I remember the day like it was yesterday.  My wife stopped me dead in my tracks with one simple thought.  “Do you think we are doing everything right with our kids?” she asked.  “No” was the obvious answer. “Do you think we have been able to consistently do all that we are teaching other parents to do?” she continued.  Again, the answer was obvious. “Not perfectly by any means,” I had to admit. “Then what right do we have to teach others principles we have not entirely captured ourselves?”  Well, that was a Kodak moment, to be sure.  I hate it when she does that.  “Let me get back to you on that,” I stalled.  I could see that this had to be settled and settled quickly lest she become discouraged in her work as a mom and as a teacher in her ministry to younger women.

     This, no doubt, is a question that we all have to deal with as parents at some level.  What if we mess up?  What if we damage our kids for life?  The real danger arises in the fact that fear of failure can cause us to abandon the Word of God and opt for “current wisdom” concluding the Scriptures to be outdated, antiquated, or just inadequate.  Couple that with some very prominent and trusted Christian authors concluding that there is no one biblical model for parenting, or that there are no guarantees that your child will turn out right in the end.  Such conclusions come from the integration of secular psychology into mainstream Christianity.  They are the result of the study of human behavior and not the study of God’s Word.  Though I have learned much over the years studying human behavior, I have been very careful to allow the Word of God to interpret what I observed.  You see, Psychology can only describe human behavior, reactions, and responses.  Theology, the Bible, defines human behavior. It tells you what you are really seeing and what to do about it.

     So are we disqualified as parents if we fail to do everything right?  Should we stop teaching principles of parenting until we have been able to capture with skill each area of parenting?  I returned to my wife with a couple of questions of my own. “Do you think we are working diligently to comprehend and capture the heart of God in our parenting?  Do you believe that we are better parents today than we were when we began this journey?”  She answered both with a confident “yes”.  “Then should the people of God to whom He has called us to minister have to wait until we are perfect before they get a look at the principles that we know will help them to be successful parents?”  Your journey into the world of parenting should be prefaced by at least two undeniable facts.  There are no perfect parents and there are no perfect families.

No Perfect Parents

     The message of the bible is not that God takes great people and uses them to do wonderful and marvelous things.  It is about God taking those who have no hope and by His grace giving them new hope, new life, a new future, and a purpose for living.  God is not looking for the heroes of the world.  He much prefers the blind, the lame, the poor, and the inept.1 He’s not looking for the perfect parent.  He’s looking for teachable parents that are willing to grow and mature as they go. We all have a past:  things we wish we’d done differently or never done at all.  There are failures, foolish mistakes, and moments of folly we would just like to forget.  Yet there is one fact we must never forget.  No matter what we have done or how foolishly we have acted, God has chosen us to train the child or children He has given us. 

     The thirty-first chapter of Proverbs has been a thorn in the side of many women for years.  This seemingly mythical woman is just too good to be true.  She conveys wisdom to her son concerning wine, women, and wealth.  She skillfully trains her daughters and other young women, runs a superior household and home business, is key to her husband’s success, and her children rise up and sing her praises.  Who is this wonderful woman?  Would you be surprised if I told you her first marriage ended with the murder of her husband to cover up an illegitimate pregnancy from an extramarital affair she had? 

     Authorship of this chapter of Proverbs is credited to King Lemuel.  History provides no clear clue as to who this king might have been nor does the Scripture.  However, the Talmud2, a Hebrew commentary on the Law, very clearly designates Lemuel as a pet name given to King Solomon by his mother, Bathsheba. She may have had a shaky start, but she certainly finished well.

     The Bible is full of people who had a past, yet God chose to show Himself strong by delivering them from that past and using them mightily for His purposes. So what’s in your past that has the potential of intimidating you out of God’s purposes and blessings concerning your role as a parent to your children?  Promiscuity?  Impure Habits?  Addictions?  Adultery?  Failed marriage(s)?  It matters not.  Jesus Christ stands ready to give you your life back and equip and empower you to parent beyond human capability.  God uses imperfect parents.  In fact, I believe God gave you your children as part of His plan to lift you up above your past and challenge you to great things that He has planned for you in the future. 

