We were created in the image of God and so our sexuality is theographic not pornographic.
We seek to restore what has been distorted by the world, bring wholeness to individuals and help parents impart a godly view of sexuality to their children.
In my previous godly children post on this blog we talked about how children being children can often teach us more about Kingdom living than all of our cleverness as adults.
Case in point: At home we always dish up set meal portions and so attending an event with a buffet where you can help yourself to all these foodstuffs was a wonder beyond imagination to my children.
Perhaps it’s a British thing but, out of politeness, we hold back from fully filling our plate to ensure others behind us in the queue get enough (or at least don’t accuse us of being greedy). Those who don’t keep to this unwritten rule are always talked about in the most negative of ways, especially when food runs out.
However, my children didn’t abide by this unwritten rule and piled the food high on their plates and even when they hadn’t finished what they had they went back for more again and again and again.
I could feel the embarrassment in me fuelling a volcanic eruption that would put Mount Vesuvius to shame. But then you get that feeling that God is standing by your shoulder, clearing his throat and saying “ahem” to give you a hint that maybe you’re just missing something beautiful….
Are my children being selfish and not thinking of others? Or is it that they simply have no concept of it running out?
Why would they? They’ve been brought up by parents who love them and provide for their needs and so when they see the huge array of food spread out why would they even think of food running out?
They are models for us to how we should relate to our heavenly Father.
We have a Father who gives good gifts to his children (Mt 7:11) – in fact our Father is so good that we who love our children are called evil in comparison. Think for a moment. The universe was created as a love gift for His Son Jesus (Col 1:16) – that’s the extravagance of our Father. And we are now his children (1 Jn 3:1) and co-heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17).
But do we act like adults at a buffet with God? Do we hold back from asking for too much frightened that our father’s heavenly storehouses (Mal 3:10) will run out? That there won’t be enough blessing to go round? Or that there are others who are more in need and so we shouldn’t ask?
Or do we hold back from asking too much so we don’t become too indebted? So we can live “safe” lives?
Or maybe we believe the lie that Satan has been telling from the beginning that our Father is holding out on us? That he can’t be trusted?
Let’s learn from our children that our Father can do far more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20), who loves His children and wants to bless us.
Maybe it’s time to ask to see the riches of Christ poured out so that we will love so much more and become hopeless indebted to the One who’s worthy of it all.
It is my great pleasure to host a guest post from Kevin E Winters who runs Doing Life on Fire Ministries and is the author of two books on hearing and discerning God's voice.
This is an abridged version of Kevin's excellent teaching. The PDF of the full version is available to download here or you can download an mp3 of me reading it here or watch/listen to it on YouTube:
From Torment to Tormentor
What do you when you are a grown man and you have monsters coming out of the closet and things touching you in the middle of the night? Well that was my experience in the early nineties. You see, at that particular time in my life, God was introducing me to a gift called discerning of spirits. Needless to say, I did not enjoy this training period but God used it to teach me about the badge of authority we have in the name of Jesus that makes demons tremble. Eventually, it was me doing the harassing.
This all happened my single days. Then I found a good "thang" and we had children. One of them started showing signs of prophetic gifting very early and spoke of seeing things. It became apparent to me that I needed to train my children because I now knew that the monster in the closet was very real.
How to Convey the Idea
Jesus is Everyone's Boss...Even Satan
First I taught my children that Jesus was like the Chief Police Officer. To really make this idea stick, I also told them that Jesus being a police officer meant that there were bad people who were breaking God's laws. I them told them that these law breakers are spirits called demons. That really stuck with them and embedded Jesus in their minds as one with power to force bad things to do right.
You Are His Deputies
The next thing I did was teach them that as followers of Jesus Christ that we too are police officers. I then explained to them that as police officers we are also responsible for making sure the demons stay in line. To reinforce this idea I obtained three toy badges, one for each child. I then pinned it to them. Then I made them wear them around the house to solidify in their minds that they are indeed the ones in power over the demons.
I also used the substitute teacher to help them understand the concept of the deputy. I explained to them that the Bible says that Jesus went away to His Father to prepare a place for us, and as soon as He was ready He would come back for us. I then explained to them that in order for Him to leave He had to leave someone in charge to deal with the law breaking demons. I further explained to them that those people who were to take Jesus' place is them...the Church. To make it plain for them I said, "When you go to school and the teacher is not there, who is in charge? They said, "The substitute!" Then I said, "So are you telling me that the substitute can assign homework? They said, "Yes." Then I said, "Can they tell you what to do and send you to the office if you disobey them." Again they said yes. Then I said, "So you agree that the teacher has given the substitute all of the same powers that he/she has." Agreeing again, they said, "Yes." Then I said, "That is what you are...Jesus' substitute. And as such you can tell demons what to do and they will obey you." I told them that the demons were not going to obey them per se, but they would respect the authority they have as a substitute. I ended saying, "That is what a deputy is, He is a substitute for the chief police officer."
The Result
After teaching my children this lesson, demons decided it was time to test their understanding. Their goal is to try to steal the idea from our heart before it blossoms into understanding that we effectively use (Matt 13:19). So my children began to have different kinds of encounters. Now again, these encounters were not unique for my children. My oldest daughter was only 8 when she first reported to me that something was touching her in the night. She said, "Demon, leave me in Jesus name." My daughter said that the touching stopped and to this day it has not happened again.
Bringing in Reinforcement
Modelling the Truth
Your children will have to see you walk out the truth in the same way that the disciples saw Jesus modelling His teaching for them. They saw Him cast out demons. They saw Him heal the sick. That's why Jesus could give them power and send them out to do the work without Him being present.
