The Kind of Father He Is

by Jonathan Parnell

The castle was mangled. 

With just a glance, you could tell it was bad.

The main gate was completely exposed. 

The chains that once lowered the intimidating drawbridge were now severed. 

The drum tower, which had weathered the most obvious destruction, had its battlements crushed — so crushed that you could almost recreate in your head the sound it must have made the moment the blow came.

This thing must have been thrown down the stairs, I thought to myself. 

It was too obvious. 

Aside from its appearance, the wooden castle I held in my hands had been lying just a few feet from the last step leading down to the basement — the basement which functions as the kids’ main play area.

Yeah, for sure, this thing was tossed down these steps, I said to myself again, not wanting to believe it was true. 

So I called for the kids and asked them.

“Did you throw the castle down the stairs?”

“Yes, we did,” volunteered the five-year-old spokesman.

“What? You threw the castle down the stairs?” I stammered back, examining the toy closer now, noticing the bent piano hinge. 

“You threw it down? How many times?”

“Four or five,” the spokesman answered, more sheepishly this time.

I still couldn’t believe it. These kids are savages. Animals.

Too angry to say much, I expressed my displeasure and sent them away for an impending judgment. 

I sat there on the bottom step, still looking at this castle and wondering if wood glue could help at all, feeling right sad about the whole thing.

Something Again

See, this castle was the first substantial gift my wife and I got our kids. 

There are, of course, cheap toys and trinkets kids get from the start, but then there are the legit toys — the ones that parents shop around for, that you feel especially good about your kids having. 

Investments. 

This was the first toy of that kind. 

And on top of that, we had given it to them only a few Christmases ago, purchased back then on the meager family budget of a full-time seminarian. 

So it wasn’t really anger I was feeling at the bottom of those steps. 

It was hurt.

Thanklessness can do that to you. 

It is painful. 

And to make it worse, I sat on that bottom step with an unsettling premonition. 

My children will do this again. 

It may not be toys, or ingratitude, or bratty recklessness, but something. 

It will be something.

Once, a wise experienced mother told my wife that children break your hearts. 

She didn’t mean to be Debbie Downer, just honest. 

That, after all, is part of love, at least in human terms. 

C.S Lewis writes that “to love at all is to be vulnerable".

”Sure, we hope that our kids will never make a mistake. 

We hope that their lives will turn out as perfect as the bumper stickers and stick-figured decals seem to promise. 

But even if it does, parenting is never a safe investment. 

Read the Bible. 

Children can cause parents pain. 

Joy, yes, lots of joy. 

But pain, too. 

And in most cases, it’s a combination of the two.

Better Than New

Sitting at the bottom of those steps, I can’t say what pain there might be down the road. 

I pray for God to lead our kids on the path of wisdom and truth and life. 

I pray and point and posture my family in that direction as much as I can. 

But I don’t know what they will do. 

The only question I can answer is what I will do. 

What kind of father will I be? 

And as for me and my house, I’ll rebuild the castle. 

There will be discipline, no doubt. 

There’s nothing okay about what they did. 

But before long, I’ll get the wood glue, and the screws for that hinge, and I’ll put that thing back together.

Because I once took gifts and didn’t say thanks. 

I took all that God gave me and didn’t honor him as God. 

I trashed my life down a flight of stairs, four or five times, or more. 

And he took my broken pieces, darkened as they were, foolish as they were, and he held them in his hands. 

He took me, obstinate as I was, in his sovereign hands, his merciful hands, and he spoke over me, “Let light shine” (2 Corinthians). 

He put me back together. Like brand-new, and even better. 

Redeemed and made whole. 

Because that is the kind of Father he is.

Be the Smile of God to Your Children

by Joe Rigney

He’s a squirmy one, he is. 

If I don’t watch him, he’ll wriggle off the bed. 

But he doesn’t want to. 

He’s enjoying the tickle fight too much. 

I can’t blame him. 

Those giggles make this father’s heart want to leap out of my chest. 

I wonder how long this laugh will last.

