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.
This post will use the bad language that one of my children said.
The purpose is that you can experience the horror but still see how to respond in a godly way.
“I have to teach you a great new card game the boys taught me at my camp!” my eldest boy said excitedly at the dinner table, “It’s called cocksucker.”
Time stood still.
“I’m sorry?” I managed to splutter whilst chocking on a piece of potato.
“cocksucker” he said again.
Maybe my wife and I had misheard, “cobsucker?” I asked hopefully.
“No, COCKsucker,” he said again.
OK….he clearly means the very word we wished he had never mentioned to all of us.
Now the main problem with being a Christian parent is that we can all too easily react to the world’s darkness rather than acting from a Kingdom perspective. The light is so much more powerful than darkness – and so we don’t need to be afraid of what our children pick up. But we do need to turn on the light and help them see things in the light of truth.
I wanted to shout “how dare you use that filthy language in my house!”
Now whilst this would have vented my anger and satisfied my righteous indignation it wouldn’t have helped my son (or the rest of the children gathered round the table) what that word meant and why it was unsuitable. Nor would it have helped him make good choices in the future.
Instead he would have learnt to not share his excitement, to keep quiet about words he hears at school or (in this case) “Christian camp” and then go and seek answers elsewhere.
I want my children to come to me and ask me about what they pick up in the world so that I give (what I hope is) godly wisdom and advice. This means that I first have to become unshockable like Jesus.
Jesus often knew what people were up to (eg the woman at the well Jn 4:17-18 and Jesus anointed by the sinful woman Lk 7:39) and he hung out with tax collectors and sinners (Mt 9:10) and would have heard coarse language from these common people. Yet we don’t see any mention of him reacting or being shocked by sin. Why? Because sin is no threat to him – he is a threat to sin. He knew since the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8) that sin was a defeated enemy.
So I needed to have a calm and candid conversation with our son that went something like this: “cock is a slang word for a man’s penis. It’s used to describe how it’s not something precious made by God but something that is used to go anywhere and do anything just like a cockerel struts around and does what he wants. So you can see what cocksucker will mean. However, the phrase cocksucker us used to say that they will do want they want and you must suck it up – you must be their slave.”
My son went rather pale at this point when he realised how they had treated him.
“So I think they weren’t being very kind to you.”
My son received this information and was then able to make a wise choice about the word and to his credit he calls the game President instead.
Now in our case it was clear that he had no idea what the word meant. Sometimes a word might be said to see what reaction it gets or as deliberate defiance. The first time it occurs we need to have a conversation like the one above and then subsequent times it occurs we can take appropriate disciplinary action.
Good word bad word project
Walker Moore in his excellent parenting book “You want to pierce what?” (which was developed further in his “Rite of Passage Parenting”) talks about the “good word bad word” project he did with his sons. He got a big bit of paper and divided it into two columns – one for good words and the other for bad words. Each evening they would discuss words they had met at school that they were unsure about their meaning. He asked them not to repeat a word they’d heard at school until that point in the day he had told them the meaning and they could decide which column they would go in. If it was a bad word then they chose two good words to replace it and put them in the good word column.
In three years we had every swear word in the English language on the chart. Eventually we had no more words to add to the bad word column. It’s amazing the communication barriers that go down when you are writing down filthy words with your children. We also, however, wrote words that carried confusing meanings. We were able to talk about subjects like homosexuality and abortion before our children reached nine years of age! Opening up this kind of communication gave my children the knowledge that their parents would not over-react or be shocked at anything they wanted to discuss…without this project, my boys would have endured years of seeing Dad seethe with anger over words they heard at school, and the only lesson they they would have learned would have been, Don’t say the bad words in front of Dad. Instead they learned that there are things that are good and things that are bad, and they must developed the skills to know the difference.
These skills were then applied in other areas of their lives.
Summary:
Firstly, let’s not be naive and think our children won’t encounter these words in their lives – we cannot shelter them from the world – indeed we are supposed to be in the world (but not of it) not separated from the world in a bubble. How can we be salt and light if we keep our salt and light separate.
Secondly, let’s not react to bad words – Jesus is more than able to save sinners and cleanse us from every wrong doing.
Thirdly, let’s train them – disciple them – and give them the tools they need to make great choices.
“Of course not!” I hear you say, “After all, every good and perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17).
Would you curse a gift that God has given your children?
Again I’m sure you would say no.
But the truth is, we often do.
Our bodies are gifts from God.
“Ah yes John, but sin has entered the world and brought sickness”
True, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the correct functioning of our bodies as designed by God. Specifically I’m talking about periods and nocturnal emissions.
How often do ladies complain about their periods and say to their daughters: “You’re so lucky you haven’t got them yet!”
That is cursing our daughters. We are giving them a fear of becoming women. We are also telling them that God has made something horrible. That God is not good.
