teach your children godly sexuality

Firm Foundations: Godly parenting (Teach your children godly sexuality part 4)

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godly sexualityBuilding Firm Foundations with your children: godly parenting

As we saw in our previous post: marriage is a prophetic declaration of the Trinity and so we represent the child’s first understanding of the nature of God.
Which is why it’s no surprise that atheists are far more likely to come from homes with defective fathers (see Faith of the Fatherless).
So our desire is to relate to our children like God relates to us.  This is a huge area and will form the basis of our godly parenting blog in the future.  So in this blog entry we’re just going to look very briefly at how we can communicate two aspects:  love and grace.

Love

God is love (1 Jn 4:8b) and exists as a loving daddy to us (eg Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6) but also as a loving mother (eg Isa 66:13; Mat 23:37).  We as parents need to love our children in the same way God loves us. Children who feel loved won’t look for it elsewhere, particularly in the realm of relationships.  Indeed a close relationship with parents is one of the key predictors of lack of teenage sexual experimentation.

But even though we may love our children they may not feel loved as we may not be loving them in a way they understand.  For example, my dad grew up as an unwanted second child in a family that was struggling financially – so his aim was to love his family by ensuring that we were provided for.  Whilst we did have holidays the reality was that I had a dad I didn’t see much and when I did he was stressed out by his high powered job and very quick to anger. What I wanted (and needed) was some closeness and affirmation from him.  As a result I ended up looking to porn to try and fill that gap.

We’ve already mentioned the five love languages in the previous as a tool to help you speak the same “love language”  I’m going to look briefly at three aspects here with respect to our children:

•    Physical touch
God made us physical beings (embodied spirits) and has designed our bodies and emotions to thrive from touch.  We release a chemical called oxytocin (often called the “cuddle chemical”) which in babies has been shown to increase growth, immunity and neuron development*.  For all ages it increases trust,bonding and feelings of closeness between the individuals involved.  It also leads to increased self-esteem and optimism.
As such it is essential to ensure that our children receive adequate touch as they grow up.  It doesn’t have to be hugs and kisses – any kind of touch will do such as rubbing a head, touching a shoulder or snuggling next to each other when reading a book.
For boys as they grow up the wrestling/rough housing play between father and son is actually a great way of having physical affection but in a way that isn’t viewed as childish.  I noticed that my eldest son used to beam with happiness after our “throw me on the sofa” games or cushion fights which made total sense once I learned about oxytocin.
As girls mature fathers may become wary of showing physical affection (especially in the current environment where every action is sexualised) – but to pull back at this critical time will devastate their fragile confidence – so continue to show affection – but in a respectful way.
•    Quality time
Quality time is a lovely idea – but you can’t choose when your child will open up – so you have to be ready.  For one of my children it was always just as I tucked them into bed and was just about to rush onto my next job.  For quite some time I was caught off guard as “it was their bedtime” – and I confess I used to curtail it – then I realised what was happening and so used to mentally plan an extra 10 minutes just to listen.
Part of giving your child quality time is what I call the incarnation principle: our God didn’t stay far off but in Jesus entered our world.  Similarly we need to enter our children’s world.  What is important to them? Then it needs to be important to us.  This is so much easier said than done!  For example, it’s easy when they play you the music they like to rubbish it (as it clearly won’t be as good as the music you listened to when you grew up) – but doing so will cause them to withdraw from sharing with you what they’re interested in and their heart’s desires for fear of rejection.  Instead pray for grace and take an interest, ask questions about the artist and tell them what you like about it.
•    Words of affirmation
God the Father publicly affirmed his son (Mt 3:17; 17:5) how much more do we need to affirm our children to other people in front of them?  There’s something about saying it to other people that causes children to actually believe that what we say about them is true.  For example today my eldest son was helping me chop wood with an axe but I could see that he was frustrated despite my encouragement.  So when my wife comes outside I say to her “look at Josiah’s chopping – he’s doing such a good job”.  My wife who works as a team with me on this replies “you’re right – that really is good chopping.”  I turn and see my son beaming.
An aspect of this affirmation is what I call prophetical calling out.  Here we ask God who are child is going to become and then we affirm and call out who they’re going to be rather than who they are at the moment.  That is the spirit of prophecy, for example when Ezekiel prophesied over the dry bones (Ezek 37) didn’t say “you’re dry bones, you’re good for nothing” – but “you’re a mighty army” and they rose up to it.  Same with our children.  For example, one of our children was hopeless at looking for things and unless it fell out of the sky into their hand they would never find it.  We used to get so frustrated that we began saying “you never find anything!”.  The Spirit woke us up to the fact that we were cursing them – saying that this is all they will ever be whereas God will finish the work he began in us (Phil 1:6) so we started prophesying over them “that’s strange that you can’t find it – you’re really good at finding things” and soon we asked them to help the other children find items and now they are amazing.

