The Supplement Your Family Needs

We see a lot of advertising about taking supplements to replace needed nutrition lacking in our regular diet. Indeed, depend on your condition, the supplement can be essential.

Tonight Judy and I took turns reading James to our family, then we prayed as if we were Elijah!

We read with nominal commentary -- just a quick expansion or explanation here and there. Then the Spirit moved me to write to you, covering a few benefits of reading the Word to your family.

• The Word is the food the Holy Spirit feeds back to Christ followers when He gives them counsel, hence your family must hear it!
• You as parent(s) reading the Word to your children establishes, over time, the priority of the Word in your life, and thus theirs.
• It is like taking a bath spiritually and emotionally. Even when it challenges, it also soothes and comforts. You want to settle down a restless, dispirited, irritable house? Wash it in the Word.
• It resets the mind. If you believe that how you think impacts your emotions, which usually determines your actions (seriously, this is true and vital to understand), then you'll see the value of hit the reset button often.

Families appear too busy today to read the Word. They are giving their minds -- then their hearts and actions -- over to the enemy very subtly. Don't let it happen in your home. Read the Word over your family.

The American Dream and Your Kids

Thanks to Tom Ascol for this tweet (on 'Twitter' micro-blogging service, if you don't recognize the terminology): "The danger with pursuing the American Dream is that you might actually attain it & then settle for it."

That prompts several thoughts. It is a good idea for parents to regularly discuss: 'What are we pursuing, and do we really want it?"

Can you think back to high school or college when you wanted to go out with, or marry, some certain person soooo badly? And you now (I hope!) look back and thank God that didn't happen!

How many of us are pursuing the American Dream, and do we really want that?

Let me just give you two ways pursuit of the American Dream might be harmful to your children:

• It could give them a sense of entitlement. How many middle-class and higher teens awake every day expecting to get what they want and be treated the way they want to? is that the character you want to cultivate? Will they ever serve God, much less know Him and live in His power, with a heart like that?
• It could be good at the expense of best. This is Satan's big one. Find a nice mate, get a nice house, take nice vacations, make good money, grow old, look back and wonder why you lived. I know senior adults who are miserable as they slowly fade. They are miserable in part because they got it all so to speak, but made virtually no difference.

Let's re-think. Let's set our sites higher. Let's challenge our kids to find God's purpose in them, and to make that their 'dream.'

Shaping Your Child's Sexualty -- The Intimacy Equation at Home Makes the Difference

God’s overwhelmingly affirms sex. It doesn’t go from wrong to acceptable on marriage day, it goes from wrong to right. It was God’s idea, thus God’s creation. He overwhelmingly affirms it Scripture, to the point of describing it in specific, profound personal-body-parts detail in Song of Solomon. He lays it out clearly.
God likes sex.

That overarching view is vital as you try to shape your child's thinking and actions with regard to sexuality. But first a key question: Is it even possible to shape the sex life of your children before they become sexually active?

I think so. I believe you can radically influence -- not control -- their future decisions.

Let's face it: Somebody is going to shape it, and the world is working at it real hard.

The sexual dialogue among kids at school is on-going, explicit and inaccurate, when it comes to the facts and beliefs you want expressed to your child.

They are getting mental sexual input from outside your home consistently. They may be getting visual sexual input from somewhere, because it is almost impossible to keep them from it. Have you ever been in ‘Victoria’s Secret’? There is no secret!

Here’s the why-and-how you can shape the sex life of your children before you are married: because you have the most access to the important sex organ they have: the mind.

In order to persuade their hearts and minds to a Godly sexual orientation, you have to have an ongoing, relational, honest dialogue. You not only have to enter into the conversation that is going on about sex, you have to lead it, drive it, direct it, take it over, and set the boundaries for the secondary conversations (those you don't hear).

First you've got to understand that if 'The Talk' really is merely a 'talk' in your house, you'll headed for failure. It’s an on-going conversation, or you will fail. The ongoing conversation  (not 'the talk') starts with issues that are - on the surface - distinctly non-sexual.

