Parenting by Faith

As a pastor and father of young children I have been cautioned by older and wiser pastors on the use of my children in sermons and teachings. I am about to use a story from my own family that I hope holds that caution in its correct place.

A few weeks ago I noticed a certain child of ours who was clearly upset with me. This child appeared short with me and somewhat disrespectful. At the first sign of these attitudes I ignored them, but I was not pleased. Later in the day I sensed some attitude again.

Now, as a parent of four kids eleven and under I have been down the path of “solving” this issue with no need of Jesus at all. I can handle a kid with a bad attitude. I can say, “What’s your problem?” “Get over it.” “Deal with it.” “You are not going to enjoy life in this house with an attitude like that” as well as anyone. I can send them straight to their room until they change “their attitude.” All of these responses have rolled off my tongue as if I’ve been practicing to perform them for years. They are natural to me when I am offended or angry.

But God has been humbling me lately. Because there are several areas of my life where I have been living as if “I got this” and I only need Jesus for that spiritual Bible stuff. God has been showing me how little control I have in life and through that He has been teaching me about how much control He has for all of life, and how I need him for everything.

What does that mean? It means I’ve been learning how fear, stress, frustration, discouragement and anxiety are actually invitations for me to pray and depend on God in the moment for what I need and want.

I decided not to engage with my child about their attitude in the moment, but instead to pray about it. Why? God convicted me in the moment that I was offended by their attitude and my discipline would not be done in love but anger and frustration. So what did I do? I just started to ask God for help with this kid in my mind.

The day went on, and it wasn’t long till I started to doubt my “praying” method. I thought, “Well, I guess I should’ve addressed their attitude in the moment, now I’ve just been a passive dad.” Thoughts of self-doubt and failure felt like waves starting to lap over the side of the boat of my soul, I could feel the storm starting to rage. Mind you, this is all going on inside of me while the day is going on “as normal.” With faith much smaller than a mustard seed I kept praying through the day even while thinking I probably blew it.

Then something happened. Later that night I had a few minutes alone with said child and Jesus had calmed the storm of my soul to the point where I was no longer concerned with my fear, anger, etc… and in the peace of His presence I saw something in my child that I didn’t see before. I started to see that their disrespect was rooted in anger towards me.

This was an epiphany, at first I just thought they were “being” disrespectful.

In that moment I was prompted to ask my kid, “Hey, some of the things you said to me today made me think that maybe you are angry at me about something. Do you have some bitterness or anger towards me for something that I did to you?”

The kid immediately, but gently, said, “ya.”

I said, “What did I do?”

The kid responded, “I got that bag of candy as a gift and you just gave a bunch of it away to the neighbors and my siblings without even asking.”

The previous night we had some neighbor kids over and I saw a bag of Hershey kisses in the fridge. I assumed the chocolates were fair game (a common Dad-move in our house), especially for the adults in the house. Little did I know my kid had put them in there so they wouldn’t melt (it was warm and we didn’t have our A/C on at the time).

Ahh! So there it was. I had taken something from my kid without asking and given it away. My kid was angry that I did that, and went to bed with that anger toward me, and woke up the next day with a bad attitude toward me.

I looked at my kid and said, “I had no idea those were yours. I am sorry I took your chocolates without asking, will you forgive me?”

My kid smiled and said, “ya!”

We had a talk about how we can speak with each other if someone has done something we cannot look past. I read Proverbs 19:11 and Matthew 18. But more than anything God was teaching me that He had a far better day in store for me and my child, as I depend on Him. In many ways it was a much harder day, because prayer and trusting God is dying to myself and my own self-dependency and desire to control my kids and their attitudes and behaviors. But looking back it was a far greater day than I could have ever imagined where God led us by His Spirit to streams of living water.

I’m learning that walking by the Spirit brings things that cannot be planned, controlled, or created, only be received by faith, even my weak and doubting faith. Even in writing this I am filled with doubtful thoughts, “is this really a picture of God’s grace or a weak father?” I think, both.

This is one of the innumerable graces and miracles I have in Christ – God with me. Living in the mystery of the Gospel means I can hope for a far better outcome than simple “behavior management” or “getting through the day.” I can expect unity, fruit, beauty, and storm calming power for every day.

The problem: I often don’t believe this.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

-Persevere in abiding

Joey Turner
Pastor of Student Ministry