Overlooked Aspects of Aiming Our Children

by Matthew Chapman

 

 

There is nothing that blesses the heart of a parent more than seeing their children come into their own relationship with the Lord Jesus and grow to become well-functioning members of His body. By the same token, there is nothing that grieves the heart of a parent more than to see their children become lukewarm and indifferent to the Lord, rendering themselves useless vessels with regard to His service. Obviously, our children will grow and mature to become those who make their own choices in life for which they themselves are accountable. But we as parents have the opportunity to aim them, the "arrows" of our "quiver" (Ps. 127:3-5), while we have them in our training, before launching them into full adulthood, in ways that lay the best foundation for their coming forth in the Lord.

When considering "training them up in the way they should go," especially with regard to serving the Lord and His kingdom in view, there are a number of aspects of "the way they should go" that are often overlooked entirely (Prov. 22:6). You can be faithful to teach your children the scriptures, personal responsibility, modesty, hard work, good character qualities, etc., and still miss the most important elements of preparing them to become "a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work" (2 Tim. 2:19-22). I would like to look at three aspects of aiming our children that, in my observation, are the most commonly neglected, undervalued, and overlooked, while, amazingly, they are the ones that, in many ways, are the most necessary.

Knowing the Lord Himself
Christians in our day are quite accustomed to not relating to God. They traffic in all kinds of knowledge and information about God, and busy themselves in all types of activities and programs, and yet regular, ongoing interaction with Him, The Person, and thus truly getting to know Him, The Person, is a very scarce commodity. As shocking or extreme as this statement may sound initially, allow me to risk being [further] branded a heretic by driving home this point in a most pointed way. Probably the greatest emphasis given to Christians on a regular and repeated basis-which subtly communicates that this is the most important thing-is to know the scriptures. We are constantly exhorted and admonished along these lines, aren't we? And who would dare argue with this? Isn't it good to know the scriptures? Yes! Isn't this a major priority? Of course it is, but, even so, it is secondary at best to knowing Jesus, The Person. He said:

Jesus clearly differentiates here between "searching the scriptures" and coming to Him, The Person, and makes it clear that knowing Him is in personal relating (see also Rev. 3:20). I believe that in our day and time this distinction has been underemphasized and blurred to the point that "searching the scriptures" has become synonymous with "coming to Jesus Himself," and thus those who really know the book are assumed to really know the Lord as well. If we are going to aim our children well, we must, by word and example, clearly differentiate between the two like Jesus does, and put the premium upon coming to the Lord Himself and knowing and personally relating to Him, The Person.

One primary fruit of overlooking the need to know the Lord personally in lieu of knowing the scriptures is that the acquisition and "implementation" of "biblical principles" has become the pinnacle of Christian experience and endeavor. Many Christians teachers and their followers have so "searched the scriptures" and extracted "principles" from them-the steps 1, 2, and 3, with sub-points a, b, and c, for what to do and think about everything-that they have worked themselves into a place of having no real need for a relationship with God Himself. Obviously they would never rationally think this, but, in practice, they have so amassed a knowledge-base of "principles" that it is what dictates everything they do and think, and so they end up feeling like they have what they need (and that it's from God) which, in turn, subtly diminishes any awareness of their need to seek the Lord and walk by the Spirit (The Person, Rom. 8:1-8), let alone really get to know Him. Tragically, these folks-among whom are many sincere lambs who, in ignorance, don't know "the new and living way" in Jesus (Heb. 10:19-22)-mistake this very pursuit of principles and an ever-growing knowledge-base as knowing the Person when, in reality, they have bypassed investing the time it takes to know Him.

And one last zinger before I qualify what I have just said: Of those who have fallen into this trap, I have found one of the highest concentrations to be among Christians who homeschool (Gal. 1:10). Countless homeschooled children are not only taught biblical principles by their well-meaning parents as an end in itself (rather than as a springboard for coming to Him, The Person, for Life and knowing Him; John 5:39-40), but are also taken to conferences and put in programs that super-saturate them with principles and what gets neglected is the all-central relationship with God.

