When it comes to parenting, few of us are prepared for the hard work and confusion that accompany the job. We get caught up in the excitement of the first sonogram, getting the nursery ready, and buying all those cute little bibs and blankets. It’s not until we’re sleep-deprived and walking the floor with a crying baby that we start to wonder, Am I doing something wrong? But gradually, day by day, we muddle through, making the best parenting decisions we can.
And the challenges don’t go away after those first few months and years. So, it’s important to ask ourselves, what overall views and ideas inform and influence the way we parent? Could a different backstory make our parenting easier and more meaningful? And what does this all have to do with the question about forcing our religion on our children?
Welcome, to “God’s Word Day by Day” where I blog through the Bible in a Year. I hope you’ll join me every day. If you’re not already signed up, you can do it here or subscribe on YouTube.
Today’s Readings:
Judges 1 & 2
Psalm 48.1-8
Proverbs 14.15-17
Luke 14.1-24
Should I Force My Religion on My Children?
Judges 1 & 2:
The Right Script & Our Parenting Decisions
So what is informing and influencing our parenting decisions? What keeps us going during difficult seasons?
Gloria Furman in her book Missional Motherhood says:
To use theater terms, because we are all characters living out a story, we’re all ad-libbing according to the script we’ve subconsciously summarized in our hearts. (p. 39-40)
I looked up the word ad-lib or ad-libbing. According to Merriam-Webster, those words can mean, “to deliver spontaneously, to improvise, or to perform without preparation.”
Parenting certainly involves well-thought-out plans and decisions, but I think it would be fair to say we make lots of spur-of-the-moment parenting decisions, too.
Gloria spends a lot of time in her book summarizing God’s story of redemption in the Bible starting with the Old Testament narrative. She says, “we need to know His story because stories shape our minds.” (p. 29) And what we think in our minds shapes our decisions, including parenting decisions.
What We Believe
When we are responding … making decisions about how to handle a fussy child, a struggling teenager, a son who is being bullied, an unfair teacher, undone homework, or dozens of other things day in and day out, the story we believe about parenting and God’s purpose in it matters.
If I believe my story involves having the perfect family, having children who reflect well on me, and a home that does the same, my responses, my ad-libbing, will look one way.
If I believe my life is pretty meaningless and my goal is to simply get through the day, my ad-libbing will look another way.
And if my goal is a successful career, a bigger house, more money in the bank, and children who fit in that picture, my responses are likely to look still another way.
But if I understand that God places me in His story … if I understand what that story is and what it means … if I find out what His purpose is for me as part of His story, I can respond based on something very different. And if I have embraced the gospel, the Holy Spirit and God’s Word will inform my ad-libbing.
His Story & His Purpose
God’s story is a story of redemption. God created a couple in His own image and placed them in a garden to tend it and multiply His image on the earth. It’s also a story of their failure and fall from grace. But the story didn’t end there. Right there in that same garden, He told them that He had a plan to redeem His fallen creatures (Gen. 3.15).
Then in His perfect timing, He sent His Son to live the sinless life we never could and to suffer and die in our place so we could become His adopted sons and daughters. And then He left us with a commission:
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen (Matt. 28.19-20).
That commission didn’t change because we became moms and dads. It didn’t change because we’re not on a foreign mission field. In fact, it sounds a lot like the instructions God gave moms and dads in Deuteronomy 6. More about that in a minute.
I read recently that the word go in Matthew 28.19 might be better translated “as we are going.” So allow me to paraphrase a bit. We might say “as we are going make disciples…” As we are going to work or school or shopping, as well as, Africa or Asia, make disciples … As we are going about the affairs of life wherever God has called us.
“As We Are Going” & Parenting
So let’s look at the passage in Deuteronomy 6:
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 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. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deut. 6).
Jesus added an addendum in Matthew 22.37-39 when He was asked about the greatest commandment:
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
So, as we are going about our lives, we’re to teach our children to love God with all their heart, soul, and strength and to love others as they love themselves. That sounds like disciple-making to me.
So, if we understand God’s story of redemption and how He has called each of us to be disciple-makers, our ad-libbing and parenting decisions will be vastly different than if we have another back story embedded in our hearts and minds.
A Generation Who Did Not Know the Lord
Moses certainly understood the importance of understanding the big story. His final instructions to the nation of Israel contained a recounting of God’s work in their lives, His commands to them, and the consequences of obedience and disobedience. We know it as the book of Deuteronomy. And, of course, it includes the passage we just read.
But hearing the big story once is never enough because we are forgetful people. As God told Joshua shortly after the people crossed over into the Promised Land:
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Instead, just one generation later in today’s reading, we find this sad statement:
When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel (Jud. 2.10).