Children do what children see! Why should they believe in the power of God that never seems available to you?
That means that you must be prepared to assist them in reinforcing their authority. One time all four of them were attacked with sickness. All four! So I went to each one of them and with confidence and calmness commanded the spirit to leave them and it did. As you can imagine, that was a confidence booster for them to see what they were taught come to life.
Now I can do this because I God has taught me some things that make this possible. If you want to know what He taught me you can hear the teaching yourself on my YouTube channel.
Restating the Truth
You are also going to find that some challenges are too big for their faith. The disciples also crossed paths with a boy that had a demon that did not respond to their authority or faith. But yet a few chapters before they were casting out demons with no problem. It is logical to assume that the resistance of the demon to their authority caused them to lose the faith they had earlier. Hence Jesus' statement regarding them having "no faith." When these moments occur take it as an opportunity to teach and model for them how to keep growing and going forward. I do a lot of reinforcing and restating the idea of authority in Christ.
If a farmer plants a seed and waters it but goes out the next day looking for a crop and becomes discouraged, we know s/he is impatient. A good farmer knows that it takes time, patience, and persistence to get a good crop. And let me tell you, as they get older, they will get tired of the reminder, but stay with it. My children roll their eyes sometimes but they also lay hands on each other when it is required.
Reinforcing What is Right
Lastly, you will need to reinforce standards of righteousness and stress the importance of holiness. I know that as Christians we are holy but Peter also reminded us to "be holy." Paul also says, "be angry and do not sin, nor give place to the devil." He seems to indicate that while sin has lost its power over the believer, it has not lost its appeal to the demonic. We must understand that there are some things that attract monsters to our closet.
Here is an example. My daughter is an incredible artist. One day her arts teacher gave her an assignment to draw a still life. So she chose to draw a Buddha statue. Nearly half of the way through the drawing she came down with a cold. I asked her if she had attempted to get rid of it. She said yes but it won't go. So I prayed for her and it would not go. So I said, "Lord, what is going on here." This developed into bronchitis. God reminded me of the passage “you should not create any graven images”. I thought, "Really, Lord. You are holding her accountable for an art assignment?" So I told her what it was and why it was there. At first she gave me that "here dad goes again" look, but she believed me. Anyway, afterwards we prayed together repenting and asking for forgiveness.
The next day the cough started to subside and a day later the mucus was completely gone; it had cleared up on its own. My daughter got to see first-hand the relationship between sin, demons, and sickness.
Teaching them About Spiritual Warfare
One morning I came into my daughter’s room and I noticed that just over her bed was a shadowy figure. Since I knew what it was I rebuked it, but I did wonder why it was there.
However, it would come back from time to time and I also started to notice that my daughter was referring to herself as "weird" and her view of herself began to deteriorate.
I needed to teach her the battlefield in her mind. To do so I used the last supper: In John 13 we see Satan's mode of operation. First, he gave Judas an idea, "And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him." Then Judas' acceptance of that idea gave Satan access to his life, "Now after the piece of bread, Satan entered him." Jesus then speaks to Satan and tells him to do what you do quickly. Judas now yields to the will of Satan, "Having received the piece of bread, he (Satan through Judas) went out immediately."
This shows my children the importance of guarding their thought life. Sometimes the negative voices are demons trying to gain access to their lives and bend them to its will.
Lastly, I teach them that Satan is a liar and that lies bind us but truth frees us. Lies are chains in the spirit and truth are keys in the spirit. Knowing this I speak truth against those lies that the enemy tries to sell my children. If you children suffer from low self-esteem that is affecting their behaviour, it is because there is a lie from hell that is giving the spirit access to your child. Find the lie and speak truth to it. It will break the spirit's hold.
What They Really Need to Know
Sin opens the gate an allows evil to come in. That means that even though we know that God forgave and forgives us for sin, that does not mean that Satan respects those boundaries. He will see an open gate as an invitation to come in and bite you.
The blood of Christ is the legal right you have to freedom. Though sin may let Satan into our lives, repentance and the blood of Christ closes the gate and prohibits Satan from holding it again you.
Choose your battle and choose your weapons. Sometimes they will come up against things that they don't have the faith for and getting in your bed is a good option!
Sin does not diminish your authority, only your faith can do that. A crooked police officer is still a police officer with authority. Similarly, sin does not give Satan authority over them – it is God who corrects them not Satan. This is important so they don't live in fear of being trapped by a spirit claiming to have rights over them due to some area of their life that God is still working on.
Reinforce the role of the Holy Spirit as a helper. God has provided them with a team to help them win – they have the Spirit, angels and that all of heaven behind them.
Teach them the process. Satan gives them an idea; a lie. They believe the lie. The acceptance of that lie makes them bendable to Satan's will.
Teach them the truth about what God says through His word about them. Understanding "the truth" about who they are, what they are created for, and their spiritual position. gives them resistance power.
Hopefully, this will article will lead to an improvement in your quality of life, quality of sleep, and the betterment of your relationship with God and your family.
I was walking with my youngest son to the garage to pick up our car from its service when he asked:
“Dad, are willy’s rude?” “Not at all – God made them so they can’t be rude.” “But when I say willy at school I get told off. So they must be rude.”
I could see the logic. I also had to do some on the spot thinking....
“OK. What’s the coolest present you can imagine?”
He thought for a while and then replied “A minion’s pizza!”
I have no idea what that is – and frankly neither did he – but it combined two things that he loves together so it must be cool.