Grace vs Law†

Are we saved by grace or by obeying the law? (eg Eph 2:8-9)
Does grace or law change our hearts to wanting to do right? (eg Rom 2:4b; 1 Jn 4:19)
Do we become more Christ-like by grace (God’s spirit working in us) or by trying harder? (eg Ezek 36:27; Phil 2:13)
So given these answers why do we expect children to become “better” by giving them law?
For example, “you must try harder to not to say that” or “well done you managed to stop talking with your mouth full!”

Rules will either produce children who think they can do it by their own effort and so become proud moralistic/religious children who have no need of a saviour or it’ll produce children who realise that they can’t change and so give up trying and instead become rebellious.The Law is powerless to bring change (Rom 8:3-4; Col 2:20-23) its purpose is to show us our need of a saviour.  Also rules also won’t capture our children’s hearts so that they actually want to change – only God’s love can do that.

How can we impart grace to our children in the disciplinary process?  Here is an outline of what I currently use:
  •  “I love you – you’re my precious son/daughter”
  • “I forgive you – as God has forgiven me of far worse”

I confess I used to give forgiveness only after they had said sorry – but I realised that I was training them that forgiveness and grace depend on their behaviour – whereas forgiveness is always available – the only block is our willingness to humble ourselves and receive it. Hence I forgive and then say:

  • “But you won’t be able to receive my forgiveness and love until you’re ready in your heart to say sorry – so we need to have time out where you decide whether your heart wants to do this”
  • When they return from their time out we have our cuddle and restoration:
  • “I also struggle with this (see Heb 4:15) and it’s too hard to change on our own but daddy God has helped me change and he can help you. Shall we ask him to help us?”
Then pray and for our Father’s help.
  • Then notice any evidence of grace and thank God for the change he’s brought in their hearts.  For example “look – you just shared your toy – you never used to be able to do that – daddy God has changed your heart so that you naturally wanted to do this!”

We are only a shadow of the heavenly reality

Remember, however, that we are not the ultimate reality – we’re only a shadow of the real thing and so we need to point our children to the perfect One.

We saw this in the discipline process where we point out that we also need God’s help to change.  If we make a mistake (for example shouting at them when we get stressed) then we need to apologise to our children and ask their forgiveness.  I also make clear how daddy God is not like daddy (so in this example I would say that daddy God is slow to anger – taking more than 400 years before punishing the Amorites Gen 15:16 – does your daddy take 400 years before he gets cross?)Then they see that we are living what we preach.  Failure to do so we cause our children to see as us hypocrites and lose respect.  In which case (as we saw in the previous post with my parents and lying) why would they listen to us?

*Some sources include:

Maternal-Preterm Skin-to-Skin Contact

†I am indebted to Jessica Thompson and her book “Give them grace“ which first opened my eyes to the law-based nature of my so-called “Christian parenting”.

Firm Foundations: Teach your children godly sexuality (part 3)

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godly sexualityBuilding firm foundations in your marriage (modelling sexuality)

Our children learn most from watching us.

For example, when I was growing up my parents must have repeatedly told us that we should tell the truth (I confess I don’t remember these conversations but I do remember getting spanked for lying – so clearly it must have been important to them…).

However, what I do remember (apart from the spanking) was the time they told us to lie about our age so we could get cheaper tickets to the circus.  So what did I learn?  It was unfair that I got spanked for lying but they didn’t.  Lying is ok (as long as you don’t get caught).