First, you must define intimacy (not merely sexual intimacy), because it is going to be the river that carries your influence.

My definition of intimacy: Complete exposure. Ideal Intimacy is safe, comfortable, nurturing, complete exposure.

Of course intimacy has levels, and as a relationship strengthens and grows the level should deepen.

Our kids are hungry for and in deep need of intimacy. If you don’t give them intimacy you’re going to increase their chance of seeking it the wrong way, and still not getting it. In fact, seeking it the wrong way will set them back, perhaps grievously and with permanent damage.

Let me use a synonym – an incomplete-but-accurate one – for intimacy: Safety

I explain to kids as they are growing up that there are four areas of their development in life, and that they deserve and must have for their full development real safety in each.

• Emotional
• Spiritual
• Intellectual
• Physical

They all overlap, and they all fall under spiritual. The intellectual leads to the emotional. Your emotional state tends to determine your actions. Sex is physical, and requires actions. Are you following me? If you want to influence what’s happening on the end of the equation, you better work with the beginning of the equation – the mind! You have to have a safe environment to accomplish that.

A healthy family has Godly ‘intimacy’ in all four areas. (A brief time out here. In a culture of increasing perversity, let me be very clear: I’m not talking about anything sexual other than between husband and wife.)

Intimacy in these four areas means it is safe to express your emotions, thoughts and spiritual views or questions. Your children should already know there is physical safety – and I don’t mean their protection from danger in this case – under your care because you are the primary care-taker of their physical well being as long as they are a minor in your home -- and that should ease the difficulty of discussion of intimate physical issues, including sexual issues.

If your children have a good understanding and experience of non-sexual intimacy, they will more easily make right choices about and transition – in marriage – appropriately to physical intimacy (which we also know is emotional, intellectual and even spiritual).

When you tell your kids don’t, you best be adding the why. And you better be dealing with the heart elements. They have to have enough emotional trust in you, enough experience at genuine familial intimacy on all four levels with you, to actually believe that what you tell them is what they should do even when they don’t understand, because when everything wakes up physically and they want sex bad enough, their lack of relationship experience and intimacy in non-physical contexts is going to radically increase their chances of failing.

Without that great grounding, they run the risk of having sex for the same reason you continue eating donuts, or consuming whatever isn’t good for you: because it satisfies an immediate desire. They have to be focused on God, and focused on their future mate. They’ve got to believe God and believe you. That means you have to have enough emotional and intellectual equity in their life that they don’t let their emotions drive their physical actions!

You gain that equity by having raised them in genuine intimacy in four areas of development, while teaching them how it all falls under the coverage of the Word of God.

God’s Truth on all issues of life – especially the hard ones – should flow through you to them, so the experience of your interaction with them should validate the Gospel and empower them to wise choices. You can be the difference maker in their future sexual decisions by grounding them in God's truth about sex in an environment of total safety.

How Your Sexual Past Affects Your Shaping of Your Child's Sexuality

Your experience with a given subject -- in this case, sex -- directly affects how you view and thus instruct on the same subject. This is profound in simplicity.

Extrapulated to your parenting and specifically your efforts to shape (through the early teen years) and inflluence (beyond that) your children's sexuality, that means you must come to terms with your sexual past. 'Sexual past' does not merely mean any pre-marriage sexual activity, but also the ways you were taught about sex before you were married.

How does this affect your parenting? Scenarios:

* Perhaps your parents were scared speechless -- literally -- of discussing sex with you as a pre-teen and teen. You may have went through puberty and beyond wondering things like, "Is this normal?" on a variety of physical and emotional experiences. You likely wondered, "Is it normal to think about X, wonder about Y, and imagine Z?' No one told you anything -- except other kids, who were sensationalizing and practically making up their information. Now you are scared to death to talk to your children. But you have to. They're dying to hear from you. You have credibility. You can overcome this.

