The winner of the weekend giveaway is April A. Congrats April! Send your home address to kim@proverbs31.org right away so we can get your goodies to you!

If you are a parent who follows Christ, do you ever wish you had a way to insure that your children also followed Him too? Some magic prayer you could pray or a striking statement you could utter in their presence that would make the light bulb go on for them so they’d think, “You know, I want to live my life for Christ and stay far, far away from sin each and every moment.”?

That would be really nice.

And easy.

And convenient.

Well, 20 years of being a parent and searching for said prayer or statement has convinced me it doesn’t exist. However, I have learned a few truths about raising kids who love God. Let me share them with you.

(And let me also assure you I do not have perfect kids. Far from it. Can I get an amen from those who know me in my everyday life? Its okay. I won’t be offended. I’ll just tell you how you don’t have perfect kids either! None of us do.)

Once upon a time, I thought there was a secret recipe for cranking out perfect kids. I observed families who had very polite, outwardly obedient & seemingly perfect kids. Some of them even had a half dozen or more of them!

It wasn’t until some of these kids grew up and we began to interact with them as adults that we realized they too had struggled with sin as teens. Some of them were even involved in secret, serious sins while still maintaining an outward shell of perfection—no outward interest in the opposite sex, went to church religiously, won the Bible verse memory drills, never listened to anything other than “Hymns Greatest Hits”.

I no longer want to have perfect kids. I want to have kids who love God with all their hearts and who know where to go with their brokenness; who do not cover up sin, pushing it further down into their plastic personalities, but who are open to share their struggles, find victory in the One who already has defeated sin once and for all.

So, here is what I do now.

~ I tell my kids about my struggles with sin, both when I was their age and today.

~ I say I am sorry when I hurt or offend them and encourage them to do the same to those in their life.

~ I do not freak out when they tell me of a struggle they are having no matter how high it may register on my mommy  “Freak-O-Meter”.

Okay…I am still working on that one. My husband is so calm. I still freak a bit wondering, “What will the church ladies think?” forgetting that even the church ladies still sin. And please note, I am not talking about the actual ladies at my home church or any other church I’ve ever belonged to per se. For the love of Pete, the women at my home church just watched my 13-year-old son get baptized yesterday with a Mohawk and treated him like he was a young Billy Graham! (The Mohawk is a football thing. And yes, I gave it to him. Please still love me.)

~ Watch for spiritual mimicking. This same son who got baptized yesterday had asked several times in the past to get baptized too. When we asked him why, it was always because “Benji” or “Caleb” was doing it.

Sorry. Not the right answer.

This time when we asked him why, it was because of an encounter he has on a missions trip with a homeless man that forever changed his life. (I hope he’ll let me share that story here someday)

~ I realize it isn’t about perfection but about redemption. That can be very hard to do if you are around a lot of ‘perfect’ people who are not transparent with their faith.

I say if you have a choice between hanging out with people who seem perfect with no struggles, never admit to feeling tempted or messing up, verbally question others’ Christianity due to their looks and always have a perfunctory ‘Praise the Lord’ rolling off their lips but not a real passion for the things of Christ or with spending time with one who is transparent,  wildly in love with God, shares their struggles, leans hard into Jesus and God’s word searching for answers and who challenges you to do the same,….uh…hello? Pick door number two.

~ My friend Micca taught me this—Don’t just talk to your kids about God, talk to God about your kids.

~ Pray for them. If you aren’t then who is?

We’ll chat about this further later this week. For now, here are a few pics from yesterday’s baptism. Mine would be the one with the Mohawk and the “Just Do It” shirt. Oh mercy!

 

Have a wonderful week!