As we see in this example, two things will happen if our actions don’t line up with our life:

  • Firstly our children will see that we’re a hypocrite and will lose respect for what we say.
  • Secondly, our children will copy what we do and not what we say.

However anyone who’s ever been a parent for more than 5 minutes will know that we will always say one thing and do another.  The temptation is to ignore it (or worse: try and justify our actions).  It’s always far better to be honest about our failings and apologise to our children for letting them and ourselves down.  That way they will learn that we have integrity – that we are calling them as well as us to the same standard.  We’ll touch on this more in our next post.

Bringing this conversation back to sexuality: our children’s primary understanding of sexuality is going to come from how they see us interact.

So there’s no point having conversations if our actions don’t back it up – children can see straight through this.

For example, I never saw my parents kissing, holding hands, hugging or any kind of affection to each other nor to us (and this was simply a product of the austere environment that they themselves grew up in).  The thought of them making babies from what I heard in biology lessons was simply unthinkable.  And from the dirty jokes I heard in the playground I reasoned that it was never mentioned or expressed at home because it must be something dirty.  This thinking was one of the foundations that led me to get ensnared in pornography in my teenage years.

Hence, we need wholeness (as mentioned in the previous post) so we can model this wholeness to our children.

But what does wholeness in our sexuality look like?

As we shall see throughout this course, our God’s divine nature is made known through created things:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Rom 1:20a)

And since out of all of creation we are singularly made in the image of God:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27)

Our sexuality, especially within the context of marriage, is actually a prophetic declaration about the nature of our three-in-one God.

So if we want to to know what our sexuality should look like we need to take time to understand the nature of the God whom we are imaging.  An overview (as represented in our icon) is that:

  • godly-sexuality-3-transpare

    Three-One-Love

    God is a community of three distinct persons (Father, Son and Spirit) and so a marriage is a community of 3 distinct persons (man, woman and Spirit).

  • God is also one (Jn 17:21-23) and so man and woman (as physical spirit beings) are designed to become “one flesh” in marriage.
  • God is love (1 Jn 4:8) – the Father (the lover) eternally loving the Son (the beloved) by the Spirit (Jn 17:24) and then the Son loves the Father back (Jn 14:31).  In the same way the man (the lover) is to created love the woman (the beloved) by the Spirit and then the woman loves the man back.

For this post we’re just going to briefly look at the third aspect: husbands you need to love your wives like the Father loves the Son (Jn 17:24) and like the Son then loves His Bride (Eph 5:25).

“One of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”  (Howard W. Hunter)

And wives need to receive this love and then love their husbands back.

How can we do this in a way that our children see it clearly?  Gary Chapman in his excellent book speaks of 5 love languages: physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service and gifts (or for those who like alliteration: touch, time, talk, tasks and tokens).

Let’s look briefly at each of these in turn:

First we need to show physical affection in front of the children – by modelling this they will see this as a natural expression of love (and not something that they only see in a lustful context such as on MTV or late night telly).  So I make an effort (well most of the time it’s not) to kiss my wife when I get in from work and to regularly cuddle her in front of the children.  And the children love it!  So much so that when I’m cuddling my wife I find one of my children popping up in the middle of our embrace!  Isn’t that godly?  Don’t we just delight in the love of God that we want to be part of it too?

“But I’m not a physical person!” you might cry.  Well that will change as we’re all becoming like Jesus who became flesh (Jn 1:14) and then showed love in a physical way.  For example he touched the unclean leper (Mt 8:13) , he held the children in his arms as he blessed them (Mk 10:16) and at the last supper he had the disciple John leaning in his bosom (Jn 13:23 NKJV).  If you are struggling, then ask for prayer for the Spirit to highlight the issues (which is often due lack of affection received growing up or abuse) and receive the Father’s embrace and healing in those areas.

Secondly we need our children see us taking our spouse out on a date.  Even better involve them in the planning.  If money is tight then our children need to know that we have special mummy/daddy time on certain nights.  The disciples saw Jesus spending time with the Father and this led them to cry out “teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1) they saw something in the intimacy that made them want to experience this too.