* Perhaps you had some relatively mild, or major, sexual experience before marriage, either as a child when something took advantage of you, or by choice as a child, teen or young adult. A variety of emotional pain, confusion and images could still be having an effect on you. These need to be dealt with Biblically before you can be as effective as you should be in talking with your child. Trust me, I know countless adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s who are still negatively shaped by these unresolved issues!

I believe the best way to help you help your child is to Biblically address how to cope with any past issues you have. So let's review John 7:53-8:12, The Woman at the Well, and make some application.

The Scene: The religious people (the self-righteous legalists) are trying to trap Jesus, so they bring him the most publicly unacceptable, egregious, situation of the day: a woman caught in adultery. They did it publicly. In ‘church.’ With smirks on their face they said, ‘OK, GOD, what you do about this?!’ He delayed. Twice. To let them think about it. (Pretty good parenting technique, by the way)

1→ “No one, Lord.” LORD!

She called Him ‘Lord’! She’s standing there just after having had sex, with somebody’s table cloth wrapped around her so she won’t be stark naked, and she calls Him LORD! She goes in there literally expecting to DIE, and comes face-to-face with a man who turns the tables on her accusers. This man is different, why, He’s is the only God-Man!

2→ “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

Listen, when you take a sinner to God, what do YOU expect GOD to do with him?! Be careful here! If you want them ‘condemned’ for being so bad, you better get in the execution line with them!

God isn’t waiting for a person to get cleaned up! He saved you as you were! What He says to her is amplified in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . . “ He says, paraphrased, “You’ve met me now. Everything changes. Go on, quit that nasty stuff, and live in the light.”

3→ ”I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Once you are exposed to The Light, you crave TheLight! Remember the woman at the well. She had a pretty sordid sexual past and present, too. But once she’d seen The Light, she didn’t mind what everybody knew so much . . . that was secondary. She ran back to the village telling the people to “come see a man who told me everything I ever did!” In her case, that’s the same as saying, “Come see a man who told me everybody I ever slept with!”

The point isn’t what she did – the point isn’t what you did – the point is Who He Is, and how He changes who you are! Our God is a God of redemption, and that includes in YOUR sex life; whether of the body or of the mind. Read the redemptive passages of Scripture!

Romans 8:28-30 applies. A few thoughts and steps spinning off of “all things work together . . .” as it relates to a sexual sin history.

A He knew you were going to do that (He did not ordain it, permit it, or endorse it, but He knew it)

B He knows who you are with now (He knows who you married and the baggage you brought)

C His mind can overtake your mind (If you don’t believe and live this, you are living in defeat; the battle is for the mind, and the saved have ‘the mind of Christ’)

D His nature can overtake your nature (”be transformed by the renewing of your mind”)

E Practice makes perfect (overcome ‘wrong sex’ with ‘right sex’; he ordained your sexuality with your spouse!). In other words, get on and stay on the right path.

Parents, what ever is a hard subject for you when you were 13-years-old (or 8, or 28) is going to be a hard subject for you to address your child on if you haven't come to terms with the Lord on it.
If you are born again and have put all your junk before God for cleansing, and have thus been renewed in your mind by His Word and Spirit, You are clean. You are redeemed from your sin, including your sexual sin. Now go and sin no more.

Being free from it -- and knowing you are free, and accepting your freedom, -- you are now free to shape the sexuality of your children without guilt, shame, remorse or embarrassment.

Parenting Design -- How Parents Can Re-Draw the Plans

I read a quote this morning that expressed how I've been feeling about my parenting lately: "Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."

This piece we are working on has many beautiful parts. It is a tapestry I'm largely proud of, in the context that any good we do is God's work. But there's a smudge here, a jagged line there, some discoloration in some places, an evil doodle in that corner. There are words of affirmation all over the piece, but a few words (maybe more than a few?) we don't want to say, hiding in the corners.

In earthly terms, you just can't undo what you've done. I've been feeling that for a few days, exacerbated nightly as Judy reads to me excerpts from a fine parenting book by parents who started doing all the right things very early. The enemy tries to condemn (this blog does not!), and I recognize discouragement as perhaps Satan's greatest tool. There are seasons when he reminds you of every mean word you ever said to a child or every situation you mismanaged. The quote and the review of our parenting life (21 kids through the home, for various lengths of time) left me wondering how much better off our children would be if we could remove the mistakes.

