Daily Ways to Draw Children to God
Are you concerned about the increasing number of children who are walking away from the faith? What if part of this is due to a lack of understanding the full Gospel?
While beliefs and behaviors is important, we must also include desires in our spiritual journeys. Yet so much of our teaching has been a "gospel of sin management," where our desires are are either ignored or indulged.
We can foster a deeper faith relevant to all of life by engaging children in conversations about their desires and discussing what we really believe about God. Do we see him as joyful? Interesting? Interested in us?
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Transcript
A genuine concern many Christian parents have today is about so many kids walking away from the faith.
Speaker A:There's a lot of reasons for that, but one of those reasons is because we have left a significant part of the Gospel out of our teachings and our understanding and application of faith for quite a while.
Speaker A:And it's high time we brought it back.
Stephanie Smith:If your desire is to become spiritually stronger, emotionally healthier, and relationally smarter, you're at the right place.
Stephanie Smith:Speaker and writer Stephanie Smith inspires and equips you to achieve these three key aims.
Stephanie Smith:If you're a parent, you also learn how to raise empowered kids ready for adulthood.
Stephanie Smith:Let's get started.
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Speaker A:You know, as parents, grandparents, educators, anybody who cares about the upcoming generations, one of the biggest concerns right now is watching the numbers of kids who are walking away from the Christian faith.
Speaker A:And the reality is those are dismal numbers that we are looking at.
Speaker A:And while there are a lot of different factors for that, one of those that I want to talk about today is what we have often left out of our teaching and our understanding and even our living out about the gospel, about what the Christian faith is all about.
Speaker A:It's like we have had a table, a three legged table, and we have kept trying to balance where we've ignored.
Speaker A:We've cut off this third leg and we've put so much effort in trying to keep this table from totally falling over when what we really need to do is we just need to bring the third leg back into that table and then we don't have to do so much work trying to keep it from falling over or rescuing it when it does.
Speaker A:Well, what is that third leg?
Speaker A:I'm going to get to that.
Speaker A:But first I have a question.
Speaker A:For you, what do you really think the Christian faith is about?
Speaker A:I mean, just be real, be honest about this.
Speaker A:Don't try to give the right answer.
Speaker A:Get curious.
Speaker A:This isn't a shaming exercise.
Speaker A:This isn't about condemning you.
Speaker A:This is about restoring your curiosity.
Speaker A:And to say, what do I really believe?
Speaker A:What does it mean?
Speaker A:If I were speaking to someone who has no frame of reference for what the Christian faith is?
Speaker A:Because if you've got kids, as they get older and as they start growing up, they.
Speaker A:They're not born with an understanding of the Christian faith.
Speaker A:So in some respects, you do have that as a parent.
Speaker A:But let's say you were going to meet an adult who had no knowledge of the Christian faith.
Speaker A:What would you tell them about that?
Speaker A:How would it look in terms of your everyday life?
Speaker A:And why would you tell them that they needed that?
Speaker A:Sadly, I think a lot of our answers would be pretty limited.
Speaker A:We would focus on what we might call salvation.
Speaker A:We would focus on understanding that we have a sinful nature, we are separated from God, and that Jesus Christ came and he died to pay the penalty for our sins, and we come to Christ.
Speaker A:And so often that's where we really effectively stop.
Speaker A:And we don't really say it like that, but we kind of live it like that.
Speaker A:And part of that is because of teachings that come through or that don't come through in our Christian subculture.
Speaker A:On Tuesday's episode of this week, I talked about the Gospel of sin management, and we're kind of walking through some of the main elements in Dallas Willard's book, the Divine Conspiracy.
Speaker A:If you haven't listened to that episode, I highly encourage you to go back and to listen to that episode and also get Dallas's book and read that.
Speaker A:It's perfectly fine to work your way through it slowly because it is packed with deep thought.
Speaker A:Not that it's hard to understand, but it's going to make you really think, but it's also going to do this.
Speaker A:It's going to give you confidence in what you believe and why it matters and how you can impart that to your kids as well as to other people.
