Mom Guilt Part 2

I want to clear up by example and scripture as to how trusting God to do the unseen work in the heart is the path the less guilt and anxiety in parenting. 

Transcript

Ethan: 0:00

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

0:08

This is raising joyful children in an angry world. I'm your host, Paul Osborne. Last week I was trying to suggest to parents that one of the ways, in fact, the way that we can take the pressure and the guilt and the anxiety off of our shoulders is by trusting what God is doing in the heart of your child. And I think this week I need to clear that up a little bit because two things happened last week for me. One, I got to witness a piece of this personally and I almost missed it, and I, I got some better understanding about it as I was preparing to do what I call Peter's fishing stories for our vacation Bible study. Let me tell you what happened. I. So it was supposed to be a week, an easy week. My daughter's kids in town, their schools don't all line up, right? And so the oldest child was gonna be still in school. The middle daughter was gonna be out and half days and that kind of thing. So she was going to come over to our house and then a couple of full days. And one child is so easy and so. Unfortunately, the oldest child got sick at school one day, had to be brought here. The grandson has an incident, he has to be pulled out of preschool for an afternoon. A little bit of chaos gets thrown in, and that's how I almost missed it. But there was a day, there was just my wife and I and my middle granddaughter and we're in the, in the living room and there is a puzzle and she's playing with it, and there's a box that the puzzle pieces go in and she suddenly decides to stand on top of the box and I say, Hey, get off the box. And she says, fear is a reaction. Uh oh. I'm in trouble. And so we have to have this talk now. Now, if I'm sometimes telling you something in that way, it's not meant to scare you. It's not that you're in trouble, or even if you are in trouble, it's because I want you to have a good box to put your puzzles in, or you might be outside. And I say, don't step there. There's an anhill, there's fire ants. It's because we care about you. We love you, and that's why we say some things the way we say them. You don't need to be afraid. And so we did games and different things happened that day and, and, and later in the afternoon we were back in my office and she discovers the label printer. What's that? She says, well, that's a labor printer. Would you like to print something? Yeah. Yeah. I want to print something. Okay. What would you like the label to say? I want it to say, I love you. I love you, mom. So we let her push the buttons and I go through all of that and I print it out and we put the little labels on a little plastic cup and she takes it home. We went from an oh to and I love you moment. Now think about this in terms of Peter's fishing stories, and this is why this became clearer to me the first time that Peter's out fishing all night. His brother Andrew, has trusted that Jesus is a Messiah. Peter's not so sure. Fishes all night, catches nothing, brings the boat in. There's the Messiah, there's the Lord, and Jesus says, Hey, cast your net over there. And Peter reluctantly does it. They catch all kinds of fish. They fill up the boat with fish. They pull it in. Jesus walks up to Peter, and Peter falls on his face, says, I'm a sinful man. Depart from me. Fear I'm exposed. And Jesus' words are, don't be afraid. I'm going to make you a fisher of men. I'm gonna do something transformational. Hmm. Get to the second fishing story of Peter. After the resurrection, the angels have told him, Hey Peter, he's not here. Said he'd meet you to see a Galilee. He's out all night again with the disciples and they're fishing. And once again, they've caught nothing on the shoreline. They don't even recognize there's Jesus cooking some fish for breakfast. And he says, same thing. Cast your nuts over there. And they do the same thing. And again. The nets are filled, the boat's filled with fish. But this time Peter runs to him, runs to him. It's the Lord. And Jesus asks him a question, a question, do you love me three times? And Peter says, yes, Lord, I love you. Yes, Lord, I love you. Yeah. You know I love you. Jesus knew it. Jesus knows everything. I think Peter knew it. Yeah, but there's something about discovering the transformational thing by speaking it. He sees the love that Jesus has put in his heart, and Jesus wants him to say it as he kind of confirm it. That is a transformation of a man who went from, I'm a sinful man. Oh, depart from me. I'm caught. I'm exposed. I gotta hide. To an I love you Jesus moment. And that's the glimpse that we get to see. Sometimes we give our kids correction. We have to, if you don't do it, you don't love them. And sometimes they react with I'm caught. And then when they get older, they become an defense attorney and they explain why they did what they did. But then you have this thing happening, this promise that God has given to you and your family to do a transformational work in their heart and to put his love in it, and you get you little glimpses of it, and that's the thing that we have to learn to trust. So much of Christianity today is always about living a better life, a better marriage, handling your finances, and here's your eternal life policy. And we miss what's happening in the internal parts of our kids. And that's why I think this story of Peter is what we're to search for. And when we get a hint of it, when we see little dabbles of it, it's great. And, and, and I would encourage you for teach your children to say, I love you, Jesus. And, and just watch the transformation happen. And, and if you can get your hands around that, I promise you, I believe this, be less anxiety. There will be less guilt. You'll know that the Lord is doing the work in your child's heart. Yeah, you're still gonna have those chaotic days and the, this one's sick, and that one's over there and they're fighting with their siblings and all the stuff that, you know, drives everybody nuts. But that, that can't be what the focus you, you gotta get past that, and you gotta see every once in a while, God's gonna show you something, what he's doing in the heart of your child through the expressions of their love.

Paul (2): 8:02

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.