Thirdly, we need to say how much we love our spouse and affirm them in front of the children.  So as I struggle with cooking and directions I regularly say to the children things like “I’m so glad I married your mummy as otherwise we’d be eating oven food every night” or when driving “thank you so much for map reading as I would be lost without you”.  The disciples saw the Father affirming His Son when He declared “This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him!” (Mk 9:7).

Fourthly, we need our children to see us serving our spouse.  So my wife loves a tidy house so the children often hear me say “I’m just going to tidy this up as I love your mummy and your mummy likes it tidy”.  I want to model to them that this is one way we show love – not just the “easy” gifts and physical affection.  In the same way Jesus demonstrated His love for the Father by being obedient to Him (Jn 14:31).

Finally, we need our children to see us buying gifts for our spouse.  So when I’m doing the weekly shop with my children they often see me buy a little something for mummy as she would love it.  In the Trinity we see that the whole world was an extravagant gift to Jesus “all things have been created through him and for him” (Col 1:16b)

With any list like this the danger is that we can see it as something we must strive to achieve – but that’s living under law whereas we live under grace (Eph 2:8-9).  We love because he first loved us (1 Jn 4:19) – so we need to receive the Father’s love for us, receive His Spirit of love (Rom 5:5; Gal 5:22) so that love just flows out of us .  Trying harder will just lead to resentment or discouragement.  Receiving the Father’s love will lead to rivers flowing out of our heart (Jn 7:38 NKJV).  Spend time letting him love you – just rest in His presence and listen to Him sing songs of love over you – it’ll be time well spent and your spouse will notice the difference.

Father, thank you that you love me.  Thank you that you’re loving me right now.  I receive Your love now.  Fill up all the dark areas of my heart with your love.  Let me know how You rejoice over me with singing.  Let me know how You delight in me, that You are proud of me.  Let me know that nothing I have done can separate me from Your unfailing love.  Let me know that You have plans and purposes for me to prosper me and give me hope and a future.

Firm Foundations: Teach your children godly sexuality (part 2)

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godly sexuality The temptation with any course is to rush in with methods and “3 step plans”.

But there’s no point trying to build something on faulty foundations.

If we do, then there will be no lasting change – it’ll just be words that ring hollow with your children.

So we are going to focus first on building firm foundations…

  • …in your heart (dealing with our inheritance)
  • …in your marriage (modelling sexuality)
  • …with your children (godly parenting).

Building firm foundations in your heart (dealing with our inheritance)

It’s hard to pass on wholeness if you’re not whole yourself.

For example, my wife first discovered my fear of spiders on our wedding night.  We booked into this beautiful hotel (Bath Lodge Castle) and when I went for a shower I discovered this huge hairy spider staring up at me.  I screamed and asked my wife to remove it.  She was unimpressed, but fortunately for me she did.

I knew when we had children that I didn’t want them to receive this fear from me, so I asked God to help me not to pass this onto them.  So I used to go out of my way to point out spiders to my first child and pick them up for her to touch (with much internal prayer happening!).  On one occasion the spider decided to climb up my arm very quickly and I said to my daughter, as calmly as I could manage, “oh where has the spider gone” and she replied nonchalantly “he’s climbing up your back daddy!” Oh the terror and gymnastics that I performed that moment!

Similarly I don’t want to pass on any messed-up-ness in how I view sexuality onto them – I want them to be whole so they don’t fall into the errors I did.

We’ve all received some inheritance from our earthly family or our church family and it’s good to reflect on this and recognise its effects on us – whether good or bad.

To help you with this will be asking some questions for you to answer personally throughout these sessions to help you reflect and then bring them into God’s grace.

I would encourage you to seek prayer from others so that God can transform you and bring beauty from ashes.  You are welcome to post thoughts and prayer requests here or on our social media streams or use the contact form on our website.

Again to ensure a safe place I ask that you respect each of our journeys and remember when responding to any comments that we are all children of the same heavenly father and are only saved by grace.  And so I will only publish such comments that adhere to these guidelines.

Questions:

Where did you first hear about sex?

What feeling do you associate with that memory?

Why?