shepherding a mom's heart

In the spirit of Valentine's Day - I am writing about the heart.  I've been wanting to share about a parenting seminar we had at our church a few weekends ago - but I have been paralyzed by the many thoughts streaming through my head.  

About 18 months ago I started meeting together with group of dear friends for bible study ( I love you girls!).  Our main goals:  get out of the house, drink coffee, study the bible, and support one another.  We worked through Judges, Ruth, and Galatians.  We also spent some time holding one another accountable in areas we wanted to improve in (i.e. in our marriages, personal, parenting areas). During this time the Lord really began to reveal to me some serious issues pertaining particularly to the way I was parenting the kids.  It was a painful many months as I began to see my mistakes, confess my sin, and try to figure out what to do next.  These dear ladies listened, encouraged, and prayed for me - reminding me of God's grace, forgiveness, and guidance.  

In the fall, we stopped meeting for various reasons.....but I was still struggling to figure out why exactly I could not change and improve my situation.  I continued at times to be discouraged and felt like a failure.   At the same time I was asked to serve on the planning committee for a parenting seminar at our church.  We were inviting Tedd Tripp, author of "Shepherding a Child's Heart" to come and speak on "Instructing a Child's Heart" - his new book.  This was a real joy and privilege - I had read the Shepherding book when Madison was a baby but really was looking forward to this refresher.

An almost 2 year process was about to come full circle.  For many months the Lord had been impressing upon me graciously my shortfalls, areas I needed to improve upon - but really no "fix".   Enter into the picture now the seminar.  It just seemed as if the information Tedd Tripp presented was the answer  to my struggle.  This is the wonderful thing about having a relationship with the most Holy, living God!  The entire time He was allowing me to see my sin, mistakes, and failures - in a loving environment - taking me through a process until I was ready for change.  It was then (when I was broken and at the end of myself) he further revealed Himself to me when I could actually SEE - or was ready.

The information presented was precious and helpful to me because of the work the Lord was doing in my heart.  One truth I have known - but just not internalized was that when it comes to raising kids - or any relationship really - I DO NOT have what it takes in my own flesh.  But - the Lord ALWAYS gives what I need in the situations He purposes for me.

1 Peter 1:3:  "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness."

END OF "MANY THOUGHTS"

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While I feel impressed to share the major points that tied up this learning experience for me I realize not everyone cares or even subscribes to this way of thinking.  If I knew of a way to post this and hide it for you to click on I would - but computer programming is not one of my talents!  So here are some of my notes meant only for those interested - much of it is not my original thought but Tedd Tripp's unless otherwise noted.  The seminar was broken into 5 sessions:

The Call to Formative Instruction - Deuteronomy 6

There are 2 types of instruction:  1) constructive:  more behavioral oriented and 2) formative: provides a frame of reference for our children or a worldview.  For a believer in Jesus Christ, formative instruction provides a biblical way of thinking - how to interpret life and respond to life biblically - renewing the mind.   Culture is constantly telling our kids how to think and interpret life.  Formative instruction does not focus on correcting something that has gone wrong; its focus is providing biblical ways of interpreting and responding to life.

I realized that my love for God is the foundation for all I have to say - whatever is on my heart, I will impress on my children.  Here was my first problem - the things on my heart have not been real focused on a love for God - but on myself and my own selfish ambitions.  I should be concerned with more than getting my kids to do what I want them to do - it is about giving them a lens within which to think.   Formative instruction is happening every moment of the day - and it is the foundation for corrective discipline.  

Giving Children a Vision for the Glory of God - Psalm 145

Children are instinctively worshipers.  They are made in the image of God and are hard-wired for worship.  They love to be awed.  They delight in marveling at things.  They will either worship God the Creator or created things.   Idolatry is one of the most talked about sins of the heart......we try to find satisfaction in many things.  This is where I started to see my sin - as I related to how I try to find satisfaction in 1) power and influence 2) pride and performance - i.e going places, doing things, sports. 3) pleasure and sensuality 4) possessions - i.e. the love of stuff, keeping things, accumulating things 5) fear of man and desire to be approved.  These are all sins of the heart and all things that will disappoint us and never satisfy us because we are made for God.

What we do with God determines how we interpret life and solid and lasting joy are found in knowing God.  I realized that if I have no joy in God - I am instead worshipping the idols listed above.  God is more glorious than any of these things.  Have I been believing this?  Was this a message my kids were receiving from me or were they seeing bitterness, resentment, and anger?  He is the greatest deliverance I can ever experience.  There was so much more in this session - but I came away with the conviction that the heart of the gospel is the glory of God - and there is a lot to the glory of God.  Tedd preached a great sermon "The Great Love for God" on the following Sunday about this - check it out.

Those first two sessions were really the most influential for me.  I realized that for my own convenience I often focused too much on my kid's behavior - when I couldn't control that I became frustrated.  Only trying to correct outward behavior does not deal with the heart of why it is happening.  But my own inability to enjoy, worship, and love God was robbing me of joy - which in turn was robbing my children of joy.  I had been sending them a message that the pursuit of so many other things was more important than the pursuit of a holy, just, and loving God.  The next 3 sessions were more practical in how to understand a biblical world view.

Giving Children an Understanding of Authority - Ephesians 6

Our culture thinks of authority as derived from overwhelming force or consent.  Culture often mocks that it is good and proper for some to be in authority and for others to be under authority.  There is a hierarchy that exists in humanity that God build into the world - and there is freedom in living joyfully under the authorities that God has ordained.

OK - timeout - don't get bent out of shape - I am not going to go into the whole thing but the idea also is that training is a process vs. an event and obedience leads to blessing.  We also talked about many specifics in training, appealing to authority and teaching kids how to make decisions.  

Giving Children an Understanding of the Heart - Proverbs 4:23

"Proverbs 4 says "the heart is the well-spring of life."  Luke 6 says that it is "out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks."  If behavior flows from the heart, then we cannot think about behavior biblically without reference to the heart.  God is concerned with our hearts, but we tend to be overly concerned with how we look, seem to other people, act, etc.  The things I do to manipulate my children's behavior does not move them closer to God.  Instead of an approach based on behaviorism I need to work on helping my kids understand their heart - the ungodly attitudes and what they can replace them with - and our profound need for grace.  My mission should be restoration:  working with carefulness and gentleness - not reproving them because I am perfect - in humility.

Yikes.

Corrective Discipline

Ephesians 6: 1-3:  When children are honoring and obeying their parents, God says they will enjoy a long life and things will "go well".  Of course that doesn't mean bad things won't happen - but in general we teach our kids obedience to keep them out of danger.  Discipline is a rescue mission aimed at returning the child to the circle of blessing.  The function of discipline is not punitive, but corrective.  It's goal is positive not negative.  We talked about working on the "root" of the issue - cleaning the inside before cleaning the outside - and then restoration.  We also talked about the concept of sowing and reaping and natural consequences as well as communication.