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Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture

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You may be familiar with the term arrested development. It was a comedy show, but this week I want to get into wall street journal writer, Rachel Wolf, and her piece about a generation that refuses to grow up. This is raising joyful children in an angry world. I am your host, Paul Osborne. Rachel Wolf went into a really interesting explanation about the statistics and the number of people in their thirties who have no intention of marriage. Owning a home or having children, sometimes known as the three pillars of adulthood, at least historically. And she, in this article, attempted to debunk the usual explanations of debt or cost or bad choices. What was interesting is, as you work through this, the same weekend, A story came out of an eight year old boy in Africa who had wandered from his village into a nature preserve, which is filled with lions and elephants and tigers and all sorts of dangerous beasts. And he managed to survive for like five or six days. Based on the training, young African children get on how to find water, food, and shelter in the wilderness. The contrast of those stories was quite insightful. One of the things about the other stories that Ms. Wolfe has written, is there seems to be one common explanation surrounding Arrested Development. That is the unwillingness to grow up. And it's an unhealthy. Pleasure principle. In other words, it's in a constant drive to find pleasure. And outside what we might call the governing understanding of it, that too much of anything isn't good for us. But she takes a little different path. She says, well, she, she tries to debunk their rational arguments. She says, you know, you look at things comparatively, actually, most people are better off financially than their parents. And she talks about the abilities and the opportunities to do this if you're willing to move or make certain choices. But I think the issue that, that she doesn't get to is, for one, these people all have rationalizations of their own. They can counter every argument that she makes. But the reality is when you boil this all down, what sits at the bottom of it is an unwillingness to give up their autonomy. This is a spiritual, this is a philosophical, this is a worldview issue and we have to try and figure out how do we raise kids in a luxury society that constantly promotes this, that says self choice is the highest value. And that your desires are something that you can master instead of understanding something about the reality. See, the one thing about the African child in the jungle isn't about survival training, but it's more about understanding what's true, what's real and how to deal with it. And so I think, for Christian parents, there are a couple of things that can help. Most people today are involved with sports. I don't have a problem with sports, but you've got to have sort of a biblical understanding that it, that what it's supposed to teach, what's the value of it. You can see this in Paul's letter when he talks about an athlete competing for the prize. And one, it talks about taking care of your body. To the training is required to achieve, that you have to push yourself past the levels of pain to reach your maximum capability. So if you have kids in sports, it has to be part, the biblical understanding and framework has to be part of what they're learning. The sports that try to take the shortcut, right, that want the eight year old to compete on a PGA golf course or, you know, frame everything like they were playing for a super bowl. You got to watch that because you've got to have the biblical framework. What are we actually doing? And I think secondly, the most important thing is to learn that you're running your own race to do your best. And if you run the race with your eyes on others, you're going to miss the gifts that have been given to you. And so when you, when you're, you're celebrating, of course, when someone else does a little better than you, you learn to congratulate them, but you're always working on your personal best. That's the real concept of sports and the disciplines and the striving and the training that goes with it. Well, of course, the hard question then is, well, how do you get kids to see this, right? What we're really talking about is how do you get the kids to see reality? And well, just because you told them, well, it's not bad. You should listen to your parents, but it's probably not going to be enough. And I don't think, an athletic role model. Or a great coach or somebody, those things all are helpful, but we really need God to reveal it. What we're dealing with is a spiritual reality, what we're always trying to do in the raising of our children. Our primary goal has to be delivering reality. That is reality as God and his word define it. And so there's a couple of things that I think can be helpful in this. One is spiritual reality. That is the Sabbath day. We are built on a pattern of six days and seven rest. I hate list. I don't like to tell people what they have to do or shouldn't do, but the concept of resting from pleasure or resting from our work or the striving is something that kind of helps us build a reality. It's a reality that says you weren't built to chase stuff seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and that is a gift. That's an instruction of something to do versus so much of the commandments that are restrictions of what not to do. And then I think the most important thing that I I'm believing these days is that we we've got to tell our