Do Parents Ever Succeed?

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Is it worth it? Is it really worth it to be a parent? To have pictures in your wallet where your money use to be... To lose a step in your tennis game because you're too busy being a parent to practice regularly... To drive a dirty fouryear old station wagon instead of a sleek new two seater sports car... To stay home on the weekends and do yard work while the neighbors down the street go to their beach condo, because they "had the good sense to have the old tubes tied."

I wonder if it's worth it to be a parent? To be a housekeeper, nurse, teacher, trial lawyer, and judge, to be a cook, seamstress, chauffeur, and money management expert, and the only appreciation comes in the form of, "Mom, where'd you put my favorite jeans?"

Yes, I wonder...

Is it worth it to lose your figure having babies, to lose sleep, to change diapers endlessly, to scrape peanut butter off the wall, to clean up spilled milk for the fourth time today, and it's not even 8 a.m. yet, and to say, "Eat your supper, son. You'll like it! It's got lots of things in it that are bad for you!" All of this for a pay scale less than minimum wage.

I question if it is worth it to have to look into those pleading eyes and have to say no when they pray for yes. Is it worth it to feel the pain every parent feels when his daughter says, "But everybody else gets to do it!"

Is it worth it to lie awake at night until he comes home from the party with the car and then pretend nothing is wrong?

I wonder, is it worth it all? To watch him make mistakes that any adult could have avoided. To grieve with him when his dog dies, and when he gets cut from the team. To worry over their choice of friends. To struggle to bring him up right only to hear him say, "I hate church!" "You're old fashioned!" "Jim's dad says..."

I wonder is it worth it when I read in the newspaper that you can grow one for $134,500, the average cost of rearing a child to age 18 today. Yes, I wonder if there isn't something better I could be doing with my life. But then, too, I wonder what it takes to make a parent realize that somebody thinks it is worth it. And that somebody is God!

Nevertheless, I can totally empathize with the woman in the cartoon, surrounded by three over active preschool children, who says, "Sometimes I wish I had loved and lost!"

Last year I went to a PTA meeting at the middle school and for two hours listened to 120 parents express their doubts and fears about their children's schooling. These were parents who'd named and dressed their children for success. They have inundated their children with sports camps, music lessons, computers and educational vacations. But deep down they were afraid they were leaving something out, and that one day their child would go to college, take psychology 101 and come home a drug-ridden wreck saying, "My parents ruined me!"

What is a parent? What does a successful parent do? For answers let's turn to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. And there we are told that before we succeed as parents we must learn to succeed as persons both practicing the faith and providing for our children.

Practicing The Faith

First, let's look at how a successful person practices the faith.

Listening to the Lord my God: Deuteronomy 6 says, "Hear, O Israel" twice. Our world is so noisy that "the still small voice" of God can go unheard. My wife and I built an arbor over our back porch this summer and have taken to sitting out in the night air rocking and talking late. And the most marvelous thing! The crickets sing to us! Oh, I fancy they've been singing all along but the din of the air conditioner, the TV set, the radio and everything else caused them to go unheard.

And God's voice in today's world is like that as well. God speaks if we will but listen. And a successful person is one who takes care to hear God by the careful consistent study of Scripture in her daily quiet time and in her church.

Obeying the Lord: Deuteronomy 6:2-3 says to "keep" and "be careful to do" the will of God.

Over the years I have watched many different people succeed and fail in the Christian life. And I have often wondered what made the difference. Was it money? Intelligence? Family? Was it my teaching? Talent? Counseling? Small groups? And I have come to the conclusion that what helped them succeed more than anything else was obedience. Fullness of life comes in knowing what God wants you to do and in doing it. But you say, "Obedience! Sure! But I feel so overwhelmed. The Bible is such a big book with so much to learn and do. Time, money, talents, thought life, family, work, death, the Spirit, prayer--whew! Where do I begin?" And the answer is--"Begin right where you are." I have a child's book entitled, How To Eat An Elephant. And the answer is quite simple--one mouthful at a time. And it is the same with the Christian life. Simply get started, take a bite into obedience, chew it up and swallow it, and go on to the next mouthful.

