What I Want for My Children

Faith 17

 

Mother and Child
by Gladiola Sotomayor

         At first glance, this title may seem an odd choice as part of a series on faith. But as you will see in a moment, there is a valid tie-in. At the same time, I think this will be a practical/philosophical help to parents of young children. Let us press forward then.

          I Timothy is a book written to pastors. In it, Paul tells Timothy what a pastor ought to do/not do, be/not be, and what a pastor ought to emphasize in his ministry. Paul also gives him instruction regarding different groups of people in the church. In chapter two, Paul does this in relation to women in the church. In verse eight he speaks of the importance of modesty and a certain deferential femininity. In verse nine Paul emphasizes that women ought to be busy serving others. In verse ten, however, he minimizes that service in the area of the church, specifically in the preaching arena. He proceeds in verses thirteen and fourteen to furnish the reason for this proscription, namely that women are more prone to be spiritually deceived while men are more prone to be spiritually rebellious. All of which brings me to the verse I want to emphasize in this post, I Timothy 2.15: Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. In essence, Paul is telling Timothy that a woman should not focus on leading the church. She should focus on her home, and specifically on her children. I believe the companion passage in Titus 2.3-5 bears out that point of emphasis.

          My purpose in this blog post, though, is not to write about a woman’s place in the home. I want, instead, to focus on the specifics of I Timothy 2.15. In it, Paul is telling Timothy that a woman’s life will have the most meaning and accomplishment if her children grow up to love and serve the Lord. More precisely, Paul is telling a mother what to want for her children.

          It never ceases to amaze me what people want for their children. Naturally, they desire for their children more than they had, but often if not almost those desires are unscriptural at best and dangerous at worst. A book on Amazon entitled “What Do You Really Want for Your Children?” by Wayne Dyer has 79 reviews and a 4.7 rating out of a potential five. Going solely by his chapter titles, Wayne thinks you ought to want your children to value themselves, to be risk-takers, to be self-reliant, to be free from anxiety, to have peaceful lives, to celebrate present moments, to be physically well, to be creative, and to feel a sense of purpose. Many of these sound noble but Dr. Dyer has missed the point by a wide margin. God reveals something simple and higher for us in the Word of God. We should want them to continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

          The first thing we ought to want for our children is faith. What is faith? It is seeing with your heart. It is not that I want my children to be illogical. It is rather that when my children are forced to choose between what God says and what the logical evidence of their senses show them I want them to choose what God says. I want them to walk by faith and belief in Him, not by sight. Faith is also stepping out on the belief. Faith and doubt are usually mixed together. Rarely is faith present without some doubt being present as well. But the person of faith, while doubting, still steps out on the belief. I want my children to act on their faith in God. I want them to step out and live a life that takes God at His Word.

          The second thing we ought to desire for our children is charity. It is to live a life of love. What do I want them to love? Whatever God tells them they ought to love – God Himself, their neighbor, the Word of God, the lost souls of men, one another, their husband/wife, and their own children. All of these are specifically commanded or at least strongly implied and exemplified in the Scripture.

          The third thing we should want for our children is holiness. What is holiness? I answer this in detail in my book, “Freed From Sin,” but simply put, holiness is being like God. It is having God’s moral character of purity. Holiness is yielding yourself to God rather than yielding to your own fleshly desires. Holiness is walking in the Spirit. Holiness is obeying God from the heart. Holiness is being a partaker of the divine nature, not becoming god but becoming like God. In short, we ought to long for our children to grow up to be like Jesus.

          The fourth thing we should desire for our children is sobriety. As I understand that term in context it means to be serious about life. This does not mean my children cannot laugh, that they must slowly toil, grim-faced, until death closes their eyes in a final rest. No, it means that they ought to live a serious life, carefully, with a purpose, undertaking their responsibilities in a serious, mature manner.

          Having briefly examined these instructions found in the epistle, I come to one final thought. It is not enough for us to wait until our children grow up to expect them to love and serve God. If they are to continue in these spiritual graces when they are older we must begin with them now, at whatever age they may be. Now is when they are moldable. Now is when our influence will have the greatest impact, not in five or ten years, but now.

I do not know who wrote this piece, but it does summarize the urgency involved in such parental tasks:

I took a piece of plastic clay

And idly fashioned it one day,

And as my fingers pressed it still,

It moved and yielded to my will.

I came again when days were past–

The bit of clay was hard at last;

The form I gave it, it still bore,

But I could change that form no more.

I took a piece of living clay

And gently formed it day by day,

And molded with my power and art

A young child’s soft and yielding heart.