I love the scriptures. I read over them constantly and meditate on their meaning. I learned Greek in college to the point of being an A-student who translated large portions of scripture, studying to glean everything I could from the added "color" the words had in their original language. And I maintain these practices today. The folks where I live even jokingly call me "the walking concordance" because I usually know "chapter and verse" (or very close to it) of any particular passage they are looking for but cannot find. I ever seek to "study to show myself approved to God as a workman who. handles accurately the word of truth," and to incorporate into my life everything "profitable" from the scriptures (2 Tim. 2:15, 3:16-17). This is why, to the consternation of some, my articles are so "littered" with scripture references-I want help folks to get into the scriptures and see the things I write about for themselves. I also teach my children the scriptures and constantly refer to them in conversations we have about virtually anything.

So I am in no way minimizing the need to know the scriptures, especially in our day and time when there is so much error and deception propagated in God's Name. I am, however, trying to maximize the emphasis of "the surpassing value of knowing Him," the Lord Jesus, the Person of God (Phil. 3:7-15), and to point out how this has been largely neglected, underemphasized, and overlooked in lieu of knowing the scriptures. As Jesus said, the scriptures "bear witness" of Him, and so they can be an invaluable aid in our getting to know Him, but "coming to Him," the Person, is an entirely separate matter (John 5:39-40).

There are volumes of "dedicated" Christians who are outwardly upright and whose lives are seemingly all about the Lord and His church but in actuality, they do not know the Person. Like the chief priests and scribes during Jesus' days on earth, they can quote the scriptures, they can draw from their storehouse of biblical wisdom and tell you voluminous information about the Lord, and they may even be able to move in the supernatural or accurately tell you about prophetic events, but they do not know the Person (cf. Matt. 2:1-6, 7:21-23). How can anyone be qualified to effectively serve One whom they do not know? Obviously, they can't, at least not in ways that build with "gold, silver, and precious stones" (1 Cor. 3:10-17). And yet, even so, scores of people rush right on ahead to enter into "their ministry" and end up blindly leading another generation into the lifeless "ditch" of knowledge without relationship, information without intimacy, and dedication to a religious system instead of "holding fast to the Head" of the one living body of Christ (Matt. 15:12-14, Col. 2:18-19, Eph. 4:4). I know that some of these folks are completely sincere, and are trying to be faithful with the light they have. Nevertheless, they are operating upon a flawed foundation that they don't [yet] know is flawed, and seed always produces "after its kind" as evidenced by the poor spiritual condition that you generally see among Christians today.

Jesus gave us the one and only unambiguous, definitive definition of eternal life in the scriptures:

There is only one way to get to truly know someone and that is by spending time with them over a lengthy period of time. Allow me a ludicrous example. God forbid, but imagine if eternal life was knowing Matthew Chapman. People could read books and articles about me, they could watch people's home videos in which I appear, and they could even interview people who have known me in the past or know me presently and glean from what they have to say. They could read my articles and even listen to my teaching tapes and extract every bit of personal information about me that is possible. They could use all these means to learn my history, my stories, mimic my Southern accent, and figure out my tastes and preferences. They could even hold Matthew Chapman conventions and publish periodicals that gave the latest, most cutting-edge insights about me. But at best, all these folks would only know about me-they would not truly know me, the person. I'm sure I would often be greatly amused, if not deeply grieved, at the confident declarations made by people who had spent little, if any, time with me about who I am and what I think about this or that. In the end, only those with whom I had spent loads of time could honestly make the claim of knowing me as opposed to the rest who merely knew about me.