How often do us men say nothing to our sons about nocturnal emissions? How often do we leave them confused and feeling ashamed of this natural function?
We are cursing our sons. We are letting them think bad of something good. We are letting shame infect their sexuality – which causing them to either embrace shame as an identity or to reject their sexuality as horrible. Neither is blessing God’s gift to them.
We need to celebrate our children becoming women and men. We need to help them embrace God’s calling (which includes their bodies) for their lives.
But how can we do this?
As I have mentioned before the first principle* is to affirm the goodness of our bodies.
For my daughters I would have a conversation something like this:
“Would you put a new baby in a cot with dirty old sheets?”
To which my daughters would reply “Of course not!”
“Absolutely. We always give a new baby fresh clean sheets. In the same way, every month your body changes the sheets of your womb to get ready for a new baby. It throws away the old ones which come out of your ‘gina (our abbreviation for vagina) as a period.”
In addition, I want to mark their first period as a special moment in their life. And so we talk about when they have their first period daddy will take them out to a restaurant of their choice to celebrate. We often talk about this and discuss where they might go and what they might choose to eat. It creates such an anticipation in them and last week I had the pleasure of talking the second of my daughters out for her meal. She had such a blast and I have never seen anyone eat quite so much.
For my sons I would have a conversation something like this:
“Suppose you’ve got a brand new phone with GPS tracking to use on a mountain climb. Would you check that it works before you start your journey or would you just turn up and try it on the day?”
To which my son would (hopefully) reply “I’d check it.”
“Absolutely, checking it works is a good strategy to ensure that we don’t have problems on the day. In the same way, God has designed your body to check that your willy works for when you are married. When you’re sleeping it tests it out by making sperm and shooting it out. This means that you’ll wake up with sticky stuff in your pants but it’s a sign that your body is working well.”
In addition, I want to mark what could be a source of shame as a special moment in their life on their journey to becoming a man. However, my eldest son who likes food says he’d much prefer to go to a skate park to celebrate. So be it.
But as Christians we can go further than just celebrating our bodies as good. For we are made in God’s image and so our bodies are also holy. And this was the second principle.
You see everything was made to glorify God and so that means that our bodies tell us something about the nature of our God. The aspect I want to focus on here is how our bodies reflect the redemption story.
Jesus death has brought cleansing for our sins. Specifically it is His blood that cleanses us for “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb 9:22).
This is the first part of our new birth as Christians – we are forgiven and made holy so that we are a fit dwelling for the Holy Spirit.
This is the meaning of a woman’s period. The shedding of blood symbolises Christ’s blood being shed to bring forgiveness of our sins. In fact, the Hebrew word for female (nĕqebahH5347) comes from the root word meaning pierced (naqabH5344) and we know that Christ was pierced for our transgressions (Is 53:5).
Every month women are given a physical reminder of the cost of our redemption – which is easy to lose sight of in our sanitised world far removed from animal sacrifice or killing animals for food.
After the period is complete a Jewish woman would have their mikveh, a ritual bath as the rite of purification. This is our baptism by water symbolising our repentance and death to sin and our old way of life.
The second part of our new birth as Christians is that we are born again of the Spirit (Jn 3:3). Just like God breathed his breath = Spirit into Adam to give life to his mortal body, so too Christ’s Spirit is given to us to give us new life. We receive Christ’s imperishable seed† (1 Pet 1:23) we become Children of God (Jn 1:12-13; 1 Jn 3:1,9) and ultimately receive new imperishable bodies from that seed (1 Cor 15:38, 42,44).
This is the meaning of the man’s sperm. The Greek word Paul and Peter use for seed is sperma (G4690). The ejaculation is symbolising the new life that Christ gives us. And in the same way that children grow up in the image of their parents (Gen 5:3) by genetics and can’t do anything to change that, we grow up into the likeness of God through the fruit of this same spirit (Gal 5:22-23) – it is a fruit – a natural consequence of being his children. In fact, the Hebrew word for male (zakarH2145) comes from the root word meaning remember (zakarH2142). It can mean “to mark (so as to be recognised)” which would reflect the fact that the Spirit marks us out as Christians, but it can also mean “a call to remembrance” which isn’t just a mental ascent but a call to action – which is why it is used when referring to circumcision as well as man or God taking action when they remember something. This speaks of how faith without deeds is dead – we are called to live out our new life. We are called to like our true Heavenly Father‡.
In the same way that only together do male and female make up the complete image of God (Gen 1:27), only together do they symbolise the full story of our salvation.
Father, forgive us for the ways we have disparaged our bodies because we have lost sight of the true meaning. We renounce and break off any curse that we have put on our bodies or our children’s bodies. We bless our bodies in Jesus’ name and receive them as a good and holy gift from you. Help us to celebrate the gift of our bodies, let us cry out to you in praise for how they speak to us of the forgiveness and new life you offer us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
*Click here to be taken to the overview of how to teach your children godly sexuality.