Reflect on the tickle fight with me. See the layers of reality at work.

Triune Joy in Our Little Home

On the surface: an adult male and a one-year-old of the species, smiles, laughter, darting fingers, kicking legs, squeals, deep breaths, rapid kisses on the neck, raspberries on the belly, and did I mention the laughter?

Beneath the surface: emotional bonding, fatherly affection, wide-eyed childhood delight. 

A contribution to the child’s sense of safety and security in the world. 

Perhaps he’ll be “well-adjusted” (or at least better adjusted). 

This will, no doubt, help him on his standardized tests.

Beneath and in and through it all, Trinitarian fullness is being extended. 

The Joy that made the mountains is concentrated in my home. 

Fatherly delight is at the heart of reality. 

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” 

It plays on a looping tape in the back of my mind. 

Thus sayeth the Lord to his Son. 

Thus sayeth the Lord to all of his sons that are in the Son.

Tickle Fights Are High Theology

This is the pitch of fatherhood. 

This is the melody line of motherhood. 

This ought to be the dominant note in the familial symphony. 

Delight, Pleasure, Joy. 

This tickle fight is high theology. 

This scene is a picture, a parable of a glory that existed before the world did. 

It’s a display and an invitation. 

Father and son are being beckoned into the divine life and joy.

Only I will remember it distinctly. 

The scene will pass through my son’s mind and out of his memory. 

And yet, in a sense, it’s the most spiritual thing I can do for him. 

My delight and pleasure in him can leave a mark on him that will outlive the sun.

“Father,” I pray, taking a breath in the war of laughter to go directly to God, “make it so.”

How to Be His Smile

This is our fundamental calling as parents — to be the smile of God to our children. 

We are charged by God to bring our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. 

God himself has commanded us to communicate to our children what he is like. 

And God is fundamentally a Happy Father, a Well-Pleased Parent. 

And just as the Father communicates his delight in his Son through his words and deeds and demeanor and presence, so also should we. 

Four suggestions for starters:

1) Be thrilled about what they are thrilled about. 

Join them in their joy, however simple and childlike. 

Whether it’s drawing a stick figure or building a castle out of blocks, be lavish with your “well-dones” and “good jobs.” 

Find the good and the glory in everything they do. 

When they pull out the pots and pans, and turn them into drums, there is imagination and creativity to rejoice in.

2) Recognize that an atmosphere of joy and delight is the only environment in which discipline is safe and good. 

Sin poisons the gladness of a godly home and breaks the fellowship of the family. 

Wise discipline quickly sets things right — clear explanations, swift discipline (whether spanking or otherwise), sincere repentance, prayerful repentance, and then restoration of the sweet gladness of fellowship.

3) Remember that the main way they experience joy is through laughter and play. 

Fun is joy in kid form. 

There are more complex joys that come with increasing maturity. 

But the only way that they will grow into them is if they are well-acquainted with the simple pleasures of play. 

So be a good missionary and contextualize. 

Translate joy into their language. 

This doesn’t mean that you should stay shallow or trivial. 

It does mean that family devotions ought to be marked by gladness and delight, by bright eyes, loud singing, and manifest affection. 

And if a tickle fight should happen to break out every now and then, count yourself blessed and see it as success.

4) Make the most of temporary separations and reunions. 

Communicate your pleasure in them as you leave and your excitement when you return. 

Leave with laughter and come home happy. 

Let the exuberance in your voice and the warmth of your smile and the brightness of your eyes reveal to them the God who joyously sings over his people, the father who runs to his son when he sees him on the horizon.

And so again, to all moms and dads, embrace the joy of your calling. 

Your Father is smiling on you. 

So be the smile of God to your children.

The Idols of a Mother’s Heart

by Christina Fox

"When you are upset because you can’t do something you’ve wanted to do, it might be because that thing has become an idol in your heart."

I said these words one afternoon in response to one of my kids who was frustrated because I had taken away his highly valued time on the computer. 

We then talked about how idols are not always easy to recognize and that our emotional responses can sometimes be an indicator of what’s going on in our heart.