Bible stories in The understanding that the goal is to not only just lead them to the gospel in other words to trust Jesus with their life But also understand that the Bible and that Jesus are reality Let me share what I call a story I've developed called the secret of the sand and the rock, and I'm still working on it. So it may be a little, a little bit, rough around the edges, but the secret of the sand and the rock tries to take this entire concept of the scriptures themselves. You may be familiar. I think we're all familiar where Jesus says, don't build your house on the sandy land, but build it on the rock because when the storms come, it'll be like that sandcastle on the beach. And I think kids can see that very clearly. but there is a secret between, well, what is the difference between what is the sand and the rock? And so what I would say is to kids, listen, here's the secret of the sand and the rock. Long before people even came to the earth, the father in heaven declared that Jesus is the son. He's going to be the King of all of the universe. And I'm borrowing a little bit from John Milton and one of the angels, Lucifer, he didn't like that announcement. He was envious and angry. Okay. So he gathers the other angels or at least some of them. And he says, we weren't made to be governed. We were made to rule. In other words, we don't have to have a king. We can be king. And so he starts this rebellion and Michael and Gabriel and eventually Jesus drive this rebellion out of heaven. The scripture says, I saw Lucifer fall like lightning from heaven. Well, Lucifer wasn't satisfied with that. Now he's been kicked out of heaven and he wants to get back at God. And so he comes up with a plan. I know what I'll do. I will go as mankind, his latest creation that he loves and I'll deceive them. And I'll trick them. And so he goes, and as we know the story, he says, did God really say you shouldn't eat of that tree? And you can eat of all the other ones, but not this one, Eve replies. And he says, oh no, you can eat of that. You'll be just like God. See, it's the same lie. And once people believed that they could be King by eating from that tree, they could be God. Then they couldn't tell the difference between what was rock and what was sand. And for years and years, God's creation and people were fooled thinking that sand was rock and they built their lives on sand over and over. And this devil was so clever at selling them sand as rock. He. Packaged it in beautiful containers and it looked like rock, but it wasn't. Well, there was only one thing, only one thing that Jesus and the King could do. He had to come to earth. And so he came as a baby, he grows up to be a man and he's about to reveal the secret. And he tells the story. Don't build your house on the sand. Cause when the storms comes, it'll fall down, build it on the rock. And everyone said, Oh yeah, that's, that makes sense. Right. And he's talking about more than that. He's saying, don't build your house and your life on what is false, build it on what is true. And then he asked his disciples who have been following him a question. Who do you say that I am? And there lies the secret between knowing what is rock and what is sand. And Peter answers him and he says, you're the son of God. Oh, see, Peter understood. The king. Revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, and that profession, that faith that I'm king, that God reveals to you, that's the secret. And once you know that, now you'll be able to tell the difference between what is sand and what is rock. I would say it this way to parents in our community, our church fellowship, when your brought you here to be baptized, you were given God's name. And you were named into the kingdom. Children of a king. And then the pastor, he taught you the stories that Jesus taught Peter and your Sunday school teachers and your Bible at home. And you started to get the stories. And the secret of what is sand and rock was revealed to you because Jesus said he would build his house. On that profession and we build our lives on that profession and we come to his house, which is right here, our church, and there were told more and more about what is rock and what is sand and that lie that the devil told and he got the angels and some of the angels to rebel with him and the one he told the people fell for. We no longer fall for because we know what's true. We know what's rock. And we know what is sand. See, Jesus is the king. And once you know that, and once you trust that, then you will know the secret of reality of what is true and what is false. And then all of the good things in life come from our King and we have to trust what he says about what is good and what is true and what is beautiful. The Christian home has to be a place where we're trying to formation the mindset, the way we see the world. This is, this is critical in how we tell the stories and how we ourselves understand the world. The last thing I'll say about Arrested Development and one of the things that I find the other side of this, this cause is so much of this world and all of its prosperity has such a dystopic negative worlds coming to an end for you. You got to keep that poison out of our kids heads by giving them the reality that as it says, the father made me. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, and I and God live in his kingdom and he will provide for all my needs. That's a positive reality of who God is, and that gives people the ability to have a worldview that allows them to reach adulthood and development in a positive, wonderful, and godly, good way. 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.