So what do you and I do with our parenting mistakes? We don't have an eraser. It's like we have a blood stain on a white shirt! You moms, in particular, know how hard it is to get out blood.

Ah, but Jesus turned the tide (bad pun intended, sorry). His Blood does get out stains!

The blood of Christ is an eraser. I'm not saying there are not earthly ramifications for sin, but I am reminding you that the grace of God extended from the Cross by the Holy Spirit to your life and into your family's life can clean up the nasty images, evil doodles and false starts of your work, and mine.

How?  Let's let powerful theology meet practical life. You're a parent. You've made mistakes. Your kids can name them as well as you can. You want to change courses. You have an idea how, but the past . . . has too much damage been done?  In 99 percent of cases, no. (Of course, there is the occassional extreme abuse case).

Here is what you do: Own it. Honesty and humility are great credibility builders. They are key ingredients in a holy cleanser. I've seen many intense moments with kids -- my kids, other parents and their kids -- absolutely desolve into tender love when a parent looked at a child and said, 'I blew it. I sinned, and I apologize.' Pfffft. There went the angry, evil pressure that was building.

I'm not just talking about sin in the heat of the moment -- a yelling match, a curse, a threat -- I'm talking about big picture stuff.

If you want to center the parent plan on Christ and re-shape family life when you are already years into it, just sit down the family and say so. A summary of the talk may look something like this: "Kids, we love you passionately and thank God for you. (Mom or Dad) and I have been praying and thinking about the direction our family is headed, and about how we have raised you. We want to apologize for some mistakes we have consistently made, and we want to set a new course. We want you to understand, from a Biblical perspective, why we are making changes. We're really going to need your cooperation, but we'll all find ourselves in far more peace and purposeful as we adjust."

Then tell the truth. Apologize for the bad very specificallly, then lay out a new plan. You're not surrending authority, your gaining credibility! The plan doesn't have to be perfect. I promise it won't be! But re-start. Turn it over to Christ. Let His blood cleanse yours!

Need help with the plan? Contact us.

We've been through this re-drawing thing a time or two.

Why You & Your Kids are Going Crazy

Why are you and your kids going crazy? Because you and I are like a long home run: "Going, going, going -- Gone."

Judy and I have had a rash of 'awakening' moments lately that look like this: We will be driving somewhere -- or mostly likely back from somewhere -- with our kids and a few more, and one of us will say, "Did we really need to do that? Could we have had as much fun playing a game at home, walking by the lakes that are near our house (instead of the streams an hour away), watching a movie together at home?"

We'll be tired, the kids will be cranky, we will have just spent money we don't have (so to speak). It's starting to sink in -- we GO too much. We seek to entertain ourselves -- and that's not always bad. But does an American Christian middle-class family have to be going and doing to be happy?

Strong in my spirit -- and I believe it is from the Spirit -- is the urge to stay home more, and to learn to enjoy that with my family. We have a nice home, as most of you do, so why do we so often think we have to be somewhere else to be happy?

I'm not at all against family outings, vacations, etc., but here's the crux of the matter: Most of us can honor God more with our time usage, spending and commitment to real dialogue with our children by staying home more.

This may not seem like a crucial, hard parenting issue, but we also may all be getting fooled into a busy-ness that undercuts our goals. Think about it. Don't go crazy.


INFORMATIVE LINKS/QUOTES

Today's blog is link-intensive, as I've seen many things I want to share over the past weeks but haven't produced a blog. After a summer of administration and re-tooling, I'll be back to consistent blog production.

As I reviewed many links I had filtered about family, I found a lot of secular stories that were of use. Here's what I'm seeing: non-Christian parents are asking some of the right questions, and non-Christian researchers are seeing some of the right data. It's just that neither are coming up with the right conclusions! (mostly). Among the following links are many secular stories, but they have value as you use the data and the questions and issues to apply the Word in your context.