Well, it is no different with the Lord. We forget He is a Person-not a book, not a building, not a "service," not a system, not a body of knowledge, not a list of rules, not a code of conformity, not a labyrinth of principles to be juggled and balanced, etc. And there is only one way to truly know Him, and that is by much unhurried time spent before Him, waiting upon Him, attuning "the ears of your heart" to His voice, and becoming wholly sensitized to the leadings of His Spirit (Rom. 8:14). This is "the better part," the "really only one thing necessary" that disciples with a heart like Mary choose which, Jesus said, will not be taken away (Luke 10:38-42; cf. Matt. 7:19-23, 25:28-30).

Knowing the Lord Himself, the Person, should be esteemed above all else (Jer. 9:23-24). If this is the overriding quest of our heart, then all the other falls into its rightful and proper place, including diligent study and searching of the scriptures. And when it comes to then functioning in the body of Christ and serving the Lord, those who know the Lord and are ever seeking to know Him more are "like ducks to water." They will need to be constantly honed and refined like everyone else, but they will speak and act from the One they know, which will impart Life, power, and profound yet simple wisdom to the recipient.

So how can we aim our children toward knowing Him? First and foremost by our own example-we cannot give away something we do not have ourselves. If the way you live before your family consistently places the premium upon knowing the Lord and having a personal walk with Him, and they consistently taste of His life in you, then your children will likely follow you to the Source of Life-the Lord Himself (John 5:26, 39-40). Aiming our children toward knowing the Lord personally can also be aided by parents, and especially we fathers, making ourselves very accessible and knowable to our children in ways that encourage open, vulnerable, and ongoing heart-intimacy, connectedness, and communication. If our children are able to do this well with us, they will most naturally transition into so knowing and living with The Father (1 Cor. 15:46).

Read and teach the scriptures to your children in such a way that it directs them to the Lord Himself, as opposed to merely loading them up with doctrinal truths and cause & effect wisdom. When you are reading along together and come to passages like, for example, "I am the Bread of Life" or "to Him who loves us and released us from our sins" (John 6:48, Rev. 1:5), invite your children to stop and gaze at the Lord with you and take in who He is and what He is like and what He has done for us. Begin thanking Him for being the true food that He is, and for loving us, and for having released us from our sins which are so great. Begin telling Him how much you love Him too, and why. Ask your children if they want to tell Him what is on their heart. You'll be amazed and very blessed to see them touch and be touched by the Lord when you make a place for it.

Lastly, never require your children to know the Lord. Requirement is the killer of true desire. Instead, bring your little ones into your relationship with the Lord and let them be with you in your relating to Him (prayer, worship, sharing, teaching-all in daily life, and including with other saints). They will learn loads in the process, but it will come by being with you in your being with Him, not by prodding them to be spiritual. Allow them the room to develop their own thirst and hunger for the Lord (Rev. 21:6, 22:17, et al.). As they grow older, ask them lots of open-ended conversational questions about their experiences with and understanding of the Lord, and take advantage of the opportunities this opens up to encourage them further. Ask for their input as you look at the scriptures together and their perceptions of things that are shared in saints' gatherings. Invite them to pray with you. But never require these things. To do so will only invite performance, quench any real desire they have for Him, and ultimately drive their hearts away from the Lord.

Brokenness and true humility
Anyone who hopes to be of any real substance and weight in the kingdom of God, and who desires to be useful to Him as a servant, must be broken. Brokenness only comes when, in the impartial exposing light of God, we face the utter ugliness and sinfulness of our flesh in specific areas we have been walking in, and have godly sorrow over it while simultaneously taking in His love and forgiveness. Going through this leaves you devastated and drained of confidence in your flesh, and yet sober and at peace with God. And anyone who hopes to have depth in God, and go deeper still, must be broken again and again. No one ever gets fully broken and then it's all over and you put it behind you, dust off, and go on your way in life having checked this off of your list. It is an ongoing process as long as we are in this life.

Aiming our children in a way that prepares them for God's service must include our helping them in the area of brokenness. We must be the light that helps them to see the ugliness of their sin. We must help bring them to true brokenness and sorrow over it for the right reasons (i.e., not sad merely because they got caught or are in trouble). And we must do this all while communicating our embrace of them even though what they did was so grievous.

