Experiencing God at Home (10 page)

Where Are You?

The Seven Realities are not a magic formula. They are simply the pattern God has used throughout Scripture as He has worked in people’s lives. At times we can linger on one reality. Perhaps we reject God’s invitation into a deeper love relationship. Maybe we face a crisis of belief in which we cannot bring ourselves to trust God for an issue in our life. Or we may know what God wants us to do but be unwilling to make the necessary adjustment to obey Him. The degree to which we experience God will largely be determined by how fervently and fully we embrace God’s work in our life.

Throughout this book, we’ll examine how you can experience God working in your family’s life. In addition, we’ll look at how you can help your children experience God in their lives. Next let’s look at the high calling and amazing privilege God grants to us in parenting our children.

Questions for Reflection/Discussion

1. If you were to guess where your Christian life is at present, which of the realities would you say you are in right now? Why is that?

2. Have you experienced God speaking to you in the past? If so, what did He tell you?

3. Were you taught that Christianity was primarily a relationship or a religion? How might you cultivate a deeper relationship with Christ than you already have?

4. Are you presently experiencing a crisis of belief? If so, what are you struggling to believe God for?

5. Are there adjustments you need to make if you are to move forward in your walk with God? If so, what are they? What is stopping you from making those adjustments?

Notes

1. Oswald Chambers,
Disciples Indeed
(London: Oswald Chambers Publications Assoc. and Marshall, Morgan and Scott, LTD, 1955, 1967), 15.

Chapter 7

Roles Parents Play

Hands Off My Daughter! (A Story from Tom)

I dreaded the day my daughter Erin started dating. We talked it over with her and tried to delay it as long as was possible. (I couldn’t convince her to do high school and college at a convent, though I tried.) One day I nearly had a heart attack. I learned Erin was getting “friendly” with a boy I didn’t know and, worse, didn’t like!

One afternoon my wife dropped me off at the high school to help coach basketball for my son’s eighth-grade team. I happened to walk past the bus stop and saw Erin there with a boy’s arm around her waist. WHAT?! I was instantly hostile. Who
was
this boy? Why was
he
touching
my
daughter? Where’s my bullwhip? When Erin saw me, she quickly stepped apart from the boy, his hand dropped to his side, and I smiled the faintest smile I could manage as I walked past, giving the boy the ol’
disapproving father
glare. A few minutes later I texted her, “That hand thing—not good! We’ll talk at home.”

Erin was seventeen, and I could no longer control her world as I did when she was three. We had recently moved home from overseas, and I did not yet know her new school friends or how she was spending her free time. We had built a lot of trust between us over the years and I expected her to be responsible. But I believed she was going down the wrong road. I knew she needed wise counsel. I also understood I could no longer make decisions for her.

I am big on “consequences” for our choices, so that’s how I approached our talk that night. Using my best Gandalf impersonation, I began, “Every choice has consequences. . . .” I asked if she felt this boy was the type to help her achieve her life’s goals. She thought for a minute and said, “No.” I asked her if he was helping her grow deeper in her relationship with God. She admitted it was the opposite. I asked if his life was heading in the same direction as her life. She said, “no.” He was working an hourly job at a grocery store and appeared to have little ambition, and she planned to go to college to work on a corporate communications degree. I asked about his home life and learned that his mother had left when he was twelve and died of cancer two years later. His father’s girlfriend lived with him, his brother was experimenting with homosexuality, and his home life was not based on Christian values. Our home, on the other hand, was stable, Christian, education oriented, and God-centered. My daughter began to recognize that many of her values were opposite to his. I could see how the young man would be attracted to qualities he saw in my daughter. I felt sorry for what he had endured in life so far, but my daughter being his girlfriend was
not
the solution to his problems.

As I sat on her bed talking calmly and quietly, the answers to my questions helped bring clarity to her relationship. My last question was, “So what do you think is the best choice you can make in this relationship?” She said, “I probably need to break up with him.” Inside I danced and jumped four backflips, but outside I was quietly supportive. I wish I could say it happened the next day, but it didn’t. It took time. It was hard to realize she was no longer a playful little six-year-old organizing her dollhouse. She had grown into a beautiful, intelligent, young woman who was on the verge of adulthood and no longer depended on me like she once did. She definitely still needed a dad, but the role I would play from this point forward would be drastically different from the past.

All the World’s a Stage

In a typical day, parents wear many hats and play a variety of roles in their home. Your day may begin as a
Chef:
set out breakfast for incoming children while spreading out three sets of sandwiches for lunches. One child only likes butter on the bread; the other, mayonnaise. One likes salami; another tuna; the third prefers peanut butter. One likes Jarlsberg cheese; the other, cheddar; and the other, Velveeta! One likes a particular granola bar; another prefers chocolate rather than vanilla pudding. One enjoys apples (green, not red) over oranges, and so on.