“So imagine one of your friends gives you a minion’s pizza and you throw it on the floor. And your friend says ‘That’s so rude!’” “So is a minion’s pizza rude?” “NO!!!!” “But they said it was. So it must be rude.” “It’s not rude” “Well why did they say it was then?” “Because I of what I did with it.” “Exactly. God made willys and so they’re not rude – but you can do rude things with them like talk about them in a bad way. So just like we treat a special cool gift like a minion’s pizza in a special way – we need to treat our special cool gift of willys in a special way too.”
This kind of conversation captures the two principles of teaching godly sexuality - we affirm it's goodness and we affirm its holiness (and also here and here).
Just affirming one of these two would lead to disaster whether that be worldly hedonism or religious repression. So it's important to express both.
I hope this conversation proves helpful - if you want to add your thoughts below then please do so - or if you want a godly answer to a question your child has asked then do also comment below.
The wife was only about 13 or 14 and was naïve and inexperienced.
She married a husband who was much older than her and was a manual labourer who only just managed to keep them off the bread line.
They were so poor they couldn’t even afford a goat that is the traditional celebration meal for their first child.
For most of their life they lived in a “dodgy” town which the rest of their country looked down upon. In addition, due to an incident they became social outcasts in their community.
This incident also nearly caused the whole marriage to be called off – in fact the husband had to be persuaded before he’d even consider going ahead.
So clearly the couple had weaknesses and lived in an area and environment that wasn’t brilliant for bringing up kids. Their parenting wasn’t much better.
They lost their eldest child and only noticed after a whole day! It took a further three days of searching before they found him!
In addition, they didn’t get their eldest child – in fact, they thought he had lost his mind and said as much in public and tried to take charge of him.
These two incidents show some serious weaknesses as parents and I question anyone who thought they were suitable for adoption. Yet this was the couple God entrusted with His beloved Son.
These were the imperfect parents who were raising His perfect Son.
And just like they messed up we are going to mess it up.
Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t going to be one of those motivational posts that say “don’t worry about it – God has trusted you with your children so you must have what it takes and everything will be fine.” That would do you and your children a disservice.
We are going to mess up yet God still calls us to be parents. How do we move forward in such a contradiction?
For example, I regularly say “I’m sorry I messed up and lost my temper. Daddy God is so much more patient than your earthly daddy. Will you pray for me that God will make me more like Him.”
Similarly, when my children mess up, I forgive them and pray with them that the Father would transform them too – we are all on a journey together of being transformed from glory to glory.
Whilst saying sorry is helpful there are still consequences of our mistakes that a sorry can’t fix. But, we have a God who can redeem our mistakes. There are so many times I have prayed for my children as they slept that he would undo the damage of my mistakes and He has been so gracious. He delights in restoring all things and transforming them into the likeness of His perfect Son. Despite the illnesses, brokenness and dysfunctions my wife and I have walked through our children are becoming whole.
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career. ” CS Lewis
So when you mess up and the Accuser starts giving you grief don’t seek solace in platitudes – seek the forgiveness that is freely available through Jesus’ blood and the transforming power that is freely available for you and your children through our union with Him.
Father, thank you that there is grace. Thank you that everything we need is available in You. Give me my daily bread for parenting my children and forgive my sins as I forgive my children's sins. For Yours is the power to transform situations and the glory that comes out of your redemption, for ever and ever. Amen.
If you want a light-hearted look at Mary and Joseph as parents I did a short skit on this:
God loves celebrations, festivals and feasts. In the Old Testament God proscribes seven annual feasts for the Israelites:
Passover
unleavened bread
firstfruits
weeks (pentacost)
trumpets
Day of Atonement
Tabernacles.
This is in addition to the New Moon feasts, Sabbath year feasts and Jubilee feasts. Indeed part of their tithe was a saving to celebrate these occasions (funny how Pastors don’t mention that part!). God loves celebrations as it's a reminder of His goodness and faithfulness to us in the past and it’s a taster of the heavenly wedding banquet to come.
As Christians who are like our perfect Father, we should also be a people of celebration. However, Christmas has been taken by society and changed into a consumerist beast.
As a parent I want my children to experience a godly celebration but I don’t want them to get sucked into a selfish mindset and miss the grace that’s available to them.
Here are some ideas which I hope will bless you and your family and enable you to redeem this celebration and put Christ back into Christmas.
St Nicholas
We never wanted to lie to our children about Santa as they may then think we were lying about other aspects of Christmas or Christianity. However, we also didn’t want them to miss out on this aspect. So how do we redeem this?
On Christmas Eve we read them the story about St Nicholas about how he gave his money to help the poor (here's the Amazon link to the book we use but it's out of print and the prices quoted are just silly). After reading about it we then do the same as St Nicholas. We put some money in envelopes†, one for each child and then ask the children to ask the Father to tell us which house number to deliver to and what message he would like to say. We then go out together and post them and run away giggling.
In addition, we still do stockings at home. Our children also get to pretend to be St Nicholas to us. So I give them the presents for my wife’s stocking and they get to wear a beard and put them in her stocking. She then goes into her room feigning surprise – “who has put presents in my stocking?” and the children giggle. We then repeat this but this time she gives them presents to put in my stocking.
We then tell them that we will return the favour when they are sleeping. “Will you wear the beard, daddy?” “Of course” I reply winking.
Who’s birthday is it?
It’s so easy in the excitement of giving and receiving presents that we forget whose birthday it actually is! So two things that we do to help. The first is that just like at any other birthday we have a cake and we sing happy birthday to Jesus.