I realize there is more below that you can absorb in one sitting; please return to the blog from time to time and keep exploring.

• The value of boundaries for toddlers and gradschoolers. Some good insight and info. http://blog.pigtailpals.com/2010/07/for-now-dolls-like-these/
• Touching story of intentional fathering in a tragic time: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/14/dads.daughters.feiler/index.html?hpt=C1
• "Few things are more infectious than a godly lifestyle. The people you rub shoulders with everyday need that kind ofchallenge. Not prudish. Not preachy. Just cracker jack clean living. Just honest to goodness, bone-deep, non-hypocritical integrity." Charles Swindoll
•  Looks like the culture is producing self-absorbed children. Any surprise? http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/13-culture/366-teenagers-want-successful-careers-and-global-travel-expect-to-delay-marriage-a-parenting-
• This is of value as it affirms what many think of as the 'controlling' parent. We must be vigalent! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/give-helicopter-parents-a-break/article1651532/
•  A must read to know how NOT to think. This article unknowingly juxtaposes a Biblical world view versus secular psychology. Yet, because it is soft and gentle in approach, it will be well received by most who call themselves Christian. http://www.todaysparent.com/lifeasparent/parenting/article.jsp?content=20100525_130806_8788&page=1
•  Another secular study helping to prove what I and many Christian leaders have long taught: that dad's influence greatly their daughter's sexuality. Though some of the quotes as to WHY are wrong because of the lack of understanding of spirituality and the Bible.  //www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31086977/
• Please read this information piece about sexting, then ask yourself, 'Why should I believe that my teen could not be exposed to this?" http://www.internetsafety101.org/sexting.htm
•  Signs of a spoiled child: observe yours and see what you see. http://gomestic.com/family/why-kids-grow-up-spoiled/

Are Your Daughters Looking Sexy?

Judy and our 15-year-old girls were having a fun day  shopping last week, when I got a text from Judy that said, "Shopping for 15-year-old girls is a sample of hell." I wondered which child had pitched a fit, so I called Judy. My three ladies were getting along wonderfully, the problem was that almost everywhere they went, the clothes they found were too revealing, and it was becoming frustrating.

Such is the state of our culture. Parents, I offer you two scenarios to consider:

1 -- If you were rich, and you sent your daughter on a mission trip into a difficult part of town, would you want them to pin their money -- 20s, 50s, 100s -- to their shirt, for everyone to see. All the people who lust after money, who reach out to grab whatever they can get, however they can, would target your daughter.

2 -- If your daughter is pretty -- which would include the ability to be sexually attractive -- would you want them to advertise what God gave them by revealing it? All the men who lust after sex, who reach out and grab whatever they can get, however they can, would target your daughter.

You would never agree to display the money, such as in scenario one. But many parents, including those in the church today, are enabling the display of their daughters sexual beauty by allowing them to display too much. Stick with me here -- there is a lot to consider.

A parent might say, 'Who says it is 'sexual' beauty?' The World. And we as Christians are to be in it but not of it. Or a parent might say, 'I'm not displaying my child's sexuality, they are just going swimming in something comfortable and stylish.' But remember, sexuality is in the eye of the beholder. If your child is too young to be sexually mature, you must remember that there are, frankly, a lot of perverts out there. If you're child is into puberty, then clearly they can attract sexualized looks. You cannot put a bumper sticker across their biki bottom that reads, 'I am not sexualized, and you may not look at me that way.'

Fellow parents, I nor my bride are prudes. We don't travel via horse-drawn buggy with Judy wearing a long dress. And I have not yet bought a table cloth and punched head and arm holes in it for my daughters to wear. But there is a level of sexual impropriety -- um, just plain sin -- in our culture that demands we as Christian parents hold a higher standard for the protection of our children (foremost) and as an example.

This truth seems to escape even the church family. I am around Christian families whose girls are wearing very revealing swim suits. Why? Someone has taken an intrevenous dose of naivity, or they are downright liscivious. I'll assume the former. (Moms, aren't you grossed out by those guys walking down the beach in thong swim suits with their parts practically hanging out? If your daughters aren't wearing much more on the lower half, what's the difference?)