Breaking Home Ties
by Norman Rockewell

I came again when years were gone–

It was a man I looked upon;

He still that early impress wore,

And I could change him nevermore.

          My eldest son finished high school this year. He set about the task of assembling his life. What will it look like, I wonder? I know not, but I do know what I want for him – faith, charity, holiness, and sobriety. And if that is what we want in our children, beloved, we must set about instilling it early and often.

          There is not greater task. There is no harder job you will ever love so much. Let it be done according to the Word of God, and may He bless it by forming our children in the mold of Paul’s instructions to young Timothy nigh on two thousand years ago.

Three Benefits of Family Devotions

In the last few weeks I have repeatedly run across questions related to family devotions. Since I am currently between series' on this blog I thought I would take a week to offer my perspective. Of course, I do not think the only appropriate way to conduct family devotions will be the ideas here. I do, however, think that family devotions are an essential component of a vital Christian home, and I hope that you will consider them carefully.

My Dad and I discussing the
book of Philippians after
reading it together in my
backyard last week.

I was born and raised in a Christian home, one in which family devotions were held every morning before school. My father's procedure was simple. The eight of us gathered in the living room with our Bibles. Typically, we read a chapter of the Bible together and then prayed. The passage chosen was the next chapter of whatever book we were reading through. The youngest child read the first verse followed by the next in line, ending with my mother and father. Following this, we prayed around in the same turn order. And that was it.

When my first child was old enough to read we initiated the exact same thing in our own home. Now then, for many years, the five of us have gathered in the living room in the morning before school. We each bring our Bible. We read it in turn, and then pray in turn. In this manner in the past nine years we have read together as a family Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Ruth, I and II Samuel, II Kings, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Amos, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, I and II Timothy, Hebrews, James, I and II Peter, I and III John, Jude, and Revelation. And the Apocrypha. Ok. Just joking about that last one.

Why did my parents do this in our home growing up, and why do I do it in my own home? Because Scripture tells us in numerous places that it is a parent's responsibility to acquaint their children with the Word of God. Consider the following instances please:

Deuteronomy 6:6–9
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
…
Deuteronomy 11:18–20
18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
19 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
20 And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:
…
Psalm 34:11
11 Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
…
Psalm 78:5–6
5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which he commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children:
6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; Who should arise and declare them to their children:
…
Ephesians 6:4 
4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord.

Not only is this taught in Scripture, it is also exemplified therein. Solomon taught his son, Rehoboam, God's Word. In fact, the entire book of Proverbs is the result. Timothy knew the Bible from a child (II Timothy 3.15) and this was a direct result of the faith of his grandmother and his mother. (II Timothy 1.5) Jesus knew the Word of God frontward and backward at the tender age of twelve. That does not happen absent a Bible-infused atmosphere in the home.

In addition to obeying the Lord and acquainting your children with the Word of God there are at least three other benefits that come to a home that practices family devotions on a regular basis.

First, family devotions force parental accountability for hypocrisy. If a mother loses her temper and in a moment of frustration curses her son, she will come face to face with that son over the Word of God the next morning. If a father decides to skip church to watch a ballgame, he will come face to face with his children over the Word of God the next morning.

My family at my high school graduation celebration

Did you ever notice that most of the qualifications for a pastor listed in I Timothy 3 involve the pastor's family? One of the reasons for this is that the spiritual condition of the family is the clearest visible indication of a genuine spirituality on the part of the father. Why? Because you can hide your hypocrisy from many people but you cannot hide it from those who live under the same roof with you. A father who regularly gathers his children around him to read the Word of God and pray together will find he cannot long ignore obvious flaws in his own character. He must address them in front of the family who sees them. He cannot hide from those little faces gathered together and staring at him solemnly from the couch of a morning.

Second, family devotions build a culture of praying together. This dynamic is tremendously helpful when your family is faced with a serious discipline situation, some sort of emergency or a crisis.

Every family at some point faces such things. If you have a habit of praying together with your children it is the most natural thing in the world to kneel together beside your son's bed, and ask the Lord to help him to do right, and then listen to his broken voice plead for grace at the throne of grace. When the call comes that grandpa has been rushed to hospital with a heart attack fear fills the eyes of each child. You gather, read Psalm 23, and pray. And grace arrives. Such moments are not strained; they are not forced; they are not awkward. They are as natural as breathing, and perhaps just as helpful. But such grace-filled moments are hard to come by in families that routinely neglect the Word of God and prayer.