Speaker A:But since we're focusing mostly on Thursdays on helping parents to raise kids who are ready for adulthood, and everything that we do here is based on the Christian faith as traditionally defined, then we have to look at what's the message that our kids are really getting about the gospel?
Speaker A:Not do we.
Speaker A:Not is it what we think they're getting, but what is it that they are internalizing in their own Minds.
Speaker A:And sadly, a lot of them are still internalizing messages that are about this gospel of sin management.
Speaker A:And it's either where we have this large list of core beliefs that you'd better adhere to and along with that, external behaviors of what you do and don't do, or there's a very small set of beliefs that you're supposed to have and a small set of external behaviors to adhere to and ones to not do.
Speaker A:But Christianity is about far more than behaviors and beliefs.
Speaker A:And that is what we have tended to focus on in the United States for so long.
Speaker A:And we haven't looked at, we haven't taught, and we haven't focused on that third leg of the table, and that is desires.
Speaker A:We are not just people of beliefs and behaviors.
Speaker A:We also have desires.
Speaker A:And I might argue that the most powerful forces in each of us are actually our desires.
Speaker A:And in the big list gospel sin management fallacy, then desires tend to get extinguished.
Speaker A:Let's hide them, let's run from them, let's kind of act like we don't have them, let's not really pay them too much mind.
Speaker A:And then in the small list of beliefs and behaviors, we tend to indulge them more than try to ignore them.
Speaker A:But both of those are not the approaches that we want to take, and they're definitely not what we want to teach our kids.
Speaker A:But our kids are growing up in the cultures, both secular and Christian, where they're getting messages from one or the other, or maybe from both of those places.
Speaker A:When Jesus gave his two great commandments to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Speaker A:He did not say your command is to know God.
Speaker A:He did not say the second command is to know your neighbor.
Speaker A:He said it is to love God and then to love our neighbors.
Speaker A:Tragically, we have many kids, and this isn't new.
Speaker A:We have many kids whose focus on the gospel is so much about having the right set of beliefs rather than loving God.
Speaker A:It is about, okay, do I have the right set of beliefs?
Speaker A:And then by extension, do I have the right set of behaviors?
Speaker A:Whether that's a big list of thou shalts and shall nots, or whether that's a very small smallest, that whole framework is wrong.
Speaker A:That whole framework actually leads someone to become very self absorbed.
Speaker A:Whereas the true gospel makes us self aware, but not self absorbed.
Speaker A:I think rather, it is a matter that the gospel is when Christ in us changes our desires, and as a result of that, it leads us to examine our beliefs and then our beliefs change and then our behaviors change.
Speaker A:But so often we get that backwards and we kind of skip over the desires part and we just move into, okay, you got to have the right set of beliefs and then the right set of behaviors, and then we'll call you good.
Speaker A:And we kind of can sometimes shy away from looking at our kids character and saying, is their character how they are showing up in real time and space in physical form with their words, their actions, their attitudes?
Speaker A:Does that align with the character that we see in Christ?
Speaker A:Does that align with what we read about the fruits of the Spirit?
Speaker A:Which is just another way of saying the character of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker A:And I have watched over time where it's a matter of saying, well, okay, yeah, my kids is character.
Speaker A:Yeah, I don't want to say too much about that.
Speaker A:And yet.
Speaker A:Oh, but they have the right set of beliefs.
Speaker A:The two must go hand in hand.
Speaker A:The gospel is not just about adopting a right set of beliefs, and it's not just about adopting a right set of behaviors.
Speaker A:As we are raising our kids, we have to engage in conversations with them.
Speaker A:And this isn't just like one big conversation.
Speaker A:This is a part of ongoing life where we talk about their desires, we talk about what's stirring in their hearts, and this gets real and practical.
Speaker A:We don't wait until they're 16 and say, okay, what do you want to do with the rest of your life in terms of a career?
Speaker A:We talk to them about their desires from the time that they're very young.