Idols Specific to Motherhood

John Piper says that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” 

We were made to love and worship God. 

When he isn’t the longing of our heart and the source of our satisfaction, we seek to fill our bellies somewhere else. 

Instead of filling the God-shaped hole in our heart with enjoyment of him, we fill it with love for things, experiences, desires, and responses from others.

We often think of an idol as a manmade object that a person bows down and worships. 

An idol is really anything that we love more than God. 

It consumes our thinking and energies. 

It’s something that is so central to our life that if we didn’t have it, we would be devastated.

There are unique idols to motherhood. 

If you are a mother, you may recognize many or all of these:

• 
  
• Affirmation: This idol can include being affirmed by friends and family, and even by strangers, that our children are “so well behaved” or “so talented.” 
• Pride then bubbles up in our heart. 
• And when we don’t get those kinds of responses, or even receive the opposite, we are discouraged and frustrated. 
• We also can seek affirmation through our children; their love for us can become an idol.
• 
  

• Children: Our children in and of themselves can become idols. 
• It can start with even the desire to have children. 
• It can become an all-consuming longing, becoming more important in our life than God. 
• Once we have children, they can become idols when we live for them and always try to make them happy. 
• We can seek to find our fulfillment in and through them. 
• When they don’t respond to us as we expect or fail us in some way, we are devastated.
• 
  
• Success: We want our children to be successful because it is a reflection on us. 
• We may press them endlessly to excel. 
• We may have in our mind an image of what our “perfect family” looks like, and until we have it, we feel like a failure. 
• If our children have limitations in some way, this may shatter our dreams as well.
• 
  
• Control: Being in control of all the details of life is a big idol for many moms. 
• We sanitize little hands, keep them away from other kids with runny noses, and try to plan ahead for any unexpected event. 
• We spend our days trying to orchestrate every detail of our life and our children’s life. 
• But because nothing is actually in our control, we become anxious, worried, and agitated when things don’t go as planned.
• 
  

These are not the only idols a mother can have. 

In fact, the options for idol-making are endless. 

As John Calvin so memorably said, our hearts are idol-making factories. 

The question is not whether our hearts are manufacturing idols, but which ones.

Toppling Our Idols

I’ve worked with my children on identifying idols by having them cut out words and images of things that a person could love more than God. 

They glued those images into a heart shape on a drawing of a person I had done. 

We’ve done this activity a few times because it is helpful for them to see how much we fill our hearts with things other than God. 

One time, my son drew a frown on his person’s face and said, “He is sad. All these things he loves haven’t made him happy.”

As moms, finding our own idols can take some effort. 

Like weeds, they may have twisted themselves around our heart, burrowing down deep into the recesses and crevices. 

They may have become such a part of our heart that they we have trouble recognizing them.

We have to pray that God would reveal the idols in our heart and help us to see and recognize them. 

Sometimes it helps to be aware of our emotional responses to the circumstances in our life. 

How do we react when our children let us down? 

How do we respond when we don’t receive the affirmation from others that we desire? 

When God brings an idol to our attention, we have to humbly acknowledge our sin, repent, and turn away from them.

Turning away from our idols doesn’t mean only turning away; we then have to turn toward something else. 

And that something else is the great Someone: Jesus. 

As Tim Keller writes in Counterfeit Gods,

Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol. That is what will replace your counterfeit gods. If you uproot the idol and fail to “plant” the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back. (172)

We can’t simply try harder to avoid idols. 

We can’t just resolve to resist them. 

We have to focus our hearts on Jesus’s person and work. 

He must be the source of our satisfaction. 

We aim to desire him above all else. 

We want to dwell, meditate, and saturate our hearts with the truth of God’s love and grace for us through the shed blood of Christ on our behalf. 

The more we rest and trust in the gospel, the more our love for Christ grows until it overflows, drowning and washing away the idols in our heart.

Has motherhood revealed idols in your heart? 

How can love for Christ uproot those idols?

