Growing
up in the church and having attended a Christian school, I was encouraged to
exhibit good behavior that would honor God.
My behavior was also expected to honor my parents, my church, my school,
and of course others. Many young people I grew up with struggled performing or
producing the desired obedience that was expected of them by the church or the
Christian school. Often times, very
negative attitudes developed in their lives because of the insistence and the
pressure that was placed on them (they would be labeled as having a BA or “bad
attitude”). The unfortunate thing was
that many of those who complied with the outward behavior had hearts that were
very negative towards authority. Which
one was better—the desired behavior or a negative heart? It may depend on what we are using as our
measuring stick.
I
believe that too often parents and teachers miss the mark when shaping the
lives of young people. I believe that we
should desire more than a certain behavior but hearts that are fixed on doing
the right thing out of a love for God.
Some would call focusing only on the behavior~~legalism. It only focuses on the external obedience and
not the heart issue. Some insist on
everyone just doing the same thing for the sake of compliance and unity. I’m all for compliance and unity but I do
believe that God’s Holy Spirit makes a better instructor than my forced rules
that serve as the standard for everyone else.
God’s holiness should be the standard for all living.
I’ve heard
it said before that parenting is not just hard work but it is
“HEART-work”. What does God look at~~He looks at our hearts! 1 Sam. 16:7 says, “man looketh on the outward
appearance but God looketh on the heart.”
He created us to love, serve, and obey Him. As parents, our job is to raise “spiritual
champions” who live to please God alone.
This does not mean we are supposed to ignore the significance of
developing our children’s intellectual, emotional, and physical dimensions.
But, it suggests that we have to see the bigger picture of God’s priorities and
raise our children in light of His standards and not our preferences.
Most of us focus on “behavior modification” that looks for
immediate results. In fact it’s an
outcome-based approach to parenting. It
usually works quickly, relieving the immediate tension. For example, a child whines so the parent
requires him to stop and then rewards him by giving him the cookie he
wanted. Although the surface problem of
whining is temporarily stopped, the underlying problem of demandingness is not
clearly addressed. The heart of the
matter is never addressed.
The heart is a wrestling place. The heart chooses values to hold and
convictions to live by. Those convictions
become the moral pillars in our lives that keep us on track. Moses told the people in Deuteronomy 6:6 to
put the commands of God “on your hearts.” When David describes the righteous person in
Psalm 37:31 he says, “The law of his God is in his
heart; his feet do not slip.”
“Daniel purposed in his heart that he
would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat.” (Dan. 1:8) When Jeremiah describes the New Covenant that
God will establish with us, he says that it will be different than the Old
Covenant with tablets of stone. “I will
put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”
(Jer. 31:33).
I would suggest to parents that
we take parenting to the heart level and loosen our grip purely on behavior
modification. When God has our
children’s hearts He gets the rest of them as well. I understand that we want immediate
obedience but even more important are hearts that understand why obedience is
important.
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