Speaker A:These are mental, these are physical, these are emotional, relational.
Speaker A:And as they get older, this also includes sexual desires.
Speaker A:If we skip over talking about desires and we just focus on moving them ahead to having the right set of beliefs and the right set of behaviors, that is unsustainable.
Speaker A:We are people who have been made not just with a capacity for desire, we have been made to desire.
Speaker A:Desire is not a result of sin.
Speaker A:The particular desires that we have can be the result of sin.
Speaker A:But the capacity to desire that didn't come from Satan.
Speaker A:That came because God is someone who desires and we are made in his image.
Speaker A:And then as we talk to our kids about their desires and we also talk to them about ours, then we need to go to God's word to say, okay, then how do we not just indulge any desire that we happen to have, which is pretty much what our secular world is telling us is the answer today.
Speaker A:And we don't run from our desires or try to hide from them or act like if we have the right set of beliefs and behaviors, well, then they're just somehow going to line up.
Speaker A:No, we begin with desires, and then we say, all right, now what Christianity is about, it's about God's spirit within us, aligning our desires, changing our desires so that they align with what God desires.
Speaker A:And in order to do that, well, our kids are going to have to know the Bible.
Speaker A:If your kids were going to categorize the Bible according to the other books that you have in your home, where would they place it?
Speaker A:Would they see it as a cookbook?
Speaker A:You know, something that just gets pulled off the shelf when.
Speaker A:When you need a recipe to fix something?
Speaker A:Would they see it as a book of rules?
Speaker A:Would they see it as a collection of interesting but not really terribly relevant stories?
Speaker A:How would they really see the Bible?
Speaker A:Would they see it as a great love letter that is filled with wisdom and insight?
Speaker A:Not just that, oh, that would be kind of nice for life, but it is necessary for life.
Speaker A:Well, if you don't see it that way in real time, in real space, they're definitely not likely to see it that way.
Speaker A:And then how do you see God?
Speaker A:Because that's going to have a profound impact on how your kids see God.
Speaker A:Do you see him as someone who's just pretty much fixated on you having the right set of behaviors and beliefs?
Speaker A:Or do you see that he cares about your desires and that you don't need to hide those from him, not just because he knows them already, but because you want him to know what you desire in your heart?
Speaker A:Because if you're not comfortable bringing your desires before God, that's probably going to have an impact on your kids and how they come to God and maybe even to you with their desires.
Speaker A:Do you show up in everyday life in ways that your kids see and hear where you are inviting God into your everyday life?
Speaker A:Now, this isn't something that you can just say, well, okay, I know that I do that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But do your kids know that?
Speaker A:I don't think there's any right time for Bible study or personal devotions or quiet time or whatever you want to call that.
Speaker A:But I do think that we have perhaps done our kids a disservice when we relegate that to being such an individual activity that they might never actually even see us engaged in Bible study or devotions or prayer time.
Speaker A:That doesn't mean that you can't get up before your kids get up, or that you can't wait until they're all in bed before you pull out your Bible and whatever resources that you use, of course you can do that.
Speaker A:But if that's the only time that your kids ever see you engaged in prayer or Bible study or any kind of activity where you are pursuing knowing God and knowing what he desires, well, why would they want to have that be part of their life?
Speaker A:Don't get trapped into thinking, especially if you're a busy parent and you hit the ground running in the morning.
Speaker A:Maybe you've got young kids, or even if your kids are older and you're trying to get them out the door to school, or you're homeschooling them and you got to be up and at them in the morning and everything.
Speaker A:Don't buy into the idea that somehow there's something more sacred about the hours that come before seven or six or five or whatever is kind of the golden hour in your community for devotions or Bible study.
Speaker A:It's better if you have your Bible study and your devotions at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, if that's the time that suits you, than to never engage in it because you feel under so much condemnation because you didn't get up and have your early morning quiet time with your coffee.
Speaker A:But that's just one way that your kids get to see, you know, God is real.
Speaker A:God is someone to invite into everyday life.