Loving the Lord: Deuteronomy 6 says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might." This means God is our highest priority, and we pursue God with committed love intellectually, willfully and emotionally.

If you want to read a good book about what life looks like when someone loves God like this, try Sheldon's In His Steps. It is about a group of people who vow for one year that before every decision they will ask, "What would Jesus do? What is the loving thing to do?" And the answer changed their lives and their community.

Fearing the Lord: Verses 2 and 13 talk about "fearing the Lord." This means to reverence God, to hold God in awe, respect.

I'm quite convinced we are too casual with God today. We talk about God as if God were the person upstairs, a saintly old grandparent, when in reality God is the ancient of days, creator, sustainer, and Holy One.

Serving the Lord my God: Verse 13 says, "Serve Him only." And we are told not to follow after other gods.

It is so easy today to accept Christ as Savior right alongside half a dozen other idols like self, materialism, the crowd, education, nationalism, and pleasure. And which ever one we serve in any given situation is up to our whim. Each idol is simply a tool we keep in our tool box. If we want fun we don't look to God to supply it--money does it so much better! It is companionship I want? Go to the crowd god and revel! Is it illness and death? Then go to Christ. And God will have none of this! "Him only shall you serve!"

Joshua stood up with his family in a day just like ours and said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." And successful people still do that today. It's not a hindrance and a pain. It's a joy to use the family supper table to feed and companion the lonely, to give up a bed for a missionary, to go as a family to group prayer and spread out in the crowd to pray for the hurting, the disappointed, the weak.

Trusting the Lord my God: Verse 18 mentions "as the Lord said" and "what the Lord promised." And this has to do with learning to trust God in the vicissitudes of life.

Have you ever wondered why a young man reared in a Christian home goes off to college and within a year abandons his faith for humanistic materialism? Nine times out of ten it is because he was reared with the dogma of the faith, not the living experience of the risen Christ. His parents gave him ideas, rules, theology, but so seldom any live experience. And when he got to school a professor with a Ph.D. after his name gave him reasons, ideas and rules that sounded better than yours. So he traded.

But Christianity is not dogma. It is not a relationship with an ideal code of ethics, a theology. It is a relationship with a living person, Jesus Christ. And it is a parent's job to give a child such an experience.

For example: Money is tight in your family. Rather than become a grouch and hide it from your children, acknowledge the fact around the supper table. Discuss your options--taking a second job, working on Sunday, stealing, cheating on your taxes, both parenting working outside the home, prayer, frugality, trusting God to provide, economizing here and there, doing without! Then write down the Godly path, pray about it together, and wait on the Lord.

When you get a raise at work, the car repair was cheaper than you thought, and you got money back from your taxes, you can sit around the table and discuss thankfully the finger of God in your finances.

Multiply this one instance of trusting in Christ by 18 years of experiencing the living God in television choices, how you budget your time, friendship, guidance, grandma's funeral, and so forth and you have a child going off on his own to college who has both the dogma and the experience of Christ. And when he meets a professor who offers him a wellreasoned dogma opposite Christ, he won't budge from the God he has known by experience to be real.

Providing For Children

Before a man or woman can be a successful parent they must be a successful person. And that means becoming a practitioner of the Christian faith. It means listening to, obeying, loving, fearing, serving, and trusting the Lord my God. Now, on this foundation, we are ready to be parents. And that means providing for our children. Verse 7 says, "Teach them diligently to your children" 1 Timothy 5:8 says that a parent who refuses to provide for his children is worse than irreligious. 2 Corinthians 12:14 teaches that parents ought to lay up for their children.

And just what exactly is it we are to provide for our offspring?

Protection: The principle here is simple. Nothing gets to my kids that doesn't first get to me.

My first date was with a girl named Ann. When I rang her door bell, her father answered, and in his hand was a shotgun he just happened to be cleaning at the time. He invited me in, sat me down and took time to get to know me. Then he said, "Ann is very precious to us. Be careful. Her mother and I care!" Mr. Kester was providing protection for his daughter by sifting her dates. Nothing got to his daughter that didn't first get to him.