The Word of God clearly teaches modesty in appearance among Christian women. FirstTimothy 2:9 instructs that "women adorn themselves in modest apparel." The definition of modest is 'having or expressing a humble opinion of oneself or one's accomplishments or abilities.' (Collin's) If your children are beautiful by the world's standards, they must be humble about it. We know about struggles with this.

To dress in such a way that says, 'I'm hot,' is not modest or humble. It is sexually inviting to many. When a pretty woman gives a man way too little to imagine, he is likely imagining. Realize that you are dealing with undisciplined minds, at worst, and normal sexual attractiveness, at best.

 To help them understand, I have been frank with our girls. I have said -- when they grew out of a pair of shorts, or tried on a swim suit too revealing -- "If you wear that out, all the guys will just be imagining what little is covered up." I've asked, "Do you want to sexually arouse a man?" ("No, Daddy!!) "Then don't wear that. It is alluring to undisciplined men, whose minds are too un-Christlike not to think sinfully."

I have explained to them that men (and I mean 'boys becoming men' here, too) who see a pretty woman wearing very little, if mentally undisciplined, are very quickly aroused. I am attempting to protect my daughters by telling them the truth about what their appearance can say to other men. Since a Daddy's job is to teach his daughters how a Godly man is supposed to treat them (respectfully, not sexually until married, etc), then this is one of the things we as Dad's must do! Moms, if you are reading this, have your daughter's dads read it and see if they don't agree about how men respond, then lovingly challenge them to teach their daughters the same.

There are stylish one-piece swim suits. Tankinis are a compromise that aren't too revealing. Be wise. Be modest. But Moms and Dads, you really have to help the situation. Here's where I go to meddling instead of preaching: it's really hard to help my girls understand why they should be modestly dressed when the mothers of many of the kids their age are showing off their stuff, too. Men, you must influence your wives on this! And while you're at, some of you need to tell your wives to show a little less up top in their day-to-day wear.

This culture is oversexualized. I don't know of it being significantly different within the church, or certainly not at your neighborhood pool or lake. Honor God. Protect your daughters.

Finally, I leave you with the modesty guidelines Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, gave his daughters. They are worthy of pinning to their bedroom mirror.

• If you have trouble getting into it or out of it, it is probably not modest.
• If you have to be careful when you sit down or bend over, it is probably not modest.
• If people look at any part of your body before looking at your face, it is probably not modest.
• If you can see your most private body parts or an outline of those parts under the fabric, it is probably not modest.

LOADS OF NOTES, LINKs, QUOTES

 A practical must-read for any parent who ever has oversight of smaller (grade-school and under) children: http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/familyhealth/article/817445--eight-summer-safety-myths-that-put-kids-at-risk

• A project that will strengthen and extend your family bond: http://anniefox.com/parents/parents_7-06.html
• Concerned your teens might be dabbling in drugs? Check this out. I can't speak to its validity, but very interesting. http://www.examiner.com/x-19494-Broward-County-Parenting-Teens-Examiner~y2010m6d9-DrugWipes-Finding-out-what-substances-your-teens-are-using-could-save-their-lives
• 'Google Alerts' and your teen: http://nathanshoultz.wol.org/blog/shoultz/parentAlert
• Where does texting rank in your children's social media choices? http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007737
• Excuses churched youth use for not sharing the Gospel. Read, share, debunk, encourage. http://www.calledtoyouthministry.com/resources/article/excuses-youth-group-students-make-for-not-sharing-their-faith?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CalledToYouthMinistryResources+%28Youth+Ministry+Resources+from+Called+to+Youth+Ministry%29
• When should teens getting a drivers' licence? Some interesting data. http://www.livingwithteenagersmagazine.blogspot.com/
• Board material: "It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help." -- Steve Scalici
• Expose your children to the words and wisdom of John Wooden. Sports fans or not, this is worthy of review: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5249709