Is youth ministry killing the church?

by Kate Murphy


UNINTENTIONALLY DISCONNECTING KIDS FROM THE LARGER BODY OF CHRIST ?

After having worked for several years as a youth pastor, I recently accepted a call to be an interim solo pastor. 

One weekend, Sara, a beloved saint of the church, died after a long battle with Alzheimer's. 

On Sunday morning I was standing in the choir room discussing plans for the funeral when Jonathan—a high school sophomore—walked in. 

“Deanne,” he said to the music director, “I heard about Sara, and I thought you might need me to take Libba's spot in the bell choir this morning.” 

She gratefully accepted his offer and excused herself from our conversation to review the music with him.


It was a pretty mundane exchange, but I was blown away. 

It's remarkable enough to see a 16-year-old boy drive himself to church early to join a bell choir comprised of adults in their 50s and 60s. 

But even more intriguing was Jonathan's perceptiveness. 

Not only did he know that Libba was Sara’s daughter, but life in the church had taught him to anticipate congregational needs. 

He knew that Libba played with the bell choir, and he realized she probably couldn't play that morning. 

Unprompted—I checked with his parents—he offered to fill in.

This couldn't have happened at any of my previous churches—though it's not Jonathan's faith that's of a rare caliber. 

It's his connection to the congregation.

I've always met young Christians through youth programs. 

I've been hired by churches so committed to the discipleship of their young people that they've dedicated resources to creating specialized curriculae and activities. 

These churches expect regular events that are created exclusively to minister to young people.


But I wonder now if we're ministering them right out of the church. 

Unlike Jonathan, the kids I've previously pastored never sat around a table with adults at church-wide fellowship events—they had their own program options. 

They've never worked side by side with other members to put on a neighborhood vacation Bible school—they were off on their own mission trips.

When the youth were asked to contribute to the larger church, it was usually through manual labor, the only thing we thought they were capable of doing. 

Yes, we may have let them plan and lead one worship service a year, but we never dreamed of asking any of them to sit on the worship committee or serve as a regular worship leader. 

The message was that the church existed to serve them, not the other way around.

Kenda Creasy Dean and others warn that when our children and youth ministries ghettoize young people, we run the risk of losing them after high school graduation. 

I saw evidence of this in Jonathan. 

Over the years I've worked with young people as passionate and serious about their faith as Jonathan is. 

I think I've done youth ministry with integrity.

But I may have been unintentionally disconnecting kids from the larger body of Christ. 

The young people at my current congregation -  a church that many families would never join because “it doesn't have anything for youth” - are far more likely to remain connected to the faith and become active church members as adults, because that's what they already are and always have been.

Marriage Isn’t For You

Seth Adam Smith

Kim and I

Having been married only a year and a half, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn’t for me.

Now before you start making assumptions, keep reading.

I met my wife in high school when we were 15 years old. 

We were friends for ten years until…until we decided no longer wanted to be just friends. :) 

I strongly recommend that best friends fall in love. 

Good times will be had by all.

Nevertheless, falling in love with my best friend did not prevent me from having certain fears and anxieties about getting married. 

The nearer Kim and I approached the decision to marry, the more I was filled with a paralyzing fear. 

Was I ready? Was I making the right choice? 

Was Kim the right person to marry? 

Would she make me happy?

Then, one fateful night, I shared these thoughts and concerns with my dad.

Perhaps each of us have moments in our lives when it feels like time slows down or the air becomes still and everything around us seems to draw in, marking that moment as one we will never forget.

My dad giving his response to my concerns was such a moment for me. 

With a knowing smile he said, “Seth, you’re being totally selfish. 

So I’m going to make this really simple: marriage isn’t for you. 

You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy. 

More than that, your marriage isn’t for yourself, you’re marrying for a family. 

Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. 

Who do you want to help you raise them? 

Who do you want to influence them? 

Marriage isn’t for you. 

It’s not about you. 

Marriage is about the person you married.”

It was in that very moment that I knew that Kim was the right person to marry. 

I realized that I wanted to make her happy; to see her smile every day, to make her laugh every day. 