Third, family devotions put the Bible front and center as a foundation for a practical family dynamic. When the Word of God is regularly read it is perfectly natural to consult it regarding any particular question that comes up regarding life in a family. A brother and a sister are fighting. Society gives a thousand different approaches to solve it. The Christian parent sits them down on the couch and tells them to read the Sermon on the Mount. They understand that because they are used to interacting with the Word of God on that couch. How do you teach your sons to respect women? With the Word of God. How do you help your daughter to deal with her emotions when friends turn their backs on her? With the Word of God. How do you deal with an otherwise innocuous television sports broadcast that suddenly veers hard left and advocates embracing homosexuality? You open up the Word of God. It is just what you do as a family because it has – over time – become who you are as a family.

I hurt for children who grow up in homes where the Scripture is just a book you go looking for when it is time to go to church. Their parents have abdicated their responsibility, and unknowingly or uncaringly left them without an anchor in the face of a horizon full of storms. Teaching children the Word of God is not the job of the church; it is the job of the parent. And the simplest, easiest, and perhaps best way to do it is simply to gather together every day, open it up, read it, and then pray.

It is of such stuff and only such stuff that generational faith is built.

To My Unborn Son

 
The teenage years are often difficult. Our bodies are changing, we are contemplating what we will make of life, and we are constantly thinking about the other gender. We are in the process of maturing emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We begin to realize how important money is to life. We become at once both fearful and exhilarated at the thought of leaving home and striking out on our own. We make big decisions, and often make them badly. Temptation becomes more prevalent and more dangerous. Our cocoon is vanishing and the molting process is often painful.

the letter

As my own teenage years drew to a close I began to contemplate them. I held them up in my mind and turned them hither and yon. I examined my choices, and what the potential impact of those choices might yet be. I compared them with some friends of mine, and where I thought our differing choices would take us in life. Somewhere along during that period I made a decision to write a letter to my son. My intent was to guide him into making good choices as a teenager himself. So the day I turned twenty I sat down at a picnic table and wrote my yet unborn son a letter with some advice for navigating his own teen years well. I decided to give it to him the day he turned fifteen.

For twenty three years I carried that letter around through numerous moves and life changes. In time, the Lord in His grace did give me a son, Jack, fifteen years ago. I pulled the letter down from the book in which it had sat all these years and gave it to him last week.

Setting the emotion of the occasion aside for a moment the letter is interesting. In re-reading it and giving it to him last week I went both forward and backward in time. Most all of what I wrote I still agree with though if I were to write the same letter again it would be much longer. Experience teaches the best lessons and I've learned a few in the intervening years. Then, too, I know my son very well now; back then he was just an idea. As all parents understand, I am both excited and fearful for him. So much of what he does, decides, and becomes in the next five years will determine the course of the rest of his life.

Several people asked me to share the contents of the letter. After asking his permission I have decided to do so. My intent is not to make you think I am an awesome father, nor am I trying to impress you with my thought process twenty three years ago. I simply want to help you, whether you are a teenager or a parent, whether you are a grandfather or a Sunday School teacher. I believe that Satan has built a world system more devilish in its temptations than at any other point in history. And he has placed our young people squarely in his sights. May God give them the courage to stand, the understanding to choose wisely, and the grace to lay the foundation for a wonderful life spent loving and serving Him.
______________________

Son,

the lake at Hyles Anderson College

This moment is sacred to me. I'm sitting on a picnic table by the lake at Hyles-Anderson College. Today is my twentieth birthday. A few months ago I decided I would sit down today and write to you some of the things I've learned in my first twenty years, with especial attention to what carried me through my teenage years.

My dear son, I do not yet know your name. I do not know where you will be when you read this. I do not know your mother's name. As you can tell by the mistakes this is not a re-copied letter. It is just me. A me that loves you although you are yet unborn. A me that has tried and will continue to try to prepare himself to be your father. Nobody special, just me, but I love you.

The most important thing I've learned in the last 20 years is that everything rises and falls on your walk with God. By the time you are old enough to get this, my life will either have risen or fallen and no matter which, it will be because I have either walked with God or I haven't. Today you are fifteen. By this time I trust you have learned to walk alone and weep w/ God. For six years now I've walked with God and what a blessed six years they've been. My life, when you read this, will have proved this statement, but you have yet to. Everything in life rises and falls on your walk with God.

Next son, I would tell you to seek counsel. As a young teenager of 14 I began to seek counsel, and in only 6 years it has saved my hide numerous times. I've gotten counsel on financial matters, spiritual matters, dating, college, friends, schedule, everything. I've talked to my parents many times, my sisters and brother, my preacher, and those who are successful in whatever area I need counsel in. Seek counsel.