     I heard author and conference speaker Jack Taylor, say once, “God didn’t give you your children for what you can do for them.  He gave you your children for what they can do for you.” What if that’s true?  What if there’s a much larger picture to be seen and embraced?  What if parenthood is as much about your growth and maturity as a child of God as it is about the growth and maturity of the child? What if your past and present weaknesses and failures are the very things that uniquely qualify you to be a great parent to your unique and divinely designed child? I believe that we all are still clay in the Potter’s hands and children are but drops of moisture from heaven that keep the clay soft as the Master molds and shapes vessels of honor both in our lives and the lives of our children.

No Perfect Families

      I am very grieved when I see or hear a Christian declare that there are no guarantees when it comes to parenting.  I think I understand why it happens, but it still grieves me.  I believe it happens for several reasons, the foremost being that innate human need to explain every detail of life, even those things that are clearly beyond our comprehension.  Another reason is based on our misunderstanding of what family is all about. The world sells us a picture of the ideal family as one that is happy and trouble free.  Mom and dad have a great obstacle free, deeply intimate marriage and the kids are all polite and obedient, never fight, and rush home after school to do their homework.  The trouble is that this family does not exist.  It doesn’t exist in the Scripture and it doesn’t exist in the real world. Take a moment and recall the families you know about in the Bible.  There was the “once perfect” family of Adam and Eve, but one of their kids killed the other one.  Isaac and Rebekah come to mind.  They had a great love story of a marriage and God gave them two sons as an answer to prayer.  But that turned into the sibling rivalry of the century with one son stealing the inheritance of the other, and the other son trying to kill him for taking it.3 There was Jacob and Rachel.  But no, they won’t do because eventually the older boys got together and sold their little brother to the gypsies.4   How about King David?  Not even close.  One of his sons raped his half-sister and then was killed by her brother who eventually went on to challenge David for the throne.5 The New Testament doesn’t get any better.  Even in the earthly family of Christ there seems to be conflict as James rejects Jesus and is strangely absent from the crucifixion.  Apparently, there was so much tension that Jesus felt the need to give the care of His mother to John before He died.6  My point is simply this. Just as there are no perfect parents, there are no perfect families. 

     The message of the bible is not that we get saved and then somehow lead a perfect, trouble free life.  God is not looking for the perfect family that somehow lives in a state of utopia where moms and dads never have conflict and children are always well behaved and obedient.  The message of the Gospel is that God is weaving a beautiful tapestry of forgiveness, reconciliation, restoration, and redemption in the lives of His people.  The power of God is not demonstrated in a trouble free world that is somehow void of adversity and difficulty.  Christian families have problems.  Christian children make foolish, immature, and rebellious decisions as they battle the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Christian parents suffer and cry.  Good parents sometimes have difficult kids, while terrible parents sometimes seem to get easy ones. 

     However, the power of God is not often best displayed by the absence of adversity. It is demonstrated and displayed most powerfully when parents walk through the trials of life teaching their children eternal Truth and facing all of life with God’s wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.7 And as this is done the promise of God is that, though they may struggle with the issues of life, when properly trained a child will ultimately return to the way he knows best. Our problem as parents, therefore, is not whether or not we are perfect in every way or whether or not God will honor His promise to preserve the child.  Our problem as parents lies in whether or not we are willing to seek God for wisdom and then skillfully pass it on to our children as we face together the issues of life in a fallen world.

     A good flight instructor will teach his students the correct way to perform all the maneuvers necessary to fly the aircraft successfully.  Once they have demonstrated proficiency in the aspects of basic flight, he then will rarely allow them to take off or land without introducing a distraction or malfunction into the flight.  Why?  Because he understands that even a perfect pilot, if there was one, flies in a hostile and imperfect world.  Weather changes. Turbulence is ever present. Aircraft have malfunctions.  Passengers provide distractions.  Air Traffic Controllers are human and other pilots make mistakes in your airspace.  How he handles those situations will determine how successful he is as pilot a lot more than how level his wings are in still air.  Likewise our real Christian maturity and character is developed far more as we face the trials of life than when everything is going our way. By the way, a non-Christian world couldn’t care less about you when things are good; what they want to know is how we fare when things don’t go well. And the Gospel is preached ever so loudly when Christian parents honor God and see their difficult children ultimately rise to dynamic levels of faith and character.