I wanted to be a part of her family, and my family wanted her to be a part of ours. 

And thinking back on all the times I had seen her play with my nieces, I knew that she was the one with whom I wanted to build our own family.

My father’s advice was both shocking and revelatory. 

It went against the grain of today’s “Walmart philosophy”, which is if it doesn’t make you happy, you can take it back and get a new one.

No, a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. 

It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams. 

Selfishness demands, “What’s in it for me?”, while Love asks, “What can I give?”

Some time ago, my wife showed me what it means to love selflessly. 

For many months, my heart had been hardening with a mixture of fear and resentment. 

Then, after the pressure had built up to where neither of us could stand it, emotions erupted. 

I was callous. 

I was selfish.


But instead of matching my selfishness, Kim did something beyond wonderful—she showed an outpouring of love. 

Laying aside all of the pain and aguish I had caused her, she lovingly took me in her arms and soothed my soul.

I realized that I had forgotten my dad’s advice. 

While Kim’s side of the marriage had been to love me, my side of the marriage had become all about me. 

This awful realization brought me to tears, and I promised my wife that I would try to be better.

To all who are reading this article—married, almost married, single, or even the sworn bachelor or bachelorette—I want you to know that marriage isn’t for you. 

No true relationship of love is for you. 

Love is about the person you love.


And, paradoxically, the more you truly love that person, the more love you receive. 

And not just from your significant other, but from their friends and their family and thousands of others you never would have met had your love remained self-centered.


Truly, love and marriage isn’t for you. 

It’s for others.

Parents, Require Obedience of Your Children

 

by John Piper 

I am writing this to plead with Christian parents to require obedience of their children. 

I am moved to write this by watching young children pay no attention to their parents’ requests, with no consequences. 

Parents tell a child two or three times to sit or stop and come or go, and after the third disobedience, they laughingly bribe the child. 

This may or may not get the behavior desired.

Last week, I saw two things that prompted this article. One was the killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, California, by police who thought he was about to shoot them with an assault rifle. 

It was a toy gun. 

What made this relevant was that the police said they told the boy two times to drop the gun. 

Instead he turned it on them. 

They fired.

I do not know the details of that situation or if Andy even heard the commands. 

So I can’t say for sure he was insubordinate. 

So my point here is not about young Lopez himself. 

It’s about a “what if.” 

What if he heard the police, and simply defied what they said? 

If that is true, it cost him his life. 

Such would be the price of disobeying proper authority.

A Tragedy in the Making

I witnessed such a scenario in the making on a plane last week. 

I watched a mother preparing her son to be shot.

I was sitting behind her and her son, who may have been seven years old. 

He was playing on his digital tablet. 

The flight attendant announced that all electronic devices should be turned off for take off. 

He didn’t turn it off. 

The mother didn’t require it. 

As the flight attendant walked by, she said he needed to turn it off and kept moving. 

He didn’t do it. 

The mother didn’t require it.

One last time, the flight attendant stood over them and said that the boy would need to give the device to his mother. 

He turned it off. 

When the flight attendant took her seat, the boy turned his device back on, and kept it on through the take off. 

The mother did nothing. 

I thought to myself, she is training him to be shot by police.

Rescue from Foolish Parenting

The defiance and laziness of unbelieving parents I can understand. 

I have biblical categories of the behavior of the spiritually blind. 

But the neglect of Christian parents perplexes me. 

What is behind the failure to require and receive obedience? 

I’m not sure. 

But it may be that these nine observations will help rescue some parents from the folly of laissez-faire parenting.

1. Requiring obedience of children is implicit in the biblical requirement that children obey their parents.

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1). 

It makes no sense that God would require children to obey parents and yet not require parents to require obedience from the children. 

It is part of our job — to teach children the glory of a happy, submissive spirit to authorities that God has put in place. 

Parents represent God to small children, and it is deadly to train children to ignore the commands of God.

2. Obedience is a new-covenant, gospel category.

Obedience is not merely a “legal” category. 

It is a gospel category. 