Jack

Lastly son, base your decisions on the future and not the present. I've heard Bro. Hyles say, "Everything in life that's worth getting you pay for now and get later, and everything in life not worth having you get now and pay for later." Solomon said, "But afterwards." Son, when you decide to do something always remember those two words "But afterwards." Don't sacrifice the future on the altar of the immediate, rather sacrifice the immediate on the altar of the future.

If these three things "be both in you and abound, they shall make you neither barren nor unfruitful." I'm in the springtime of life. I'm twenty years old, the sun is shining and all of life is ahead of me. If you'll heed this letter, you'll be in the same position I am at twenty. Son, my teenage years are over. They ended yesterday, but the bulk of yours are ahead. May they be filled with precious memories as mine are. To that end I write.

I love you.

Dad

Parenting in the City

Urban Ministry 9

I confess I am hesitant to write this post, or any post on parenting. There are too many stories in my past of preachers who put themselves up as parenting experts only to watch their family blow up later. Mandy and I have both talked about this extensively, and I have promised her that I will not write a book on parenting. I want to raise my children to love and serve God more than I want anything else in this world, and I will not risk that for anything or anyone.

Jack and I at a makeshift kitchen
table the day we moved to Chicago

Having said that, I do want to help people who are genuinely searching for answers about how to raise a godly family in the middle of an anti-family environment. The Lord knows that I would have benefited from this advice thirteen years ago when I moved to Chicago but I did not have it. Thus it is – specifically in answer to requests – I bring you this post. As with so much else I write I feel like someone older than me should discuss it but nobody appears to be so I will.

One more word of preface: I am purposely limiting it to things that in my view make parenting for the cause of Christ in an urban environment unique. This is not intended to be a blanket post about how to raise children to love and serve God. It is much more narrowly aimed.

The first thing that occupies my mind as a father in this environment is the necessity to protect my children.

Some of that is physical. I had lunch a few hours ago with a man in our church who lives two blocks away from me. I learned today that ten years ago his daughter was accidentally shot on their front porch during a gang drive by. Coincidentally, on that same corner a couple of years ago, while Jack and I were coming home from taekwondo practice, we saw a man urgently limping up the street. Blood trailed down his leg and he was hollering for help because he had just moments ago been shot. Numerous times I have picked up the newspaper and read about some shooting or stabbing in the streets and parks in my neighborhood where my children have lived all of their known lives. I know what it is like to peer out my blinds while a gang mills around my corner late at night, phone in hand, borderline cursing because 911 yields nothing but a busy tone. There are 52 registered sex offenders in my zip code and two that the state labels sexual predators live within a block of my house.

I can hear you now… "Then why in the world do you live there?" Because God called me here, and where He calls He provides all that is necessary to fulfill that call. God knows I have children. In fact, He is more concerned than I am about their safety because He loves them even more than I do. He is a big God. He is bigger than the gangs, the constant foul language, the liberal worldview, the increasing paganism, the radical homosexual movement, or any other physical or emotional or spiritual danger present in this environment.

Brennan family, 2002

It is also true that God calls for us to use practical wisdom in such situations. Physically, I protect my children by keeping them off the streets at night. When it is dark we are inside for the most part. For years I did not allow my children to walk anywhere by themselves other than across the yard to church. Chicago's notoriously strict gun laws forbad me to keep a handgun even in my own home. The Supreme Court has since overthrown that but while it was still law I ignored it. My oldest son has spent a thousand hours practicing taekwondo, and earned his Korean certified black belt a few months ago. There were other reasons for that than just safety but that entered into it. I am confident he could handle himself in any situation short of a drive by shooting, and that he can protect his younger siblings as well. We do not drive through certain areas of the city after dark. Etc. etc.

These are largely common sense but there is another yet more important aspect of protection that does not appear to be so commonly thought about. That is spiritual protection. If you allow your children to live the same life as all of the other city kids the spiritual result will be the same – disastrous. You must identify what actions and places are the most dangerous to your children's spiritual health and avoid them.

For example, I would never, under any circumstances, with zero exceptions, enroll my children in the Chicago Public Schools. The typical American public school is godless in its curriculum, foul in its language, satanic in its music, and barnyard in its morals. The CPS increases all of these exponentially, and adds to them the danger of a constant physical threat of gang violence and sexual assault. I know some godly men and women who teach or work in CPS or have their children enrolled and I do not wish to insult them with this paragraph, but this is my honest opinion.

