Loving kids well under pressure - Pt 2

Excerpt: They’re His children before they’re yours. You’re His son or daughter before you’re their parent. Pleasing Him comes before pleasing your spouse. He calls you to Himself before He calls you to a mission.

Nothing we’ll ever do for our children will matter more than loving them well.
But loving well in a crisis isn’t easy.  So many urgencies demand our attention.
Which can shift our priorities as parents. So how do we keep first things first?

In Pt 1, I shared 4 ideas to help us prioritize priorities as parents. Here are 4 more.
1. They're His children before they’re yours.  2. You’re a child first. Then a parent.  
3. Please Him first, then your spouse.  4. You’re called first to Him, then to a task.

They’re His children before they’re yours.

God gave you your kids. You gave them birth but He gave them life. Forming them in your womb. Trusting them to your care while still caring Himself. As fathers do.

 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven ... “Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
…  God was with the boy as he grew up.
Genesis 21:17-20

To me, it’s a relief to know we’re not their only parents. That God watches over them too. That He knows them so well and cares about every detail of their lives.

We’re not the only ones who love them. They have His heart before they have ours.  We’re not their only teacher. Nor their only hope. And that's what gives me hope!  

Jer. 31 offers a beautiful picture of God parenting His children. In v. 15 -20, we see Rachel, the mother of Israel weeping over her children. Now captive in Babylon because of sinful idolatry. Yet the Lord tells the mothers of Israel to stop weeping. He says there’s reason for hope. Their children will return from captivity. v.16,17

Why? They've repented! God gives the mothers of Israel a report on their stubborn children. They’ve responded to God’s parenting! He quotes what they said to Him.

You disciplined me .. and I have been disciplined. Restore me and I will return.
After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast.
I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.
Jeremiah 31:18,19

Notice when this heart change took place? Not while under their mother’s care.  
Or fathers. So how? What happened? God was being a Father and loving His kids.
He cared enough to do what they needed, not what they wanted. Love does that.
It doesn’t mean that God will do all the parenting and we’re no longer needed.

Parenting kids well is a partnership. We do it with God. So what’s our part then?  

How do I help nurture my child’s relationship with God?

My role is not only to introduce them to God as their father but to nurture their relationship with Him. I have no formula, but here’s a few suggestions you can try.

1. Teach them to depend on God by depending on God yourself.

Wean children from your faith as well as your breast. And the earlier the better.
How? Teach them to depend on God not you. For each challenge they face. How? Depend on God yourself for each challenge you face. More than you depend on you.

My kids remember a move we made when they were young. God closed a door but hadn’t shown us where to go next. I told them how Abraham followed God ‘not knowing where he was going’. And how God led him. Which is what we did.

We moved out as a family. And as a family, we saw God care for us and father us.
I can teach my kids on faith, but it’s not what I say that builds their faith. It’s what God does. As He steps into our boat and they watch the sea grow calm. Or their  parents step out of the boat in obedience to Jesus. And they see miracles happen. 

Kids will believe what we ourselves believe long before they believe what we say.

2. Don’t fight their giants or fix all their problems.

No one wants their kids to grow up too fast. But if I’m not wise, I can keep them from growing up at all. By facing their giants for them. By removing every hurdle. We can’t protect them from every dilemma. God told Israel to tell their kids the Red Sea story. So they’d know that the same God would help them in the future.

It’s usually a crisis that makes us feel our need of God. Same with kids. Their crisis
may seem small and you may be able to fix it. Please don’t! It’s an opportunity for them to encounter God. Ask them to pray about it. Ask them what they think God wants them to do and help them do it. Then watch what God does. For His child.
 
If He's to be their hero, we can’t always rescue them. If we do, they see us, not God. 

3. To nurture your child’s relationship with God, nurture yours first.

To nurture their friendship with God, have one yourself. And include them in it.
Ask God how best to guide and help them. Let Him help you parent them. How?
First things first. Pay more attention to your relationship with God than theirs.
If you focus on the latter yet neglect the former, both relationships will suffer.