Paul said that his gospel aim was “to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5). 

He said, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience — by word and deed” (Romans 15:18).

Paul’s aim was “to take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). 

He required it of the churches: “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him” (2 Thessalonians 3:14).

Parents who do not teach their children to obey God’s appointed authorities prepare them for a life out of step with God’s word — a life out of step with the very gospel they desire to emphasize.

(If anyone doubts how crucial this doctrine is, please consider reading Wayne Grudem’s chapter, “Pleasing God by Our Obedience: A Neglected New Testament Teaching” in For the Fame of God’s Name, edited by Justin Taylor and Sam Storms.)

3. Requiring obedience of children is possible.

To watch parents act as if they are helpless in the presence of disobedient children is pitiful. 

God requires that children obey because it is possible for parents to require obedience. 

Little children, under a year old, can be shown effectively what they may not touch, bite, pull, poke, spit out, or shriek about. 

You are bigger than they are. 

Use your size to save them for joy, not sentence them to selfishness.

4. Requiring obedience should be practiced at home on inconsequential things so that it is possible in public on consequential things.

One explanation why children are out of control in public is that they have not been taught to obey at home. 

One reason for this is that many things at home don’t seem worth the battle. 

It’s easier to do it ourselves than to take the time and effort to deal with a child’s unwillingness to do it. 

But this simply trains children that obedience anywhere is optional. 

Consistency in requiring obedience at home will help your children be enjoyable in public.

5. It takes effort to require obedience, and it is worth it.

If you tell a child to stay in bed and he gets up anyway, it is simply easier to say, go back to bed, than to get up and deal with the disobedience. 

Parents are tired. 

I sympathize. 

For more than 40 years, I’ve had children under eighteen. 

Requiring obedience takes energy, both physically and emotionally. 

It is easier simply to let the children have their way.

The result? 

Uncontrollable children when it matters. 

They have learned how to work the angles. 

Mommy is powerless, and daddy is a patsy. 

They can read when you are about to explode. 

So they defy your words just short of that. 

This bears sour fruit for everyone. 

But the work it takes to be immediately consistent with every disobedience bears sweet fruit for parents, children, and others.

6. You can break the multi-generational dysfunction.

One reason parents don’t require discipline is they have never seen it done. 

They come from homes that had two modes: passivity and anger. 

They know they don’t want to parent in anger. 

The only alternative they know is passivity. 

There is good news: this can change. 

Parents can learn from the Bible and from wise people what is possible, what is commanded, what is wise, and how to do it in a spirit that is patient, firm, loving, and grounded in the gospel.

7. Gracious parenting leads children from external compliance to joyful willingness.

Children need to obey before they can process obedience through faith. 

When faith comes, the obedience which they have learned from fear and reward and respect will become the natural expression of faith. 

Not to require obedience before faith is folly. 

It’s not loving in the long run. 

It cuts deep furrows of disobedient habits that faith must then not infuse, but overcome.

8. Children whose parents require obedience are happier.

Laissez-faire parenting does not produce gracious, humble children. 

It produces brats. 

They are neither fun to be around, nor happy themselves. 

They are demanding and insolent. 

Their “freedom” is not a blessing to them or others. 

They are free the way a boat without a rudder is free. 

They are the victims of their whims. 

Sooner or later, these whims will be crossed. 

That spells misery. 

Or, even a deadly encounter with the police.

9. Requiring obedience is not the same as requiring perfection.

Since parents represent God to children — especially before they can know God through faith in the gospel — we show them both justice and mercy. 

Not every disobedience is punished. 

Some are noted, reproved, and passed over. 

There is no precise manual for this mixture. 

Children should learn from our parenting that the God of the gospel is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:7, 29) and that he is patient and slow to anger (1 Timothy 1:16). 

In both cases — discipline and patience — the aim is quick, happy, thorough obedience. 

That’s what knowing God in Christ produces.

Parents, you can do this. 

It is a hard season. 

I’ve spent more than sixty percent of my life in it. 

But there is divine grace for this, and you will be richly rewarded.