I will not allow my children to become comfortable on the street. I do not mean the literal street. I mean the whole street life scene that most children and teenagers in this city experience and live in. Their friends either attend our church or are geographically distant. They do not know what it is like to hang out at the park fieldhouse or the corner with their buddies, and they will not ever know what that is like. We do not join the rest of the block during the block party. The perceived benefit of being sociable with my neighbors is over ruled by the pulsating Latin rap music that thunders from speakers dragged to the front yard of house after house that day, and the open and wide consumption of alcoholic beverages. I do not want my children comfortable in that kind of environment, and I freely confess I do not understand those of you that do.

Brennan family, 2007

Along this line, but opposite in a sense, my wife and I seek to ensure that our own and our children's attitude toward difficult people is compassionate. The city, by its very nature, collects more people that are substance abusers, that are mentally ill, that are deeply scarred by sin, and that are challenging to work with in this sense than typical small town America. We do shelter our children and do not apologize for it but at the same time we do not want them to become pharisaical better-than-thou's looking down their nose at sinners. We are here to reach and minister to sinners, and our family dynamic and approach to parenting is to include our children in ministry as much as possible. If that means, for instance, a mentally ill person wants to throw my child a birthday party I will let them – even if I have to bend over backwards to make sure everything is ok during the event. A normal parent would probably tell them to take a hike, and I would not argue with anyone who did. But we want our children to see the dignity of people made in the image of God even if those people are badly broken. So we buy them bus tickets and take them dinner and mow their yards and pick up their groceries and invite them over for lunch after church. When the homeless approach us on foot at the drive thru we buy them a meal. And we include our children in all of these things. We want our children to be comfortable stretching themselves, adjusting themselves, being flexible and compassionate in ministry. We do not want them to view people as dangerous or contaminating for the most part; we want them to see the beauty and joy there is in serving people.

Next, be conscientious not to bad-mouth your calling in the ears of your children. God intended us to serve Him with joy. He designed ministry that way specifically, and it is just as possible in an urban environment of service as it is in the Bahamas. If your public face at church is all joyful but your private talk about ministry around your dinner table is negative you are being hypocritical and your children will notice. If you do not like your position, church, deacon board, or city the answer nowhere includes whining about it in front of your children. Take your burdens to God and then leave them there. God is not punishing you by asking you to serve Him in the grit of the inner-city; He is graciously consenting to use you and that is a high privilege. Your children should see that in you and it should be genuine.

Lastly, we strive to take advantage of the benefits that come from big city life. Our town has world class concerts, parks, recreational facilities, museums, zoos, arboretums, and conservatories. We go to all of them. Often. No, we do not pay much if anything because we have learned over the years that there are times and places when all of these are either free or relatively inexpensive. So we pack a picnic dinner and head to the lawn at Ravinia to take in a concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the trees. In bad weather we join the business set listening to free chamber music and eating lunch at the Chicago Cultural Center. We attend the largest auto show in North America with free tickets provided by a man in our church who works at McCormick Place. We take family pictures at Buckingham Fountain. We stroll through the fascinating German pop up village that is the Christkindlmarket, buy the kids hot chocolate, and then take in the festive Christmas windows at Macy's. We have been to museums with the free Kraft passes available in the library so often we do not need maps anymore. Speaking of libraries, we go online and order any of the millions of books the Chicago Public Library owns and have them shipped to our closest library. And then we take in a Lego building demonstration there while we pick up our books. In winter we go ice skating at a city park two miles away. When it snows we pull the sleds out of the garage rafters and plunge headlong down the only hill I know of in a Chicago park. There are some wonderful aspects to urban life. Take your children and enjoy them.

Brennan family, 2016

Years ago when we moved to Chicago with a two year old and a six week old we were told that it was a mistake, that we could not raise godly children in this environment. I rejected that perspective then and I reject it now. God sent you where you are. He will provide you what you need to keep your children safe and to raise them to love and serve Him. The truth is every family is unique, and every child is challenging to parent. Yes, we have some things that cause our situation to be difficult but so do you – even if you live in the middle of the woods. The key to raising spiritual children is not location; it is the same as it has always been – love, prayer, wisdom, quality time, and a genuine faith lived out in the home.

One of God's names in the Hebrew Torah is Adonai, which means lord and master. He is our Lord and Master; we are His servants. Pharaoh was a bad master because he sent his servants to make bricks without giving them the straw necessary to do so. Adonai is a wonderful Master. If He sends you to do a task rest assured He will give everything you need to accomplish it. You can raise a godly family in the middle of a modern godless urban American environment. You can. Our Adonai will help you.