I don’t mean we should never focus on nurturing our child’s friendship with God.
But never at the expense of nurturing our own personal relationship with God.
Nothing stirs up a hunger for God in your child like being hungry for God yourself. 

4. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. Your kids do.

Ever notice how kids always notice if we don’t notice them? Why? They notice what we notice. They pay much closer attention to our attention than our instruction. ‘Mom! Mom! Look! Look!’ or ‘Whatcha doin Dad?’ or ‘What are you all looking at?’

They may not always pay attention to us or what we say. Yet at the same time, younger kids especially will unintentionally pick up on whatever we’re aware of. Noticing what we like or feel. Feeling sad or glad when we do. Or feeling our fear.

What does this have to do with a child’s relationship with God? Just as kids will pick up your joy over a deer in the yard, they can also pick up your hunger for God.
Isn’t your own spiritual hunger stirred just by being around people who love God?

If I saw you looking up and to the left, my eyes would naturally follow your gaze. In the same way, kids will follow my gaze before they’ll follow my advice. So one way to help them spiritually is to keep my eyes on God. It affects me and what affects me will often affect them too. And what I love most is often what they learn to love.

5. Let them capture your heart again. Like they capture God’s.

Back to Jer. 31. Notice how God speaks about the children that He’s just disciplined.

Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight?
Though I often speak against (or rebuke) him, I still remember him.
Therefore my heart yearns for him;
I have great compassion for him,” declares the Lord. 
Jeremiah 31: 20

That’s how God feels about His children. Which is what your children are: His.
He delights in them. At every stage and age. On their bad days and good days.
Each time you find joy in your kids, remember: That’s how God feels about them. 

It’s also how He feels about you! You may be their parent but you’re still His child.

You’re His child before you’re their parent. 

Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born.
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah 46:3,4

Read these words of God closely. This is what God said to His children. And to you.
There will never be a day you aren’t a child. If He’s your Father, you're His child.
You may be an adult. A parent. But you’re still His son. His daughter. And there will never be a day when you won’t need Him. To carry you, rescue you, help you. 

I feel this need as a Dad. We never need a parent more than when we become one. 
Yet we have this idea that adults must be independent. That’s our idea, not God’s.
Read Isa 46 again. His plan is to parent you until your gray hairs. If you’ll let Him.

I prayed a lot when my kids were young. Asking for direction in how best to guide them as they grew. I looked for books on raising kids. But I felt convicted as if God didn’t want me turning to the experts first. Then I read Judges 13:8. An angel comes to Manoah’s barren wife, promising a son. Notice what this father prayed.

Then Manoah prayed to the LORD: "Pardon your servant, Lord.
I beg you to let the man of God you sent to us come again to
teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born."
Judges 13:8

Manoah knew he needed God’s help and wisdom to raise this boy. Parenting is not a solo task. And I don’t mean spouses parenting together. I say the same to single parents. God never asked or expected us to parent our children without His help.

Want to give your kids some advice that will help them the rest of their lives? Give them the advice God gives you. Ask Him how to help them in each situation they face. Ask God what they need most. He will tell you! And your kids will thank you.

I once asked God how to connect with my son during grade school. I knew things at school were affecting him, but he wasn’t talking. He loved the NBA. So I made a tournament bracket with every NBA team. We’d each take a team, play a game to 20 and the winner would advance. It took forever but we had so much fun! He won.

After several games, something happened. Bryce started talking. At his initiative. He’d tell me what bothered him or ask me about things he’d been thinking about. I realized the tournament idea wasn’t mine. It was God helping me help my son.

It makes sense. Helping is what parents do. But to parent well, we need help too.

Not long after our first child was born, I found myself longing to talk with my Dad.
He was still living, but we just could never ‘connect’. At least not at a heart level.
I see now why it was hard for him, but I didn’t then. As a new father, I wanted
advice on how to be a husband and raise kids. I needed a Dad to help me be a Dad. 

