John-David

If you’ve ever been on an airplane, you’ve heard the safety briefing flight attendants do at the beginning of each flight. I know it’s riveting stuff but think back to the instructions they give you. One of the instructions they give you concerns the air mask. They tell you how to use it in case the cabin loses air pressure. They also tell people traveling with small children to put their own mask on first. 

One of the things we were taught in lifeguard training was very similar. They taught us that if a panicking person grabbed onto us and began to pull us under, we were to dive and take them deeper until they let go. Both instructions acknowledge a key truth of helping others, “you have to take care of yourself to take care of others.” 

The journey of raising God-loving kids is a long one with lots of good and bad that you will have to go through. What is the goal of the parenting journey, of getting your kids through the good and the bad? What is to goal of parenting in the everyday grind? I think the Bible teaches us that the ultimate goal is to have kids that love Jesus in every season. Kids that carry their faith through college. Kids that carry their faith through breakups, through family tragedy, through championships, and heart-breaking loses. Kids that carry their faith through your death and into another generation. I want to talk for a second about what this takes, or at least where this starts. 

Spiritually, taking care of your kids requires taking care of yourself. Leading your kids to spiritual health means that you must lead them from a place of spiritual health. The New and Old Testaments lay a clear command on kids to honor their parents. Ephesians 6:1-4 starts with this very command. “¹ Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ² ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ³ ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’^[1] The idea that parents are meant to lead their kids is innate in pretty much every culture. We understand the necessity of kids learning from parents, even if people disagree on the forms that this takes. 

This begs the question, “What does it look like for Christian parents to lead their kids well?” Let’s continue in Ephesians 6, “⁴ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”^[2] This is as clear a command for parents as the previous verses are for kids. We’ll set aside the first part for now and focus on the second, discipline and instruct. 

Here is the gut punch for all of us, especially parents and those of us who lead kids, you cannot give them what you do not have yourself. Look at Matthew 12:34, “³⁴ You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”^[3] The last part of that verse teaches that you cannot help but speak what you love. You are going to teach your kids what you love most. Through both your words and your actions, your deepest love will become apparent. If that is the things of this world, you are going to teach your kids to love the things of this world the most. Your heart will ultimately determine what you teach your kids to love. 

So, you’re heart has to be right to begin with, but you also have to remember what we learn in Proverbs 2:6, “For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”^[4] All the wisdom and the knowledge that you want to give your kids, it all comes from God. You cannot give it to them if you have not first received it from the Lord and even then then you are dependent on the Lord to teach it to the heart of your kids. 

Psalm 119:66, “Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.”^[5] If you want to teach your kids to love the Lord, if you want them to have values and perspectives of the Bible in their heart, you must teach it to them based on what you have received from the Lord. You cannot give them what you do not have. You must be living in love with Jesus.

Hebrews 5:14, continues this idea, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”^[6] Our goal is to produce kids who can stand against the temptations and trials of this world holding on their relationship with Jesus and the values he teaches us, but we cannot do this unless we are spiritually mature.

Parents, you must lead your kids from a place of spiritual health and maturity. What are you doing to take care of yourself spiritually? Showing up to church even a couple days a week is not going to do it. Your relationship with Jesus must be more than church attendance if you want to teach your kids spiritual health that will stand up in the world in which we live. You must lead from spiritual health to lead your kids to spiritual health. 

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^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 6:1–3.

^[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 6:4.

^[3] The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Mt 12:34.

^[4] The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Pr 2:6.

^[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ps 119:66.

^[6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Heb 5:14.