Speaker A:God is someone that we seek to know what his desires are.
Speaker A:We seek to know what his commands are.
Speaker A:Those are part of his desires.
Speaker A:It's not just about, okay, just give me the list of rules and tell me the behaviors I'm supposed to engage in and not engage in, and therefore I'm good.
Speaker A:It's no, who is this person?
Speaker A:Who is this being?
Speaker A:Who is this?
Speaker A:I don't want to say creature, because I think that that can be demeaning.
Speaker A:But so God is more than a person.
Speaker A:We can't really give him the same kind of identity that we would give between people, places and things.
Speaker A:Who is this God who wants to have a personal relationship with me, and how do I know what he desires?
Speaker A:And one way that your kids can know that is just by hearing you invite God into everyday life.
Speaker A:You're going to the store, you're sitting down and going through homework with them.
Speaker A:Have a prayer, say, God, just come and be with us here.
Speaker A:Probably, especially if you're homeschooling, there might be some of those desperate kind of prayers.
Speaker A:Been there, done that.
Speaker A:As you're going to the park, as you're going to go grocery shopping, as you're fixing meals, as you're running errands, all those types of things that you're doing, just invite God into that.
Speaker A:You can invite him in through prayer.
Speaker A:You can also just use those moments to say, you know, we're wrapping these gifts and ready to go off to this birthday party, and I'm so excited you get to go and celebrate your friend's birthday.
Speaker A:You know what?
Speaker A:God loves giving us good gifts.
Speaker A:Did you guys know that about God?
Speaker A:Did you know that God desires to give us good gifts?
Speaker A:That's part of who he is.
Speaker A:You know, that doesn't take long at all to say to your kids, but the cumulative impact of those types of words over a period of years has a profound impact on how your children will come to see who God is and what this life of Christian faith is really all about.
Speaker A:If your kids are going through a time where maybe they're feeling kind of lonely and their heart is just really aching because they would like to have a good friend or they would like to have some more friends, encourage them to pray about that.
Speaker A:Encourage them to talk to God about that.
Speaker A:Let them know that God cares about those desires.
Speaker A:If the only or most of the time that God is brought up is when it is related only to beliefs and behaviors, we will handicap our children's ability to know God, and that's going to handicap their ability to ever fall in love with them.
Speaker A:Because we don't fall in love with people that we don't know.
Speaker A:And we're not going to be in love with a God that we don't know.
Speaker A:And that means bringing not just our behaviors, not just our theological beliefs, but it means bringing our desires to him as well.
Speaker A:So as you go throughout this next week, just make it a point.
Speaker A:Yes, you want to teach your children about beliefs.
Speaker A:Yes, you want to talk to them about behaviors, but also let them know that faith, the life of faith, is also about desires.
Speaker A:And actually that's where it begins.
Speaker A:Because that will lead to us wanting to have the right set of beliefs.
Speaker A:And it will lead to us wanting, desiring to align our behaviors with our beliefs.
Speaker A:And our beliefs will fall in line under our desires when they are aligned with what God desires as well.
Speaker A:All right, that is going to wrap us up for today.
Speaker A:I want to invite you to if you Again, if you haven't already, make sure to sign up for the newsletter on the website.
Speaker A:Stephanie prisons.com share this podcast with at least one other friend.
Speaker A:It's a mom, it's a dad, maybe it's a grandparent who's involved in your kids life.
Speaker A:Or maybe you are a grandparent who are raising your grandkids.
Speaker A:There's a lot of people in that position today.
Speaker A:And give this to somebody else and say, hey, here's something that's worth listening to that can help you.
Speaker A:Because raising kids is hard work and we need all the encouragement and the support and the insight that we can get.
Speaker A:All right, my friend, remember this.
Speaker A:You do have an impact that is immeasurable, eternal, and irreplaceable.
Speaker A:I'll see you next time.
Stephanie Smith:Thank you for listening.
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Stephanie Smith:Together we can invite and equip generations to engage fully in God's grand story.