My five-year-old son recently snuck into the girls' room and took one of his seven-year-old sister's Susan B. Anthony one dollar coins. Shortly thereafter she discovered it missing and was quite sad and disappointed. She asked him if he knew anything about it and he said that he didn't. She then went to where her mother was in the kitchen/living room area even began crying about the loss of this particular coin while telling her about it. My five-year-old son was in there with them and heard all of this and saw her tears and sadness, but said nothing.

I was passing through and stopped and asked what was wrong. She told all me about her lost coin. Before she finished, my son, apparently thinking he better do something before getting caught, walked over to the baby's highchair, squatted down behind it, and said, "Oh look! I found her lost coin! It was just sitting back there on the floor!" and he then ran over to give it back to her. This was quite an extraordinary stunt, even for this particular son.

Needless to say, I immediately confronted him with what he had so obviously done, and he began to cry as he owned the truth. Now it was good that he had got caught, it was good that he confessed, and it was good that he gave the coin back to his sister. I could have simply meted out a spanking and/or a discipline and let that be the end of it, but I would have missed a critical opportunity to fully bring his heart to brokenness and get it back with mine.

I actually did give him both a spanking and several disciplines, but more importantly, I got his heart. I helped him see the greed in his heart that led him to steal the coin from his sister and then lie about it both to her and even us, his parents. I helped his see the deceitfulness of putting on that charade about finding the coin behind the highchair, and how doing things like that and telling lies undermines his integrity and people's trust in his truthfulness. And the clincher was helping him see how, while that was going on, he was loving that $1 coin more than his sister, and was so hardened in his heart over wanting that coin for himself that he could stand by, see her pain, watch her cry, and say nothing. I helped him get in touch with how hurtful this was to his sister. When I could tell it was sinking in, I then asked him how he would feel if someone did all of that to him, and he broke and cried and told me how much he wouldn't like that and how sorry he was for doing it to his sister. After holding him for a while, he left my lap and that conversation a changed boy.

Now do I think for a moment that this is the end of it and he'll never ever do anything like that again? No way. He's a boy in training. But going beyond the quick fix of mere chastisement for disobedience, I helped him see what was behind his conduct-where he went astray in his heart, and how ugly and horrible his motives and choices were. And as he saw it and was truly grieved over it, I held him in my arms and he took in my love. Taking the time to go through this not only took care or a real situation in my home that day, but added an ever important installment toward aiming my son toward walking with the Lord in humility and brokenness. And the older they get, the more important it is to stay on top of this as it is needed, so you don't have an "independent, premature arrow launch." The way you finish training them while they are under you is just as critical as the way you begin and work them through the middle.

We need to see from our Father where we "go astray in our heart," don't we? And He is very faithful to show us if we are fully submitting to and being trained by His discipline (Heb. 12:5-13). In like manner, we need to help our children see where they go astray in their heart too. What I am talking about is not heaping guilt upon them, which has a condemning and rejecting edge to it. Nor am I talking about making a "federal case" and dissecting every little incident down to the molecular level. I'm referring to being a loving light to your children and talking a matter through with them until they honestly see it for what it is and are then, on their own, grieved by it. You want to always go to the heart of the matter. You can be consistent in discipline and faithful in training and still not fully break their will and fully get their heart with yours. This takes additional work.

Sometimes brokenness comes quickly and sometimes you have to stay with it for a lengthier time, but the payoff for this investment in your children can be immense as it prepares (aims) them for life as a disciple of Jesus. Disciples aren't shallow people. Their whole life is about following the Lord Jesus and dealing with everything in their heart and life that gets in the way, and they do not run from the pain of having to face those hideous things in themselves when His loving light comes probing. Anything to make more room for Him. They are keenly aware that anything that is truly of the Lord is done/accomplished by grace through faith, and God only gives grace to the humble (Jas. 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:5). Humility of heart comes from fresh experiences of brokenness and learning to so live undone before the Lord. Amen. Well, we have the opportunity to so train up our disciples (children) in a way that, in its essence, does the same kind of work in their heart so as to later render them good useable "raw material" for the Master.