And we can provide this same protection for our children by prayer and blessing them. We provide it by immunizations, shielding them from wrong influences, mental trauma, drugs and the like. But we must guard carefully not to over protect them.

Do you know how to harden off a house plant in spring time? The house plant is use to being indoors. If you put it out all at once it will die from shock. So you put it next to the open window. Next week you sit it outside in the sun but bring it in at night. Little by little you expose it to the outside environment until it can successfully cope.

And so it is with our children. We are there to protect them, but they've got to live in the world. So step by step we expose them to life, evaluating, setting the example, as we go.

My sons were in the bathroom of a service station this summer, and I found them snickering over some of the profanity written on the walls. When I asked them what was so funny, they said, "Nothing, Dad!" So I said, "Is it these words and pictures?" I suggested we write them down, look them up in the dictionary and discuss what was going on in all this. Exposure plus protection. That's the key.

Direction: Deuteronomy 6:6-8 says, "Impress them on your children." The Hebrews took this literally. The truths of God were written down, put in a tiny box, and tied around the wrists and foreheads of their little ones. God's word was even nailed on their doorposts.

We can do this today as we hang cross stitched scripture on our walls, fill our homes with good music, watch good television together, and wear Christian symbols as jewelry. They serve as subconscious commitment reminders.

But beyond this, direction is mostly given spontaneously as we go about our daily lives. Deuteronomy 6:7 says, "Talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." This means we don't force it. We do not give our children a sermon every time we go for a walk. It means it flows naturally as we live together in Jesus Christ!

A deer wanders into your camp sight and your child asks, "Why did God make a deer?" And you get the chance to teach your child wonder. Grandfather dies and your sixyear old wants to know why he won't wake up, and does he have his shoes on in the casket? And you've a chance to discuss death and heaven. A child is crying because a friend proved false, or they lost a quarter, or their cat ran away. And you've an opportunity to discuss disappointment and promises like Romans 8:28. You watch a movie together. There is profanity in it. And you get to talk about why.

Have you ever been in a cave and seen the stalagtites? Remember how they grow? One drip at a time, little tell-tale deposits left there to harden over the years. And our children grow the same way. Moment by moment. Day by day. One thought and one action at a time.

Inspection: There are two extremes here. One is to ignore our children all together. The other is to be so over zealous we fight their battles for them, tear open their mail, read their diary and meddle in their private affairs.

The balance is to be there, to be available, and to make sure you know what your child is reading and thinking and doing.

Get your work done around the house, parents, so that when your children come home from school you can listen and care about what sort of day they've had.

Give your child a private room, if possible, and knock before you enter.

When your children get to be ten or twelve take each one of them out on a monthly basis for a dinner date. That'll add up to about 96 dates during their teenage years. And you will have been there for them when they most needed you.

Let your kids invite their friends over for a backyard camp out, a pajama party. You might miss sleep, but at least you will get to see what sort of friends your child has.

Let your child know you live in the same world they do. Confess your own sins, your own heartaches as a teen, your own failures.

Live close to your child. This way you'll be there to see danger while it's still far off.

Correction: There are two sorts of discipline. The one builds while the other destroys. Make it your purpose to build your children.

Start with bonding. Nothing does it better than snuggling, singing, and rocking your newborn. And it doesn't have to end when they get big. My nineyear old son still kisses me in the mouth. I get his "goosey," and we hug and pull each other close in the swimming pool.

Early on, make it a point to get voice control over your children. Tell them once what not to do. If you see them start to do it, say "No!" And warn them what you'll do if they disobey. If they do it anyway, back your word up immediately. It is an ugly sight to watch a parent yell and cajole a child fifteen times over misbehavior until the parent finally beats the child out of nervous anger.

Next, make it your aim to build up your child's sense of self worth. Start with their name by calling them meaningfully after a saint, a biblical truth or an honored kinsman. My middle son is Bryan Patrick. Bryan means "Strong, from the country"--where he was born. And Patrick is from Patrick Henry, a patriot and Christian leader in Virginia. Such a name to live up to!