As is normal on a birthday, we give presents and tell the recipient how much we love and appreciate him. But this time it is Christ's birthday, so we "give gifts to the Lord!" After a time of prayer and praise, we take turns to bring our presents to Jesus. It may be a new song, a newly written poem, a personal Scripture, a drawing, painting, or performance of a new drama. One time a group got together and bought a table-tennis table for the rest of the community. They figured God would delight in seeing the enjoyment their brothers and sisters got from it! All of us choose the most personal way we can of expressing our great love for Jesus and our joy at being able to celebrate His birthday.
So typically the children make some craft or put on a show. I often write a song or poem and my wife creates something beautiful. It's a great opportunity to ensure Jesus takes centre stage.
Advent
Personally I love the advent candle that has the names of Jesus on - that we burn at dinner and talk about. However I saw this picture and thought it was fab:
Christmas hampers
Alternatively, we just prepare a Christmas hamper for a local needy family and deliver it to the recipients. We have an excellent local charity called Besom, who allow us to actually deliver the hampers. This is so important as I want the children to experience the joy of giving and meeting people whom something we take for granted means so much.
I want to ensure that my children aren’t insulated from the world around them – they need to experience first hand those who have less to balance out media which shows those who have more and fuels the spirit of covetous. To quote one of them after a visit, "why don't they have any carpet in their house daddy?" - such a precious question to talk about how much we have.
Waifs and strays
Usually we pick up those who are on their own and invite them to stay over Christmas Eve and share Christmas with us. Jesus' birth brought in all sorts (shepherd's renowned for their lies and Pagan astrologers) and Jesus himself was a refugee in Egypt. God is the friend of the widow, orphan and the foreigner (eg Dt 10:18) and so our celebrations should, just like in the OT, welcome those:
Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Lk 14:12-14)
Giving starts young
It's easy to think that our children need to be older until they can give gifts - or that we buy it for them to give to their siblings. But to quote King David "I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing." (2 Sam 24:24).
We want our children to experience to cost and joy of giving. So they might make something or, a common idea in our family, is to give a token that says something they might do for the other. Such as one of their chores around the home (eg laying the table or washing up) or a game or treat that might do (eg take them to the park to play soccer or play a board game with them for 30 minutes).
Budgets
We have a budget that we won't exceed (if you're interested it's £10 for all of their stocking and £30 for all of their other gifts). For many years we spent a silly amount of money on stuff that didn't really bring happiness. Once we brought in the budget it not only simplified this Festival and removed the covetousness, it also forced us to be creative and thoughtful with our budget (See the tokens idea above). We let our children know this budget - so when they ask for outrageous things we can simply say that it's outside our budget but we can give you the £30 cash towards it and you can save up. This instils the concept of saving and working for reward. Though often the children realise that just having cash won't be as much fun.
No lists
This last idea we've just started. Often our children would compile lists of what they want. But we have found that these are driven by fads, ads and wants. So we experimented with asking them not to make lists. This does two things. First it forces us to think and listen and ask ourselves what would bless them. It's so easy to just throw money but not thought. Secondly, we get to help our children experience a taste of our heavenly Father who knows us intimately and gives us good gifts. They learn to trust that we love them and know them well enough to choose things that will match the way God has made them (eg one year I bought my eldest son some wood and nails as God has given him such a practical gifting - he then used this to make a skateboard ramp).
I hope that these ideas help you out - if you have any more ideas then please do share them in the comments below to bless other parents. May you experience God's love during this season.
† We go for £50 in each envelope as we want people to experience a taster of the lavishness and the overwhelming grace available to us through Jesus and also so the children see that we give away to others more than we spend on each of them.
*Please note that I am an Amazon affiliate which means I receive a small commission if you buy a book after using my link. This helps me offset the costs of publishing. It doesn't influence my recommendations of the books I recommend though.
A couple of weekends ago I took my son on a dads & lads weekend. Since the car journey was about 4 hours to get to the activity centre I brought some conversation starter questions with me.
One of them was "what is something I always say to you?"
His reply to me was eye-opening. Without hesitation he listed off "drink more, you look tired you should go to bed early tonight and get off your electronic devices".
He spoke the uncomfortable truth. Now each of these are important to me and it would be so easy for me to justify my nagging:
A friend of mine got kidney stones and was in agony. He warned me to drink more to prevent the same happening to me.
At university I stayed up way too late which meant I was too tired to deal with life and as a consequence got into all sorts of problems.
I had an addiction to computer games which meant that in the early years of my marriage my wife was a computer widow.
Surely these are legitimate concerns. But the truth is my nagging doesn't come out of wanting the best, it comes from a place of fear. I am concerned/worried/fearful (whatever I choose to call it) about their future and rather embarrassingly I realise that I haven't taken these issues to God in prayer.
And so this is why this post has been delayed a week. Sure I could have written what we should all do without actually doing it - Christians have been doing this for centuries - but I thought I would actually taste and see that the LORD is good and then pass that on to you.
Whenever something threatens us or those we love we always have two choices. We deal with it in our own resources or we go to the place where change actually happens: on our knees (2 Cor 10:4-5).
If we choose the former and take control we will get stressed, we won’t be at peace because the truth is that we have no control over how the future will turn out. We'll end up nagging our children (or worse) out of fear. This will do one of two things: they'll think we're over reacting and therefore ignore us and get their guidance from others (who may not have their best interests at heart) or they'll become captives to fear too. Neither of these are what we want for our children.
Where do we go from here?
Firstly we need to be honest with ourselves and our Father about our fears. They need to be expressed to Him not to our children. We don't need to play games with Him as He already knows what we need before we ask Him (Mt 6:8). So why pray at all if He already knows? Because by expressing our fears to Him we deepen intimacy. We open ourselves up to more of His presence in our lives and that's when we start to experience His peace and transformation.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:6-7)
So why don’t we ask God for help? Or why do we ask for help but still try to keep control of the issue? Because fundamentally we doubt either His goodness or His power or both.