Life is about "listening under" and following
I realize that there is a certain overlap here with the previous points, but this covers an entirely different aspect. In the kingdom of God, we are all subject to the King of kings in everything, and it is a realm where "man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Eph. 1:22-23, 5:24; Matt. 4:4; John 4:34, 5:19, 5:30, 8:42, 12:49, 14:10; et al.). In order for us to prepare ("aim") our children for life in God, it is important that we too establish that, for them, all of life orbits around what we say and lead them to do, and their following submissively.

I teach my children from the time they are old enough to understand the concept that all of us are under (submitted to) someone and no one is exempt. I tell them that all of us are under the Lord, and as for the family, Daddy is submitted to Jesus' headship, Mama is submitted to Daddy's headship, and children are subject to their parents (1 Cor. 11:3, Eph. 5:22-6:3). When going through this with them, I usually include the fact that just as they would get a spanking or a discipline if they were to disobey me or their mother, so also Daddy and Mama get a spanking or a discipline when we disobey the Lord (Heb. 12:3-13). I think this is healthy. It links their life with us to life in the Lord and also subtly communicates that "we are all in the same boat" and what Daddy and Mama require of them is something that we too live before The Father.

It is no accident that the Greek word most often translated "obey" (or its derivative, "obedience") is hupakouo, which is a compound word that comes from the preposition hupo, which means "under," and the verb akouo, which means "to listen." The way Jesus related to the Father was that He constantly "listened under." Knowing this from the Greek, it is enlightening to know that Philippians 2:8 tells us that Jesus "humbled Himself by listening under to the point of death, even death on a cross." And in order to be conformed to His image, we too are to give ourselves wholly to "the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that we may listen under Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1:2). And the scriptures even spell it out for children: "Children listen under your parents in the Lord, for this is right" and, "Children, listen under to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord" (Eph. 6:1, Col. 3:20).

Parents, one of the greatest ways you can aim your children with eternity in the Lord in view is to make life in your home all about what you say. Train your children that they are to ever be listening to you, for they are under/subject to you, and that all of life goes on hold when you are speaking to them, instructing them, correcting them, leading them, etc. At that point in time, nothing on earth is more important than them listening to what you say and following with all their heart. For them not to pay attention is dishonoring and is evidence that their heart is not with yours (i.e., is not submitted)-isn't this the way it is with us and the Lord?!

All of this requires real, daily relating between the parents and the children, and the children having their hearts with their parents. If you look at the Lord, His way is always in personal relating too. We are to live "on every word that proceeds (present active tense; i.e. continual action) out of the mouth of God," and we express the reality that we are sons of God by our being led by the Spirit of God (Matt. 4:4, Rom. 8:14). This requires us to both "listen" and be "under" (submitted to and ready to follow) our Lord.

Unless you want your children to grow up to be good legalists, never make life about following rules. When you discipline them for disobedience, bring it back to where they departed from what you said, where they ceased to "listen under." Always make the issue about their rightly relating to you, having their heart with yours, and following what you said.


In closing, there are many things we can do to aim our children toward life in the Lord and being a useable vessel in His service. Some of those things are obvious, and some slip past us, including some of the most important ones. There are obviously more overlooked aspects to aiming our children than the three I have presented here, but so much rests upon these three when it comes to being "disciples of the kingdom" of God and our being wholeheartedly available for Him that I felt they warranted special mention. As I said earlier, you cannot give away something that your yourself do not have. If you need to begin acquiring these capacities in your own life, do so, in order that your parenting may be without hypocrisy. May the Lord help us all to so walk in Him and be able to likewise "train up our children in the way they should go."

 

 

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