Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture
Paul (2):This is Raising Joyful Children in an Angry World. I'm your host, Paul Osborne. We've been talking about taking stories as a way to form godly character and how that works. We've talked about stories and adventures and practice, but today I want to focus on story. There is a documentary called the power of film hosted by UCLA professor Howard Suber.
It's on max and some other streaming services. His powerful explanation of why story matters is worth a listen. Subra explains the connection between the human experience and story. He takes us from Greek mythology to modern film and explains why we're attracted to story in our humanity. And he shows us how story plays a role in the formation of what we are and why we're here. He believes the most common and powerful stories Are about family, the most important institution of humanity. And you can't miss the importance of story in watching a couple of these series that are produced. In the Christian worldview, stories teach us what is seen and what is unseen. And it's what is unseen that is most important. Even in this UCLA professor, He does see the soul and connects to this truth. Jonathan Eldridge on a recent podcast reminds his audience that our lives are not paintings. They're a story from Hemingway to Maya Angelou, from Harvard to Hollywood. If there's one universally agreed to truth, it centers around the power, influence, and significance of story. In the human experience, stories are foundational to the orientation of our children in becoming godly men and women of Christian virtue. Stories are formational to our character development and grasping our faith. The stories of the Bible and the stories that reflect biblical truth are essential in character building of our kids. God does not leave us without a collection of stories and the framework of biblical truth. So don't let the world tell you that the stories of the Bible are myths, especially in the derogatory use of the term myth. The Bible is the inspired word of God. Any serious study of the Bible and a little bit of comparative literature leads you to the conclusion our Bible is not man made fiction. Therefore, children, Christian children, must know some of its stories because God uses his words and stories to build in us his character. The stories take us to real life situations. They provide tremendous truth. It's raw and real so that our kids walk through their story They have these principles to guide them. We're given a child that has a sinful nature. And most of us do not overestimate the sinful condition. In fact, we tend to rebrand it as a little imperfection, a little scratch on the car, a loose thread, a blemish. But the Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things. And that doesn't mean that our kids are somehow sociopaths, but it doesn't mean they're slightly flawed. It means that they are created in the image of God, but they are have a sinful nature and we become sneaky beings that try to get our own way. Please ourselves, manipulate all that are around us, all while knowing what we're doing is wrong. In fact, the nature is so tricky that we fool ourselves. We do what we do not want to do and often fail to do what we know we ought to do. Parents need a way to deal with that beyond confrontation, discipline, or getting angry with our kids. Stories give us a tactical way to wrestle with this nature. beyond our parental efforts while fully trusting God for their formation. See, part of the way we trust God to work in the hearts of our kids is to share his stories that are meant to transform their hearts and their minds and their souls. One way to describe the way story works is the word graft. Not the way it's used in political corruption, but grafting a branch of a tree where the small branch takes the sap from the larger branch, a skin graft. You take healthy skin and you attach it to the damaged skin. The scripture teaches us about becoming grafted, the branch being grafted to the vine where Christ is. There's a sense that our story is grafted to God's story. It is this mystery in which those who believe are grafted to the vine and abide in Jesus. It's this plant like vascular system that's described in those texts. Food is the word and the word contains story. So first I want to start with the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. We'll go into this story in the next podcast. But here are some things I want to search for when I share a story with my kids. Who, what, how, plot, motive, the parallel, and what is unseen. That's the most important thing. If you teach this story of Joseph and the coat of many colors that, oh, there were these brothers and they were jealous of the coat, and so it was jealousy's bad, so don't be jealous. You're missing the story. Who is the main character? Joseph, but there's a parallel in this story. The hero in it is God in his redemptive work. See this is a story of a family that is in the full throes of being guided by the flesh and the world. It's a you do you attitude. The entire family starts with Jacob who becomes Israel. His father in law does a two for one marriage. It's a messy situation of many wives over the years. The family structure is massively blended brotherhood, multiple mamas, and it's swimming far from the shore of the original creative order of family. We're gonna see favoritism, pride, envy, and the main characters false assumptions about leadership. We're gonna see a band of brothers who justify sin cover it rather than confess it. The deadly sin of envy. pride, traps, sinful collusions. And our character moves from one trap to the next as God redeems what's broken in this family to accomplish his greater purpose. He uses their evil to advance his kingdom. As our lead character discovers the gifts of servant leadership for the greater good found in God's plan, as will his entire family. So we're going to see this story, the way God forms character, despite the dysfunctional family of sinful attributes. Again, who's the main character? What's the motivations? What's been lost? Where's the trap? How do you escape? How does the character find the power to change? How does God form character in the members of this family? We might not be able to ask these questions in every story, but we can teach story in the framework of faith. to help our kids look for these clues and meanings as we present it. See, great stories are grasped with the right questions because they help us gain the right understanding. We recognize emotions and struggle. Helping our kids see who, how, why reaches the unseen parts of the soul that's asking who, what, and why. This story of Joseph and the coat of many colors is a great family drama for us to start in our next podcast on this story. We'll see handling of our parents imperfections, interpreting our dreams correctly, sin, beginning sin, confession of sin versus the covering of sin and the way God works. The main thing I want to close with is this. We and our kids are being brought up in a society for a long time that has been stripped of mystery. It demands everything be seen, measured, empirically tested. It's a world that lives by sight. And if we believe that we live by faith and not by sight, then stories must reveal to us what is unseen. And in doing so, it's going to strengthen our faith and the faith of our family as the Bible defines it. Amen. And your kids will learn that what's unseen matters more than what is seen. The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong. Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.