We don't have to be anxious as He's a good father who gives good gifts to his children (Mt 7:11). He isn't frightened but laughs at the plans of His enemies (Ps 2:4). God created Adam and Eve even though Satan had rebelled and would seek to lead them astray. He wasn't worried as Christ was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). The solution was already available before the problem even arose! There is no contest between light and dark.
If you're still struggling with seeing His goodness or power then in Philippians it says:
“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things” (Phil 4:8)
Unplug the news and internet clickbait that feeds our fears. Read testimonies and plug into what God is doing around the world. As you do, then your hope will rise as you realise that He is good and He is on the throne and He can bring about transformation that you seek.
I'm not writing this as someone who just says these words. There are two times which stand out in my life where I experienced the “peace of God which passes all understanding”. The first was when I was friends with my wife-to-be. I was her teacher and she was my student. We had both knew from God that we were going to marry, but we also wanted to do things right. So we were waiting until she left school before we would date. We were open about this and went to the head of the sixth form to let them know. However, being careful one of my other students saw us in a car together. We were worried that they would assume that something sordid was going on and we were so fearful of what would happen despite us doing the right thing. I remember getting on our knees together and praying. My wife had a picture of angels surrounding us in protection and I felt that Psalm 34 was for us which was the same message:
I sought the LORD and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps those who fear him and he delivers them. (Ps 34:4-7)
The peace of God hit us like a wave. And the outcome? The student saw us both in the car but was somehow blinded so that they didn’t recognise my wife-to-be even though they knew her very well. Amen.
The second time was when my wife was rushed into hospital in excruciating pain. There they discovered that my wife had an ectopic pregnancy and were going to rush her into surgery. We were devastated. We didn’t want to have to choose whose life to take and we begged that God would receive Rachael before she went to surgery. We phoned our church for prayer and I remember in the midst of this maelstrom a peace descending on us – a calmness that we just couldn’t explain given what was happening around us.
The outcome? My wife had a visit from a kind doctor who said he had watched the surgery via the uplink and showed her images of Rachael who had burst the fallopian tube and had died. Though it was sad we were so grateful to God. When we asked to see this doctor again, no-one knew of him. When we asked if we could have maybe a photo from the uplink video we were told that there was no video taken. The Father in His infinite goodness sent my wife an angel to give her comfort and let us know that He had answered our desperate prayer.
I won’t pretend it was easy as we walked through our grieving process but I bought worship DVDs that we sat and watched with the volume up so our senses were filled with songs of Him. We sought out worship songs of lamentation so we had something to sing to Him in this time when we couldn’t sing many other songs. And He met us there over this time.
We're nothing special. The same can happen for you so that you can experience a feast in the presence of our enemies (Ps 23:5). We can feast on His goodness and provision whilst our fears are looking on. God loves our children more than we do. He has better plans for them than we do.
So what happened with my son?
Since prayer I have found myself calmer inside. Even though I still have boundaries on the time he can spend on his devices I’ve found that it’s coming out of a place of peace and so I’m more flexible and kinder than I was when I was in total control*. I am operating now out of a place of faith that God has good for my son and am working in light of that rather than out of fear of the worst. It’s meant that our relationship has improved – there’s more fun – it’s weird that by giving up control I have found more freedom to love.
I’ve also been honest about my failing my son by not trusting God’s working in his life and asked him to pray for me if I start losing it again. Which he does. I don’t need to fear this as I’m not the boss, God is. And my job as a parent is always to point to the true Father than I am a mere shadow of.
May you experience the same freedom as you give your fears to Him. May you operate out of a place of peace as you trust that He has the ending already known even if the route is not the one we would have chosen. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ But he refused saying 'people will pretend to be your friends and take advantage of you and you'll end up losing everything. Stay at home where you'll be loved.' The son did so, as he had no funds to go elsewhere but he always resented it and never learned the true depth of his father's love for him.”
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like this one where I talk about God renewing all things.
*Please understand that this is not a blind faith that says everything is going to be ok and does nothing to bring about God's holy will – we are co-workers with Christ we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done”. The difference is whether we are operating out of faith or fear, out of trust or control. And that makes a difference to whether we are parenting with grace and the spirit or law and the flesh.
I had a fight last week with one of my daughters who pushed her brother and then wouldn't own up or apologise. She was so stubborn that I had to send her to her room whilst I calmed down.
Back track 11 years to when we had her dedication at church. Whilst it was a good celebration my wife and I were a little disappointed to receive only one prophetic word: they saw her standing on a battlefield after everyone else had given up and gone home. It was an image of perseverance.
As I calmed down I realised that her stubbornness was the immature form of her gift of perseverance*.
So when I spoke to her again, I called out† who she was going to be "You know you are going to be someone who keeps on going when everyone else has given up. You are going to do great things for God because of this," but then guided her from where she currently was, "but you can also use this great gift that God has given you to keep resisting when you should say sorry." She grinned sheepishly. The atmosphere had changed, she saw who she was going to be and in light of that apologised.
As parents it's all too easy to see bad behaviour as just something that needs to be stamped out and by doing so we can then crush the very gifting God has given them.
We need discernment to see if it is an immature form of a godly gift.
We can see Jesus do this with his disciples - they were constantly clamouring for being first (Luke 9:46-48;22:24-26) but Jesus didn't rebuke their desire for being first, instead he redirected it. Greatest means being a servant, greatest means welcoming those you see as "less". Their desire for being greatest was an immature form of their gift of leadership.
