Month: May 2017

Some people use their children as weapons.

They use them as a way to hurt others, or as a way defend themselves. You’ve probably met a parent like that. Maybe you’ve been tempted that way yourself?

Here’s the thing. There’s a sense in which the Bible says that our children are to be used a bit like weapons.

Intrigued? Then read on.

Take a look at these verses:

Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
    whose quiver is full of them.

We’ve been struck at the imagery of children being “like arrows”. It’s an interesting choice of simile.

An arrow isn’t designed to stay in the quiver. It’s good to have a quiver full, but only so that they can be sent out.

Arrows are meant to fly away from the quiver as the bow sends them out.

It’s interesting that the verses don’t say “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like trophies on your shelf” or “Like money inside your wallet”.

Why would this be this case?

Because children are not meant to remain dependent and cloistered up in our possession. They are not designed to be cooped up forever – they are designed to fly from the nest. The ideal is that they become independent, responsible and purposeful (an arrow is sent out of the quiver for a purpose, and noticeably sent out by another – “the warrior”).

Or to reflect on another metaphor…we all know that the nurturing of the mother-bird and safety of her nest are essential for the chicks to grow and develop. But we also know that it would be unnatural for the mother bird to try and sit on her growing chicks and prevent their efforts to fly from the nest. It would be unnatural – it would be unhealthy for the chick and for the mother-bird. It could result in the chick’s death. No, the healthy and natural way of things is for the chick to find their wings and with the mother’s encouragement to have the courage to step out of the nest and fly into the sky of opportunity.

So, if the end goal is independent, responsible and purposeful adults who will fly our nests – how do we begin to see our children in that way now?

If the goal is that we send our children out with a purpose, like a warrior sends out his arrows, then how do we prepare ourselves and them starting now?

Perhaps a change of mindset is needed for you – perhaps you’re tempted to treat your children as your trophies. Perhaps they are there to show off your achievement as a parent.

Perhaps you’re tempted to treat your children like a coin in your wallet – you see that they are precious and that makes you want to cling onto them.

Well the beginning of this Scripture can help us with that:

“Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.”

Ultimately our children are from God. He created them and he gave us the immense privilege of caring for them, but they don’t belong to us, they’re not our property to treat as we see fit.

Our children are from him. Our purpose in raising them is to get them ready to live independently for the Lord. When they have left our care we want them to be living with purpose for God – loving his church, reaching the lost, serving the poor. That’s what we are designed for – that’s what they are designed for.

In the end, while children can bring us great personal joy and pleasure, they are not given to us simply for that purpose – they are to be given back to God for his service. Arrows in his quiver to be sent out for his kingdom.

Perhaps this sounds hard and counter-intuitive. Well we can take great comfort that God is more of a loving parent than we ever could be. We can know that the God who calls us to send our children out, is the God who sent his Son out. He’s the God who did not spare his Son, but gave him up for us. He is the God who so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And as we send our children out to independence and adulthood we know that the indwelling Spirit of God goes with our children protecting and providing for them all the way.

So don’t be afraid to weaponize your children… just make sure you do it in the right way.

What’s the secret to great parenting?

It may surprise you.

We recently went to some parenting seminars by Julian and Debbie Hardyman.

We sat in our seats waiting in anticipation for what they were going to say… What approach would they take? What new kernels of wisdom could we glean from these seasoned parents?

Their intro took us by surprise!

They said something which was pretty liberating, surprising and well…obvious!

They said that there’s no silver bullet for parenting, no secret formula which needs to be found for success, they said that they weren’t going to say anything new.

This is what they said.

Are you ready for it?

They said…

Parenting is really pretty simple but very hard to actually do!

Simple but hard.

The Bible says provide for your kids, love them, discipline them and tell them about Jesus.

It’s not rocket science.

It’s not a secret at all.

But it’s hard.

It’s hard to do consistently. It’s hard to die a thousand deaths to yourself in order to serve your children. It’s hard to sacrifice your own comfort for the sake of your little ones. It takes energy. It takes effort. It takes time.

We found this a really liberating truth to hear.

In a media-saturated culture, envy and comparison in our parenting styles can be so pervasive. It’s easy (in the midst of all the parenting fads that come and go) to be fearful. It’s easy to panic that we must discover the perfect approach to parenting and that if we don’t, we’ll mess up our children. How wonderful that this isn’t the case!

We already know what to do – the Bible tells us.

Provide for our kids, love them, discipline them and point them to Jesus.

That will look different in each family and that’s also wonderfully liberating.

What works in your family, with your personalities and lifestyle will look very different to how we do it our family. But you can be sure of this, in every family, parenting sinful kids will require following simple principles which are actually very hard to do.

We as human parents follow in the footsteps of our heavenly Father God. You would imagine that it would be a simple thing for the all powerful creator of the universe to parent the children that he made. He knows how to provide, to love and to discipline – perfectly. For God, parenting is simple.

But you know what? Parenting is hard for him too. You see his children (a.k.a us)  are pretty troublesome and stubborn.

As a good parent, God provides for us. He loves us, and he gives us boundaries to live our lives by and consequences when we stray outside of those boundaries. But we resist his kind parenting of us at every point. This is called sin.

Like a good Father, God decided not to abandon his children but to do everything within his power to change their hearts and to eradicate sin. It was an easy decision – he loves us, he was committed to winning us back.

But it was hard. It was costly. It required sacrifice, effort and commitment. In fact it was harder than we can imagine.

God decided to send his only begotten son Jesus to take the consequence of sin upon himself. Jesus died in the place of sinful human beings, as their substitute. He did this so that sinful human beings could be forgiven and brought back into relationship with their Heavenly Father. Now God’s children are reunited with their Father, through faith in Jesus.

So there we have it. The secret to great parenting? There isn’t one. Do the things that the Bible calls us to in whatever way works best in your situation.

Knowing what we need to do is simple. Actually doing it can be very hard.

But we model ourselves on the best parent – our Father in heaven. As creator of all, knowing how to parent us was simple. But actually doing it was very hard. The cost was bigger than we could ever imagine. So let’s parent our children empowered by his Spirit, reliant on him in the difficult times.

Parenting: simple but hard.

We’ve been really humbled by the reception that our blog has received since we launched it a little over a year ago, as we reflected on a little in the post on our first birthday.

One thing that has suprised us about the audience for the blog is how many people who are new to Christianity, or at least are very young Christians, have interacted with the blog. If you are one of them – thank you, we love having you around!

We’re convinced that the gospel is good news for every single person in whatever situation they face. We consider it a privilege to try to demonstrate something of how the gospel can shape and transform one area of life – parenting. We pray that you, the reader, whatever your background, will grow in your knowledge of the gospel and thus your love for Jesus as you engage with our blog.

To help our readers who have had less exposure to the good news of Jesus to better grasp the core of what that news is, we’ve added a new page to our website.

So this week, rather than putting out a new post of content, we thought we would point you to our new page. Let’s all take this opportunity to have a few moments together to bask in and be warmed by the sweet sunshine of the gospel.

Click here to head to our new page, ‘The Gospel’.