The pain in my heart was deeper than I knew. One night, this ache pulled me out of bed. I walked to our church where I wept for a long time in the dark.  An hour later, I heard a whisper that forever changed my view of God. And my view of me. Here's what He whispered. “You do realize Jack, that you have another Dad, don’t you?”

The tears resumed. My longing was heard! The father I needed most showed up!
In my preoccupation with my earthly Dad, I somehow lost sight of my other ‘Dad’.
I’m glad He used the word ‘Dad’. I needed one yet I wasn’t relating to God that way.
But it’s how He wanted us to relate. Our Father wants to help us father our kids.

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
Isaiah 40:11

He longs to ‘gently lead those with young’. Mom. Dad. Will you let Him lead you?

Pleasing God comes before pleasing him or her.

As Hannah wept over her barren womb, her husband Elkanah said “Why do you weep? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” He obvious didn’t understand her maternal longing for children. Much less sympathize with the pain of barrenness.  
 
God isn’t like that. He doesn’t say “Aren’t I enough?” He understands our need for human love. He gave it to us. So He understood Hannah’s longing for a child. But what if she had denied her desire just to appease Elkanah. Pretending she could be content without children. When it wasn’t what she wanted. Nor what God wanted.

What does Hannah’s story have to do with raising kids?

If you always go with your spouses opinion  on a parenting matter without asking God, you could make choices that affect your kids in ways you'll later regret.

Why? Your spouse isn’t God. Nor are you. Even together, you don’t have all the insight you need on your kids. You need each other’s input. You also need God’s. We can assume we know our kids so well that we don’t need help. Not even God’s. We can also be so sure of what we want for our kids, we don’t ask what God wants.

It’s natural to want to keep peace in a marriage. But not at the expense of what’s best for your child. Decisions about parenting often become a point of strife. But it doesn’t have to be. God can guide you both to a path that’s best for you and your kids. My pastor once said “You don’t have to see eye to eye to walk side by side”.

You each want the best for them. And you each have a different perspective on parenting. You need both to parent well. Your child needs both. The approach you come up with together will be far better than what either of you could do alone.

So keep asking God and each other the question ‘What is best for our children?’
Not ‘how can we make each other happy and not upset our peaceful marriage?’
Make it your goal to please the Lord in how you parent and you’ll parent well.

When a man’s ways please the LORD,
he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Proverbs 16:7

If God can make peace between enemies, He can do so for you and your spouse.
But His path to such a peace is not found by pleasing them. But by pleasing God.

The best thing you can do for your family and for your children is to please God.
The best thing you can do for your spouse and for your marriage is to please God.
Let this sink in. Your first priority as a husband is not to your wife but to your God.

Paul said in 1 Cor. 7 that ‘those who have wives should live as if they had none’.
He explains himself later saying ‘An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife and his interests are divided.’

He says the same for wives. He doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to please others.  He even tells us to elsewhere. He explains what he’s after. He wants us to please God first. Not our spouses. If we’ll do that, we can love better. As spouses and parents.

He calls you to Him before any mission or task.

God has called you to Himself before He’s called you to a mission or ministry.
Regardless of all you do, you have little to offer if you have no intimacy with God.
For more on this topic, see my post ‘Fall in love, then change the world’.

What does this have to do with loving our children well? To the degree my work or mission matters more than loving my family, I will fail both the mission and my family. And to the degree my family or mission matters more than God, I’ll fail my family and the mission. Not much happens through me if it isn’t happening in me.  

But what about the mission? It is important! God does call us to a mission or task. In Neh. 3, as men were assigned a portion of the wall to work on, many of them 'made repairs opposite his house'. God cares about family! If God is leading me in the mission, it'll never be at the expense of my family. Or my relationship with God.

Pastor Rick McKinley craved direction for ministry. But God was silent. His mentor said, “God didn’t call you to Himself to use you Rick. He called you to love you.” God wants to use us. But not at the expense of His friendship with us. Mission can't be first. Jesus prefers to send friends. Those who put the friendship first. Mk 3:14

Your greatest mission is to love your kids. Which you'll do well if you love God well.