As we’ve talked about in the last few days, the nation of Israel was now in the Promised Land, but even though God had promised them complete victory, they failed to follow through and completely drive out the idol worshipers who had polluted the land and caused God to declare judgment against them. His people thought they had things under control and did not need to completely obey God.
They had forgotten the big story. So, is it any surprise that they failed to adequately teach their children about God?
Parental Extremes
I recently heard some statistics about the staggering number of young adults in our country who claim no religious beliefs at all. It is not that they don’t practice them, they have none. It is not that they turned away from their parents’ beliefs. They were taught none.
More than once, I’ve heard parents say, “I don’t want to force my religion on my children. I’m just going to let them grow up and decide for themselves.” To be sure, we shouldn’t try to “force” our children to believe.
And we need to be careful that we don’t present Christianity as mere religion by making it all about rules. Many a parent has learned the hard way that you can’t insist on some legalistic standard that drives your children away from God.
Both of those extremes are wrong. But while we can’t force our children to believe, neither should we neglect our parental responsibility.
Parental Responsibility
Instead, we must seek God’s wisdom and grace to help us reach the hearts of our children with loving instruction, appropriate discipline, and by living out our beliefs. Living them out in a way that is real and honest, and where we show them how sinners respond to their own mistakes with humility and a teachable spirit.
We need to look for opportunities to share the gospel with our children. It’s often their sin and struggles with the flesh, and ours, that provide the greatest opportunities to explain why we all need the gospel and His grace.
None of this is a guarantee that our children will always serve God. But our call is to be faithful. To do that consistently, we need to constantly keep that big redemptive story and our call to make disciples in mind.
It’s not hard to see that the world around us is becoming increasingly secular. But God always has a faithful remnant. May we be counted in that number.
As we continue reading Judges, we are going to see how the lethal combination of neglect and disobedience will bring a cycle of disaster that will go on for generations. But you will also see God’s faithfulness to both discipline and show mercy to His rebellious children.
If you would like to read more about possible opportunities to share biblical truth with your children as you go about your daily activities, you might want to read Marriage Made in Heaven? Part 14 “Parenting as a Team.”
Today’s Other Readings:
Psalm 48.1-8:
Great is the Lord!
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised … (v. 1).
The more we get to know God through His Word, the more we’ll understand the truthfulness of that verse.
Proverbs 14.15-17:
The Error of Self-Confidence
A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident (v. 16).
A fool rages and is self-confident. Despite what our culture teaches, God has not called us to be self-confident. We are called to be confident in God.
My soul shall make its boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear of it and be glad (Ps. 34.2).
Luke 14.1-24:
God’s Dinner Party
Jesus tells a parable in verses 16-24 about a man (God) who gives a great supper, but the “invited guests” (the nation of Israel) make excuses and don’t come, so the host sends his servants out to bring in “the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind” (that was most of us, spiritually speaking!) and then to go out and invite the whole world (Jn. 3.16).
Even so, God loves His people, the Nation of Israel, and will someday do a great work in them again.
Coming Up:
In the coming days, we’ll talk about a housewife who became a superhero, how to respond to our prodigals, polygamy and our acceptable sins, how to forgive when you’re not feeling it, and how spoiled children can become selfish adults.
I hope you’ll join us and if this post spoke to you, please share it on your favorite social media platform.
Blessings as you grow in Christ,
Donna ♥
What Is Your Plan to Grow Spiritually This Year?
I hope you’re reading through the Bible with me or you have another reading plan in place. If not, you can sign up for my daily email or subscribe here for the YouTube version.
Following along with me can help you stay on track. And I believe you’ll benefit from the additional information I share and grow as you learn to apply God’s Word to your own life.
Another way that we grow in our Bible knowledge and our ability to share our faith is through discipleship. I’ve linked our latest discipleship lesson, today’s Bible in a Year video, and the first lesson in a course my husband is teaching on YouTube called “Self-Confrontation.” If you’re not familiar with it, consider checking it out. It was life-changing for us when we first took the course 25 years ago and continues to impact our lives.
Note about this post:
I began blogging through the Bible in 2012 and have done so every year since then. These posts are the product of many edits and additions throughout those years. Some days I make major changes, other days fewer.
A while ago, I read Jen Wilkin’s book None Like Him about the attributes of God. One is His incomprehensibility. In it, she says, “God is incomprehensible. This does not mean that he is unknowable, but that he is unable to be fully known.”
I have found that to be true each year as I’ve gone back through the Bible. Sometimes I find myself feeling as if a passage just appeared there for the first time. I’m reminded that no matter how many times we read through the Bible, we have only scratched the surface. I hope you feel the same.
Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways,
And how small a whisper we hear of Him!
But the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Job 26.14)
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