—the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit innately loves others.  Your child can by faith access that love.  They can access motivation to want to love others.

Holy Spirit Grocery Store story

 

So then, the end game of View 2 parenting is for your child to see their need not only for a savior, but an access of an alien love for others.  So filled with such a powerful spirit, they would look at their sibling playing with that toy, and actually feel good for them—and not be envious and selfish.  Hey, a child could do it.  I would suggest that what Proverbs 22:6 has in mind is View 2. The end was not good behavior—but rather for them to see their need to run do God for a filling of His Spirit and His fruit.  The end game of parenting is to model and invite our child to dependence upon God.

 

So let me share the other very important and good thing that I did well as a father.

Repenting to John and Aubrey story