Constantly treat your child special. Let them know God knows their name, counts the hairs on their head. They are not accidents, in the way, a nuisance, but people, unique and wanted.

Catch your child in the act of doing something right. "I saw what you did. You shared. That pleases me so much! Come, let me hug you, you special little girl!"

Next, pull your children into the routine of life. Teach them that for everything there is a season. A season to work, to sleep, to play, to worship, to eat, to build, to tear down and such. Help them to learn that God makes all things beautiful in their own time.

This means you don't make play work by expecting your child to be Babe Ruth at bat on the Little League team. It means you don't let your child stay up until the parents themselves go to bed. And no, he doesn't read comic books in worship and get away with it.

So many people are reared to live by their feelings. They don't ask if it is time to go to class or work or sleep or church. They do what they feel like doing. So they are without any balance in their lives. Avoid this by teaching duty and obedience over feelings.

Consistency: Don't tell your child to eat his spinach when you don't eat your own. Don't tell your child to tell the truth when you exaggerate, to respect authority when you speed, or to worship when you don't.

Let your yes be yes and your no be no every day. Let the Ten Commandments be your ethic when it is easy as well as when it is inconvenient. Let your lifestyle be set when it is popular as well as when it is unpopular.

It is important to realize that each child is disciplined differently. My Claire I reason with and talk it through. If she still misbehaves, I deny her privileges or ground her.

With my Bryan a word will do. And I have to say it gently. He is so open and tender, he will cry if I am gruff.

With David I have to be tough. And he gets the point.

Beware of unreal expectations: You are a sinner. So is your husband or wife. And so is each of your children. They will never be perfect until Christ comes. Accept it about yourself and them. And be gracious.

Too many parents push their children too far too fast. You find eightyear olds today dressed for success in three piece suits, taking voice lessons, piano lessons, just back from tennis camp, computer camp and enrolled in the hightech fast track at school where they've skipped three levels. They've no leisure time to sit in the tree house and daydream, to hammer a nail, chase a cat, or watch cartoons. Let your kids be kids for as long as they will. For they've plenty of time to be adults.

Be careful, too, not to make your home such a showplace that a child can't live in it. In our materialistic age it is easy to demand that our interior decor be so spic and span, so orderly that kids cannot function.

In my home the kids can live all over their own rooms as they please as long as they are not destructive and as long as they clean up after themselves when they finish. All eating and drinking is done in the kitchen or dining room. Rough housing is for outdoors. The living room is off limits except for good behavior. The den is for lounging on the sofa, reading newspapers, TV, laughter, floor wrestling and the like.

Such rules applied consistently teach children to respect property, to shift gears between anything goes and good controlled mannerly behavior.

Freeing up a child: We must always remember that children are not in our keeping for a lifetime. At best we have only eighteen to twenty-two years in which to birth, protect, nurture, and train them before they go off on their own.

So guard against thinking for your child, being overbearing and enslaving them. As soon as your child is old enough to do something for himself, stop doing it for him. If you don't, you'll cripple him.

Teach your child basic skills--balancing a budget, changing the oil in the lawn mower, tithing, sewing a button on, reading a map, repairing a light switch and confronting someone who is not living up to a contract. A good parent is not someone you lean on, but someone who more and more makes leaning unnecessary.

Conclusion

Do parents ever really succeed? That depends on what you're trying to do.

If you're trying to shelter your kids from the harsh realities of our sinful world, no. If you're trying to recapture your spent youth by living vicariously through your

little ones, no. If you're trying to keep your child from failure, heartache, misstep, and confusion--no. If you're trying to influence your child to accept your choices, your timing, your school, your career, your mate, your lifestyle for himself--no.

But if you're trying to be faithful to God in Christ to rear your child in the way so that he or she as a sinner can learn to walk with God in humble repentance and faith, then--yes, parents do sometimes succeed. Wonderfully so!

Stephen M. Crotts Burlington, North Carolina