Next you serve as the
Fashion Expert:
“Does this shirt go with these pants?” “Where’s my jacket?” “Are there any clean socks?” “I can’t find my shoes!!!” Next the
Hair Stylist:
“Will you help me with my hair?” “I can’t get this cow lick to lay down!”

On to the
Day-Planner:
“Can Ryan come over after school?” “I have to go to a birthday party Saturday; can you pick up a gift for me?” And then the
Chauffer:
Drive to school, practices, rehearsals, friend’s homes, shopping, etc. Once you return home, you morph into the
Launderer, Grocer, Bill-Payer,
and
Lawn Maintenance person.

If you are like us, you enter each day wondering which “hat” you must wear to meet your family’s needs. Here are some other roles parents can play in their children’s lives. You can probably think of more:

Different Roles at Different Times

We must play a variety of roles in the lives of our children. Our tasks change depending on our children’s needs and ages. Not all of us feel prepared to do everything our children need us to, but we try our best. Here are some definitions and duties of some of the most basic roles parents play.

Advocate: One who upholds or defends a cause or who intercedes on behalf of another.

An advocate is someone who actively pleads the case of another. Lawyers do this for people in court as they defend their client’s rights. Parents advocate for their children when they need someone wiser, more experienced, and knowledgeable. Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). The unbelieving world will continually hurl untruths at our children. It is up to parents to uphold the truth for their children.

Our father once met with a high school math teacher on behalf of one of his children. All but two students in the class were failing. The teacher refused to consider his “teaching” was the problem. Our father simply said, “As a teacher myself, I know I have not
taught
until my students have
learned
. I do not teach materials; I teach students. What is it going to take to help my son learn what you claim you are teaching?” Children need advocates!

Teacher: One who instructs others.

Diligent parents are continually teaching their children what they need to know to thrive in life. Whether it is social manners or explaining why the leaves fall off trees in autumn, we are constantly answering the inexhaustible “why” questions to satisfy the curiosity of our children. We teach so many things, such as:

• how to read and write
  
• how to repair things that are broken
  
• how to navigate technology (TV remotes, computer, stereo, etc.)
  
• how to clean and pick up after yourself
  
• how to behave and show proper manners and respect for others
  
• how to dress yourself and how to dress for special occasions
  
• how to wear makeup or how to shave and do your hair
  
• how to do homework, study for tests, and write papers for school
  
• how to pray and read the Bible
  

The list can seem endless. But it is our responsibility to pass on important information and skills to our kids (Deut. 4:9; 11:19; Ps. 78:1–7). If
we
don’t teach our children the important issues of life, someone else will!

Caregiver: One who attends to the personal needs of another person.

If you carry a lot of Kleenex tissues and hand sanitizer wherever you go, you know the role of a caregiver (Jer. 30:17; 1 Pet. 5:7)—potty training, wiping faces (and other parts), bathing, dressing, feeding, and all those tasks our little ones can’t manage on their own. We also care for our sons or daughters while their broken bones heal or as they recover from illness. As they grow, we must cry with them when they break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, help through disappointments when they don’t make the team or lose an important game, or encourage them when they don’t get the job they applied for. This role never ends, as parents exert great influence on the emotional well-being of their children throughout their lives. (We’re grown men, yet we still feel the need to let our mom know when we are having a bad day!)

Protector: One who protects; a guardian. (A Story from Richard)

When my (Richard’s) son Mike was in kindergarten, he was timid about going to school. He was our oldest and had never left the safe confines of his home like that before. So, I took him for the first couple of days. The kindergarten students were required to line up on the playground before they were marched in to class. Mike found himself standing next to a rather ill-mannered little boy. This ruffian decided it would be great fun to thrust himself into my son Mike so that, like dominoes, the children in line behind him would ripple backward as each child banged into the next.

I had been discreetly standing off to the side so as not to embarrass my firstborn. I was wearing mirrored sunglasses and a black trench coat. I should mention I also stand six feet two inches tall and weigh comfortably more than two hundred pounds. When I saw the bully bang into my son the first time, I was alarmed but maintained my composure. Perhaps this hooligan would be satisfied with his antics just one time. But seeing he had knocked half a dozen of his classmates to the ground the first time, he gave an extra hard heave the second time that caused eight students to stumble. My son was timidly bracing himself for the next collision. That was too much. I descended upon that child and lowered myself menacingly into the little thug’s face. “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I slowly walked a few paces away and then turned and glared at the boy. He instantly turned angelic. Problem solved. Of course parents can’t rush to the aid of their child every time someone is unkind to them. But in that early period of my child’s schooling, my son learned that his father would be quick to protect him if the situation was called for.