Transcript
It seems to me transformative -- when you think about parenting -- to understand that my kids don't first, have a law problem. They have an awe problem that produces a law problem. Think of The Ten Commandments. What does it begin with? It begins with the worship of God. It gets with a heart that's ruled by God because if that doesn't happen, you won't keep the rest of the commands.
Disobedience Is the Breaking of Relationship
So in a in a real way, disobedience is not first, the breaking of abstract rules. Disobedience is the breaking of relationship. It's walking away from that relationship of awe and because of my awe of joyful submission to the authority of someone else, that's the heart of my children's struggle.
Every child comes into the world believing two lies: the lie of autonomy and the lie of self-sufficiency. The lie of autonomy says, "I'm an independent human being and I can live my life the way I want to." That's why children don't like authority. The lie of self-sufficiency says, "I have everything inside of myself to be what I'm supposed to be and to do what I'm supposed to do. I don't need your help. Thank you."
I mean, you see that with a little child who's just learning to tie a shoe. He's realized his shoes have laces and he doesn't have a clue how to make a bow. And so, he starts fumbling with his laces -- some of you experience this -- and you put your hand down to help him, what does he do? He slaps your hand away because he wants to believe that he's self-sufficient.
And so, it means then that the heart of parenting cannot just be the enforcing of law. I cannot be satisfied with just being a law-giver, a prosecutor, and a jailer. I mean, for many Christian parents, that's what their parenting is reduced to. They think that means being a good Christian parent and my children do need law because the law reveals sin, and the law gives a guide for life; but the law has no power to provide the rescue my children need from themselves.
Born as Little Self-Sovereigns
They're born into the world as little self-sovereigns. They're born as idolaters. You need to look at your children and say, "These are little worshipers. They're already giving this capacity of awe to something in their lives and they desperately need the rescue of God's grace," and so, the whole thing that I'm trying to do with my children is bring them to that point where they begin to cry out for the rescuing grace of God because no matter how righteously I act toward my children, if they don't transact with God, they won't be okay.
I mean, if all you do is enforce law and your children learn they have to submit to that law or they get punished, when they go off to university, they have nothing because that deeper transformation hasn't happened in their lives. I just find that begins to transform the way I want to talk to my children in little moments. I'm not going to say to them, "Do you know what my day's been like? Do you know what I do for you," or, "You're going to talk to me? Look how big I am and look how small you are." Where do you think that's going to go? At those moments, what are your children going to say? "Wow, this is helpful. This is a very wise person. That person is really helping me to understand myself. I think I'm seeing my heart."
I don't think that's what that child is thinking at that moment because we walk in, we're all law, we're no grace and we're trying to threaten this kid into righteousness. Well, if you could threaten your child into righteousness, Jesus would have never come. It doesn't work and so, I think again, this topic that we're talking about, one of the things that makes me sad that we don't talk about it more is I think there's so many places that we live everyday that it has the power to transform.