The Promises of God

     Just as there are promises concerning other areas of the Christian life, so also are there promises when it comes to child training.  There are promises of blessings for the conscientious parents and there are promises of judgment for the negligent parents.  It’s not that God is cursing parents, but there are natural consequences that come to parents as the result of our failure to properly train our children.  First, let’s look at the blessings:

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, and he who begets a wise child will delight in him. Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her who bore you rejoice. Proverbs 23:24, 25

     This is just one verse of Scripture among many we could examine that lists the blessings intended for parents who are faithful to God and their children. First, there is joy. One of the greatest joys on earth for parents is to see our kids embrace our faith and take Jesus Christ to be their own personal Lord and Savior.  Just behind that experience is the first time you see them confronted with temptation and successfully resist it or hear them choose to take a righteous stand over sin and folly. Next we see delight.  I can truthfully say that our children have always been a delight to be around. They have been a delight to us and to those around us.  On more than one occasion we have been approached in restaurants and other public places and complimented on their respectfulness and behavior. I’d never try to make you think that there were not trying times in the beginning, but we were able to quickly train them to behave acceptably in public, and that’s sheer delight! Finally, we see gladness. When it comes to parenting I guess true gladness comes when you are done with your training, you graduate to counselor and advisor, and you see them marry with wisdom establishing a Christian home for themselves and their new family. 

     Everyone dreams of doing well, being the hero.  For guys it’s hitting a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs to win game seven of the World Series.  The only problem with that is in order to be in a position to do that, you also must be in a position to strike out and lose the game.  And so it is with your parenting efforts.  If we fail to honor God and skillfully parent our children to maturity, there are natural consequences that are as inevitable as taxes and death.  Here are a few verses we dare not overlook.

“A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother...”  Proverbs 10:1

“He who begets a scoffer does so to his sorrow, and the father of a fool has no joy.”  Proverbs 17:21

“The rod and rebuke give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” Proverbs 29:15

     A rebellious, out of control child is anything but delightful. These passages speak of grief, sorrow, a lack of joy, and even shame.  Those who have known what it’s like to have a child that was given to foolish and grievous behavior as a lifestyle are no strangers to these feelings.

     I would quickly add, however, that even the best parents are not exempt from periods of time when they might experience such feelings.  But faith and comfort comes in knowing that you have honored God’s model and these behaviors are temporary as the child works through the bondages of his own flesh with your sincere prayers, skilled training, and patient help.  Only God knows how deep some of those bondages run and what it will take for the youngster to experience victory over them.  More about that later as we discuss the strong-willed and difficult child.

 
The Authority of Parents

     God intends for children to honor and obey their parents.  This is a command:

“Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.”     Colossians 3:12

     Parents clearly are to bring their children under control and to expect obedience, instant obedience.  Therefore, God gives parents the authority to control and train their children and He expects them to do so.8 One of the purposes for which God establishes government rule is to protect and stand behind parental authority over their children. “Cursed be he that dishonors his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.”  Deuteronomy 27:16 NIV   And in most locations, when discipline is righteously administered, it still does. In fact, I have actually walked through investigations with parents who were questioned by government authorities about the biblical discipline of their children.  Every family I have personal knowledge of was eventually cleared and was able to continue with the blessings of local authorities. Despite the agendas of some ungodly groups few courts in our country will interfere with parents’ sober efforts to train their children.  Family court judges know too well that the ones they eventually send to jail are those looking for discipline and love, not the ones who had it.

     Even some of our Christian psychiatrists and psychologists are telling us that rebellion is normal in the teen years.  It may be the norm for society, but God never intended it to be the norm for His people. In the Old Testament there were very precise instructions for parents that had a rebellious son.  If he failed to respond with honor and respect after they had chastened him, the stubborn boy was to be presented to the elders of the city who were to stone him to death.9 We, of course, would not advocate that action today any more than God would require it today.  But I doubt that more than one teen was stoned in each city.  The point being that though foolishness (rebellion) is born in the heart of every child, it can be successfully overcome and removed.10

The Principles of Authority

     After a Parenting With Purpose conference in Colorado Springs, I received a letter from a genuinely concerned young couple.  Their child had just started Kindergarten and had come home with a rebellious attitude.  When told to clean up his room, he promptly informed his parents that his teacher had told him that no one had the right to order him to do anything.  He was further instructed to inform her if anyone tried to or if he was disciplined for refusing to obey demands placed upon him.  I know what you might be thinking, but the parents had confirmed that this was indeed the instructions of the teacher.11