Here's a summary of some immature forms of a godly gift that I have discovered so far:
daring/naughty - apostle
bossy/wants to be first - leader
speaks out inappropriately/black or white opinions - prophet
gives things away carelessly - generosity
stubborn - perseverance
overly sensitive - compassion
unrealistic expectations - faith
dreamer, nonconformist - creativity
critical or fault finding - discernment
fussy, easily put-out, doesn't like disturbed routine - administration
If you have others to add to this list then I would love to know - please comment below.
Also as parents we shouldn't despise the days of small beginnings (Zech 4:10) - that is we shouldn't look down on a fledgling gift. For example when my eldest son was about 5, he overheard my wife and I discussing that we were short on money. He went to his piggy bank and brought us some of his pocket money. It was such a small amount, like 5 pence, and at that time I'm ashamed to say that I thanked him but refused his offer as it would make no difference. But by doing so I crushed the beginning of his gift of generosity. As parents need to humble ourselves enough to accept help from our children. As parents we want our children surpass us - not remain below us.
It's only by God's grace that I later recognised his gifting and let him give his pocket money away. He gave a £1 to a friend's dad who had lost his job. He gives money to the homeless. He buys sweets for his siblings. He saves up so he can buy Christmas gifts. By encouraging his gift of generosity I have found that I want to keep up with him and so he has spurred me on in the faith.
Father, open my eyes to see beyond my frustration. Help me not to crush my children's immature gifting but give me wisdom to help redirect them towards their calling. Help me to humble myself to learn from them and be transformed as a result. In Jesus' name. Amen.
* I am indebted to David Freeman who first opened my eyes to this whole area. † For more information on how to call out a child see my previous post here.
Discipline has got a bad press. It has become synonymous with punishment and punishment has become synonymous with abuse which society condemns. It is no surprise that society has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum and is overly permissive, giving their children whatever they want thinking this is loving. Christians have rightly seen the error of permissiveness but often just counter this by talking about discipline in terms of "firm but fair" punishments. But no matter how fair the punishment is it's still missing the point as it assumes that discipline is about punishment! Discipline comes from the Latin word discipulus which meant pupil, from which we got discipina which meant instruction and then the word disciple - a follower, a learner:
In fact it wasn't until the thirteenth century that the word became associated with punishment and it was due to a perverted understanding of being a disciple - that the body was bad and so must be punished by scourging.
Principally parents are called to disciple their children in the same way that Jesus discipled the twelve and Paul discipled Timothy and others in the churches he established.
However, once we get this idea the next mistake we make is to confuse discipling primarily with instruction and knowledge. That if we tell our children what to do, if we give them the right information then they will make the right choices*. After all the “expert”in the world's eyes is the one who has studied and got a PhD.
This idea is not Biblical it's Greek. It comes from Plato's dualistic worldview that said the spiritual realm (which included the mind) was good, but the physical realm (which included the body) was bad. This was one of the reasons why discipline ended up as self-flagellation because the 'bad' flesh had to be punished! The Biblical/Hebraic worldview is holistic. If you want to teach someone you show it. Jesus didn't just give the disciples teaching and knowledge. The disciples lived with him they saw, for example, how he healed and then Jesus sent them out to do the same. This is why repeatedly Christ said “follow me” not “listen to me”.
This is why we as parents should not be saying “do what I tell you” or“do as I say (not what I do)” but like Paul we should be saying “imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1 NKJV) and “for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me”(1 Cor 4:15b-16).
During a prayer time when I was despairing about one of my children I felt God say “be the change you want to see”. So like Jesus and like Paul I need to live my life openly in front of my children. I need to model the life that I want them to emulate because God has designed us for discipleship - for copying others.
For example, I want them to learn how to depend on God so I need to show them my dependency on God. This is why I don't use a satnav even though I am hopeless at directions. It puts me in a position where the children see me calling out to God for help in finding the way. It puts me in the place where I need others to help with map reading. It puts in a place where I'm on the edge and have to depend on the Spirit to not get frustrated and call for help and if I mess up then my children will see me apologise to whomever is helping. A comfortable life will never come close to modelling this. * How many times have parents read "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov 22:6) and thought this is principally about teaching them the bible and sending them to Sunday school.
So here I am, I've given workshops to parents about how to teach godly sexuality to their children. I live these principles in my own life. I don't shy away from talking about sex and regularly have God-focussed conversations with my children about how our sexuality is good and holy.
It's all too easy after you've had one conversation with your children about sex to pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself on a job well done. But just because you had "the talk" doesn't mean they actually understood what you said.
This was brought home to me when one the mother of a friend of my youngest son said he had told her son that babies were made by the man peeing in the woman's china.
I was mortified. I was also humbled and repented of my self-satisfaction. I learnt an important lesson that day:
Repetition is important, repetition is important and did I mention repetition is important.
I mentioned in a previous post about how talking about sexuality with our children should be "the talks" and not "the talk". Well this is another reason why.
It's just like discipleship - understanding is something that happens gradually over a period of time it's never a one-time brain dump.
Father may we never tire of sowing into our children's lives until they grow into a mature knowledge of you, your creation and your nature.
In a previous post on godly parenting we briefly mentioned prophetic calling out of our children. I want to look at this topic in a little more detail here.
The classic example of this is the story of Gideon. When the angel of the LORD appears to Gideon he speaks out his identity:
"The Lord is with you, mighty warrior" (Judg 6:12)
But hold on a second! Where is Gideon when the angel of the LORD speaks to him? He's hiding from the Midianites by threshing wheat in a winepress! The angel calls him a mighty warrior when he is anything but. Then the angel of the LORD (=Jesus) commands him to rescue His people but Gideon makes excuses:
"How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." (Judg 6:15)
We can see that Gideon sees himself as small, weak, insignificant and doesn't see what God sees at all. So God promises to be with him, but he needs a sign and brings an offering which is burnt up.