‡I am aware that there are many other nuances in these Hebrew words but I hope this gives a glimpse into the richness of the meaning of periods and sperm.
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:
My eldest daughter had her first day at primary school and was distraught to discover that there was another girl in the class with the same name.
“But daddy, how will you know which one of us to pick up at the end of the day?”
I replied, “Because only one of them is my daughter.”
This might seem silly to us grown-ups but maybe my daughter’s question is actually something we say to (or think about) our Father in Heaven. And maybe my response is a shadow of a truth that we adults need to hear from our Heavenly Father
How often in our lives do we honestly think that God won’t notice us?
I mean there are a lot of other Christians doing the same things as us….
When I heard God’s call clearly to start helping parents teach their children about godly sexuality I was so excited about the revelation He was showing me. I felt so special that He would call me to this task.
But then I discovered that God had called others to the same task. I was devastated. What’s the point in so many of us doing the same thing?
And the enemy whispered that I wasn’t unique, I wasn’t special, that I can’t have heard the call right. Anyway why would God call me to such an important task and besides who would listen anyway.
I confess that I fluctuated between giving up or doing the task but covering my insecurity with a false bravado claiming how great I was. I was fearful of those others who were doing the same thing so I didn’t want to reference their resources and I even resorted to visiting “competing” ministries’ websites to try and steal their visitors for my own site.
I was just like my daughter: Wondering whether my Father truly notices me and knows who I am, whether he values what I’m doing.
I didn’t realise my uniqueness to my Father.
But what if their gifting is greater or their ministry bigger?
What’s the point of me doing the same thing when others are clearly more qualified.
Let me giving another example with my daughter:
On a parents’ evening at school when I go into to look at the children’s work displayed on the walls – is my daughter worried I’m going to only look at the pictures which are drawn the best?
By no means! She knows that I’m looking for her work. It doesn’t matter to me whether another child has drawn a particular picture better than her as I’ve only got eyes for her work as that is the one that is most precious to me.
So it is with our Heavenly Father:
God is not a CEO of a company with a limited number of positions that we all have to compete for. He is a Father that delights in the uniqueness of each of His children.
Suppose my daughter compared her work to others and saw that they were better and give up writing or drawing. I would be heartbroken. There would be a hole in my world.
So too with us.
If we could compare our ministry or gifting to others and give up because someone else is better we would break our Father’s heart. He values what we are doing.
There is always room for another child in the Father’s family as every child is unique and brings a distinctive flavour to the family even if they do the same things/hobbies as each other. And only when they’re all present is the whole family complete.
There is room for you. Never fear.
Father, open my eyes to see you as the perfect father who delights in me, knows who I am and delights in the work I do for Him. Let me realise that there is a special place for me in the family and help me to bring my contribution to it no matter what others around me may be doing. In Jesus’ name. Amen. This is my second post on godly children – looking at how our children behave to open our eyes to how we behave as children of God. My first was a guest post on this blog.
An absolutely excellent article on this subject was written by Matt Stinton on the Bethel Music blog here. You won’t regret reading it.
PS If you own one of those sites that I spammed during my insecure days – please forgive me. Know that I now honour you by recommending your sites and resources to my followers and I create memes that honour the revelation you have received.
When I started this blog I sought to share the revelation that God had been giving me on my journey to sexual wholeness and I wanted to help others on the journey and help parents communicate a godly view of sexuality to their children. I am so grateful for the many messages from readers who have benefited from my writings and my vulnerability. Thank you so much and I hope I can continue to bless you in 2017.
So in order from least to most views here are the top ten posts of the year:
This post spoke of how the word discipline comes from the word disciple and is about training. It was a calling of parents back to the Hebrew way of showing not telling. (56 views)
The Christian life is a journey not a destination. This vulnerable post spoke about how our obsession with getting “there” leads us to work harder or give up and not to grace. (57 views)
The story of Gideon shows us how God calls out his true identity and this serves as a model for us as parents to call our children into maturity. (78 views)
A topical post that sought to counter the political spirit that was/is seeking to break the church’s unity and therefore it’s prophetic voice to the world. (142 views)
As parents it’s easy to despair and think all is lost. This post spoke on the reality of our God who is able to redeem all things – not just so we are healed/fixed but so that the mistakes become sources of grace to others. (169 views)
A topical and vulnerable post about the similarities between my life and Omar Mateen’s. His life ended in tragedy, mine in redemption through expressing my same sex desires to Jesus. (328 views)
This post was aimed at parents to help see that sometimes bad behaviour is actually an immature gifting that needs to be directed to its true purpose. However, many people found this post as a source of grace for them on the journey to maturity – whereas before they had berated themselves – they actually saw they were stamping on their giftings/callings. (1846 views)
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.
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.
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