     You will recall from the introduction of this book that we are in a battle with the Enemy for truth.  One of the greatest lies perpetrated on Christian parents is that you do not have the right or authority to demand the obedience of your children.  However, nothing could be further from the truth.  The ultimate authority is God, and God has given parents the authority to rule over their children

     Jehovah God, our God, is the sole sovereign God of the universe.  Beside Him there is none other.12  In Him there lies all authority. He rules and reigns alone.13  All authority comes from God, and there is no authority but that it was given by God.  “Let every soul be subject unto the higher power.  For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained by God.”  Romans 13:1

     No one understood this better than did the Lord Jesus, Himself.  During His trial before Pilate Jesus remained silent as false charges were leveled by His accusers.14 Pilate attempted to question Him, but Jesus said nothing in His own defense.  The Roman Governor then confronted Him saying, “Why do you not answer me? Do you not know that I have the authority to release you or to crucify you?”  Christ then explained to him that he had no authority but that which was given to him by God.  Much to the angry pontiff’s frustration, ultimately there really was nothing he could do that wasn’t allowed by God the Father.  Even Pilate’s decision to allow Christ to be crucified, as horrible as it seemed at the time, was the perfect will of God the Father.

     Our authority, as parents, comes from God.  It is given to us by God and is to be usurped by no one, so long as we remain within its biblical parameters.  Consequently, children are to obey their parents.  God says so.  “Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Ephesians 6:2 Parents must understand that God has given them the right and privilege to demand and expect obedience from their children.  Not only that, this obedience is to be instant obedience, total obedience, complete obedience, and obedience without back-talk.

The Accountability of Parents

     With privilege comes responsibility and with authority comes accountability.  Parents are accountable to God for the way they use their authority, and earthly authority is given for the purpose of serving others.  Parental authority is given so that parents might be able to provide their children with leadership, structure and training that will ensure that all the blessings of God become reality in their lives.  We serve our children by providing for them the things they need to walk in the abundant life Jesus came to give us all.  And God holds us accountable to see that it is done.  As we have already seen, judgment will fall upon those who neglect the God given tasks of parenthood.  (See 1 Samuel 3:10-15)

The Responsibility of Parents

     Not only are parents accountable as to how they use their authority, but they are also responsible before God to train their children in the ways of God.  A parent that cowers to the worldly philosophy that children should be allowed to decide the way that they should go is irresponsible and will suffer great consequences.  We are charged by God through the Word of God to point our children like a bullet toward a target or an arrow to its mark the way they should go.  “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 And that way is to “. . . love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”  Matthew 22:37  More than acquiring academic or athletic skills, more than gaining career skills, more than gaining great knowledge or recognition, we are to train them in the ways of God and lead them in developing and maintaining Godly character as the result of a heart for Christ.  This certainly would include careful screening of those to whom we delegate portions of our child’s training and the screening of those influences from outside the home that could potentially harm our children.  “Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs not from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.” Ephesians 4:1 


​Footnotes
1. Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’” Luke 14:16-24

2. TALMUD:  Jewish commentaries on the Law of Moses. Talmud means, “study” or “learning” and refers in rabbinic Judaism to the opinions and teachings that disciples learn from their predecessors particularly with regard to the development of oral legal teachings. The word Talmud is most commonly used in Judaism to refer specifically to the digest of commentary on the Mishnah. The Mishnah is an organized recording of oral legal teachings on the written law of Moses.

3. See Genesis 25

4. See Genesis 37.  Actually they were Ishmaelites but that was as close to gypsies as they could find.

5. See 2 Samuel 13

6. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!”
Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.  John 19:25-27


7. Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. Proverbs 24:3


8. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9

9. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city . . . then all the men of his city shall stone him to death. Deuteronomy 21:18

10. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him.  Proverbs 22:15

11. This school of thought is the heart of Freudian Psychology and believes that we cannot develop to our full potential if we are restricted or conflicted by the environment around us. There will be more discussion on this in Chapter 2.

12. To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him. Deuteronomy 4:35

13. For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. Psalm 47:2

14. Then Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?” Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above." John 19:10-11     

​​​​​Perfect Parents Prohibited

No one can, without renouncing the
world in the most literal sense,
observe my method, and there are few,
if any, who would devote entirely
above twenty years of the prime of
life in hope to save the souls
of their children when they think they may
be saved without so much ado.
For that was my principle intention.

Suzanna Wesley​

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