So Gideon now knows God, the creator of the universe, is with him and so everything's going to be OK, right? Wrong! His first task: tear down his father's altar to Baal and Asherah pole
"But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime" (Judg 6:27)
So still scared. Next task: raise an army. But this is where he asks for two more signs with the fleece (Judg 6:36-40). OK, so personal visitation by Jesus and three signs. Surely he's not scared now! Wrong! And God knows this which is why he says:
"If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with you servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterwards you will be encouraged to attack the camp" (Judg 7:10-11a)
He does and hears one of the Midianites speaking of a nightmare and the other explaining that it was about the sword of Gideon...God has given the Midiantes and the whole camp into his hands" (Judg 7:13-14). Only then does Gideon step into his destiny that God knew all along: the mighty warrior. He routs the Midianites and slaughters them in an act that is recorded forever.
God saw who Gideon truly was and spoke it over him - he affirmed and called out who he was going to be rather than who he currently was. This is the Spirit of prophecy - calling forth things which are not yet to become true.
Prophetic calling out is not merely encouragement nor the power of positive thinking but speaking the truth of their identity.
I've had well meaning Christians who confuse prophecy with encouragement and thinking by saying something encouraging and adding "God says" on the beginning will make it more than that. For example, my wife has a degenerative condition that means she is becoming more and more disabled both physically and mentally. A Christian brother gave me a word that "God says you're going to have the best Christmas ever." It wasn't - it was one of the hardest ones as my wife's pain level was so high that she couldn't celebrate much and my stress level was high trying to care for her and organise Christmas. This word left a bitter taste. Why would God say something like that which wasn't true?
Prophetic calling out is speaking the truth of our child's identity. Since Jesus is the truth (Jn 14:6) and the Spirit of prophecy bears testimony to Jesus (Rev 19:10) - ie it speaks truth. So prophecy will speak of the truth of our children's identity - it will require us as parents to get on our knees and ask for God to open our eyes to the truth about our children.
Just like when the army of Aram surrounded the city where Elisha was and his servant panicked. Elisha prayed that his servant's eyes would be opened to the truth - and then he saw the army of God encamped around and outnumbering the enemy (1 Kings 6:17). Once they saw this truth then how he approached the situation changed as they knew that victory would be theirs.
Once Jesus reveals our children's true identities we can then affirm and call out who they will become in Christ and keep our eyes on the prize, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2) who will finish the good work he starts in our children (Phil 1:6).
An example is my eldest son Josiah William. My wife and I prayed over the nine months about the right name: Josiah means "YHWH is my healer" and William means "protector". Given that my wife and I were infertile and despite treatments had no children until the church prayed for us, Josiah was the right name for our second child. But whilst we saw a glimpse of truth, God opened our eyes to even more. God became our healer through Josiah in two other ways: The hospital was clinically negligent with the delivery of our first child and the trauma of that was still fresh in my wife's mind. But God brought healing of that trauma through the fact that Josiah slept almost solidly for a week. There was no crying, just a baby that you could put down in any position and have him sleep. The second way was that God brought healing to our marriage through Josiah. As I mentioned in a previous post my wife had clinical postnatal depression and was put in a psychiatric ward and I had a nervous breakdown. Our marriage never really recovered and we were sleeping in separate beds for some time before my wife packed the car and our little girl and drove to the office to tell me she was leaving me. I so grateful to God that He helped me make one of the best choices of my marriage - I said I would do what it takes to fix this - I would even go on a marriage course. And we did and it was the beginning of the turnaround in our lives. And Josiah's conception was week 5's homework.
God gave us a glimpse of who Josiah's identity was - it was natural that we would sow into this and call out the healer and protector that God had made him to be. One day I found myself saying "You know Josiah, God has made your someone who will protect other people's lives - and I believe that one day you will save your brother's life". And it came to pass that he did when he pulled his brother out of the way of a car that was going to hit him. God through Jesus revealed the truth about Josiah and I have the privilege to speak that truth and see the Spirit make it reality.
This is so much easier said than done as it's all too easy to limit our view to the present actions of our children rather than the future man/woman that they will become. That's why we need the Spirit to help us see who they truly are going to be in Christ. God didn't lose patience with Gideon and say "For goodness sake! How much more confirmation do you need that I am with you?" Why? Because He could see who Gideon was going to be and knew it would come about.
May the Father speak to you now as you think about your own children. May He reveal their true identity to you and may you have the persistence to keep on blessing the Spirit's work in your children by calling out this identity no matter how outlandish it may seem. In Jesus' precious name. Amen.
To finish this series I want to tackle the myth that "God wouldn't give you children if He didn't think you could handle it".
The hospital was clinically negligent during the birth of our first child. I remember the blood steadily dripping into the bucket, the junior doctor taking an age to stitch up my wife after the tears, the colour draining from my wife's face and then that doctor calling in for more help. As it was our first baby we thought this was normal. My wife's friends all said that a baby was wonderful and left her feeling inadequate. I was in a stressful job and was no support. Truth be told: I actually put more demands on her during this time. When she told the doctor about her depression he told her to pull herself together. She spiralled into clinical postnatal depression. She tried to kill herself and was taken into a psychiatric ward. I was left holding the baby and had no support from work. After pouring out my heart to my boss he told me he didn't want me staying at home moping and so I carried on going to my stressful work and had a nervous breakdown. This was the beginning of our parenting journey. This, along with the deaths of two of our children (Rachel and James) and the moment when my wife had packed up the car drove to my office and told me she was leaving, was one of the darkest periods in my life. I couldn't handle it.
You see the phrase implies that we have all it takes. That by striving hard or by having the encouragement of friends we can make it. It's simply not true.
If it was then we wouldn't have to ask God for anything as we'd be self-sufficient. We would be able to live independently of God. We'd be repeating Adam and Eve's sin of being the gods of our own lives. It is the spirit of pride. The same spirit that led to Satan's downfall.
The truth is we depend on God for everything. In Christ all things hold together (Col 1:17). We are breathing now because of Jesus. We're not independent - moment to moment we exist because of the grace of God.
When God chose the people of Israel for His own, He sought to train them up. As they travelled through the desert they had no food. They were dependent on God's manna from heaven. If they took more than they needed it would become full of maggots (Ex 16:20). They had to daily depend on God's provision.
Jesus summed this principle up when he taught us to pray:
We have to ask God daily for what we need. It isn't given automatically. Daily we have to express our dependence on Him.
"I am the vine; you are the branches...apart from me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5)
Doesn't this verse make you want to add a qualification to it? "Of course I can do some things - it's talking about spiritual things or it's talking about getting into heaven or...". Whatever you believe is the exception to this rule is where you believe you are independent of God†.
Let's return to raising godly children and teaching them about godly sexuality. All the principles in the world aren't going to achieve this. Only with God's help can we do this.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil 4:13 NKJV emphasis mine)
Did you know muscles only grow when they are damaged. It's the repairs of the microscopic tears that cause the growth. This is a physical reflection of a spiritual reality. Only when we are stretched beyond what we can bear do we grow. Why? Because then we acknowledge our dependence on Him and call on Him to transform us.
In life we will experience storms and anything built in our own strength will fall flat. Sometimes in His grace God will allow you to experience events that show our need for Him*. If we call on Him they become places of growth. If we don't they become places of destruction. I never want to repeat those dark days but I am genuinely grateful for them, as it pushed us into Him and our lives were transformed as a result.
There was the time my friend at church was distraught as their child was refusing to eat and nothing they could do was working. It had been several days and she was tearing her hair out. We cried out to God for help. We recognised that we couldn't do anything. We called out to Him and He transformed the situation. Their child began eating from that moment.
There was the time my middle daughter was experiencing night terrors. I as a Father could do nothing but call out to God and ask for help. But a quick prayer didn't seem to make a difference. I found I had to stay by her bedside praying in tongues for about 10 minutes, dependent on Him, before the transformation came and her cries in her sleep turned into squeals of laughter. And I had to repeat this every night for about a week.
All we need, all we have is found in Him. Run to Him daily and receive what you need. Amen.
†. It's part of the problem of living in the West with the deceitfulness of wealth (Mk 4:19) that we can end up disowning God (Prov 30:8-9) thinking we have it all. Why do you think the poor are rich in faith (Jas 2:5)? Because daily they realise their dependence on Him. * Please understand that I don't believe God sends us trouble as He is a good father who gives us good gifts (Jas 1:17; Lk 11:11-13). However, in this fallen world we will experience trouble. And particularly since Satan hates marriage, sex and children (as they most reflect our God) he will seek to kill, rob and destroy them (Jn 10:10).
We're on the last of our four principles in our current series on our basic course of "teach your children godly sexuality".
Previously we talked about communicating the goodness and holiness of sexuality to our children and then how we can do that in a holistic Hebrew way. Our last principle is a daily reminder that nothing is impossible for God (Lk 18:27).
In our last post we talked about how God can redeem all things no matter how dark they may seem. And redemption doesn't just remove the pain but transforms the memory or situation into a source of grace.
But God doesn't just transform past mistakes - He is working in our present parenting:
Jesus is wisdom incarnate
"...Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom..." (1 Cor 1:24b-25a)
There will be times when as parents we just don't know what to do. Our human wisdom has run out. But the end of our wisdom is just the beginning of God's.
One of our children kept getting out of bed at night. They would just come and stand on the landing. So we tried carrying them back to bed several times a night. We tried talking to them about it. Then we tried the getting cross. Then we tried putting a stairgate at their door so they couldn't come out their room - but they still get out of bed and stood at the barrier until they were so tired. We even tried smacking. None of these methods worked. They would still get up.
My wife and I fell on our knees in prayer before our all wise God, crying out "we don't know what to do!" I know, I know. We should have asked before. But this was our point of desperation. You could almost hear the Father saying "great! now I can do something". He gave us revelation. He simply said "leave his door open".
"I'm sorry? That's a crazy idea!"
Don't God's ideas sometimes seem completely irrational to our way of thinking? Rather like Naaman being told to wash in a dirty river to cure his leprosy (2 Kings:5:10-12). But you know what? We did it. Why? Because we were desperate and had run out of ideas. We admitted that without Him we could do nothing (Jn 15:5) .
So we left the door open and they stayed in bed. The same thing happened the next night and every night after that.
Something so simple, so "foolish" turned out to be the key.
I honestly think that had we not been at that point of desperation we would have dismissed such a thought as something stupid and certainly not of God. We would have simply assumed that God was silent. Perhaps being a desperate parent is a good thing, because it is only then are we able to receive all that God has for our children. After all, He loves them and knows them better than us.
What is it that you are desperate for answers for your child? Cry out to Jesus now - admit that you don't know and receive His wisdom.
Do you have a story of receiving God's wisdom for a situation with your children? Share it below to encourage other parents on their journey.
