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By Pastor Paul LeBoutillier
The tragedy in Littleton, Colorado has had no small impact on the people of the United States, and the world! Some see a foreboding picture of the spiritual and emotional condition of our children and I must confess I am among them. [Note: I need to warn you that this article was hard to write and is even harder to read. It's an "in your face" kind of approach to learning the tough lessons from Littleton, Colorado. If you find some of the things I've said offensive, I'm sorry, but I think it's high time they got said. I'd sure like your feedback.]
Recently, someone used the word "insane" to describe the boys that committed these horrific murders. Those boys may have been many things, but I don’t think insane was one. I find that people use the word "insane" as more of a defense mechanism than anything else. By labeling someone as "insane" they can place such people in a category apart from themselves and ignore the fact that the same monster lives within us all. It’s called "sin" and it’s why Jesus came to die on a cross.
Rather than insane, the Bible uses the interesting words "warped" or "twisted" to describe what can happen to a person’s mind when they are repeatedly exposed to evil and wicked influences.
A man is praised according to his wisdom, but men with warped minds are despised. (Proverbs 12:8 NIV)
And the Apostle Paul warns Timothy of those who are "warped and sinful" and bent on dividing the Body of Christ. He said they are to be avoided. (See Titus 3: II)
So what causes a person to warp or twist as badly as the two kids we saw in the Littleton massacre? That’s the question (among others) that the world is currently asking, and I’ve noticed the answers aren’t very forthcoming. Not wanting to engage in finger-pointing, suffice it to say there were certainly things those parents could have done differently. But I discussing the mistakes of non-Christian parents is a waste of time because our goals are different. As Christians we’re attempting to do a lot more than just raise kids that don’t commit murder and hate others. Our goal is to raise kids who will love God with all their heart and be responsive to His Word. Are you standing in the way of making this happen in your children’s life? Check out the following passage.
People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the lithe children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." (Luke 18: 5-16 NIV)
The message for parents in this passage is stated in be positive and negative terms. On the positive side Christ says, "Let the little children come to me … " and on the negative side He warns, "… do not hinder them." So here’s a question for you as a Christian parent: What are you doing that right actually hinder your child from walking with Christ both now and later in life?
Hinder is a strong word. It means, "to obstruct" or "be an impediment to" something. And yes, not only can Christian parents hinder their children, but it happens all the time. Let me share some ways I believe parents are actually hindering their children from coming to Christ.
1. By avoiding the job of parenting. There are parents who work hard at trying to spend as little time as possible with their kids. They talk about needing "time away" and believe this is something they deserve. They are constantly having friends and relatives watch their children, and jump at the first chance to ship them off to any "activities" that get them away from the home. Believe me when I say these kids are time bombs waiting to go off and no one should be surprised at the behavioral challenges they will demonstrate. Such a child is being hindered by their parent from coming to Christ.
2. By engaging in child-centered parenting. This is almost the opposite of the scenario above. Rather than avoiding parenting, the child-centered parent takes the giving of attention to an unhealthy extreme. The child-centered parent is constantly catering to the whims and desires of the child and teaching by these actions that their happiness and pleasure is paramount. This is the child that is often moody and emotionally manipulative because it serves them so well. They scream when it’s time to go home and throw a fit whenever they don’t get their way.
Child-centered parents often subscribe to worldly parenting philosophies and practices, such as "time outs" for negative behavior. And because their child has never learned any level of self-control they are quick to adopt excuses for their negative behavior, such as telling you they’ve been diagnosed as A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). Child-centered parents are seriously hindering their children from coming to Christ. (1)
3. By not modeling a lifestyle of commitment to Christ. Jesus taught that a student is not above his or her master. Our children are going to emulate what they see going on in our own lives. If you’ve allowed work or play to take precedence over a commitment to Christ, you can expect no less from your children. You are effectively hindering your child from coming to Christ.
4. By not protecting the child from the onslaught of worldly influences. One of the fundamental jobs of a parent is to protect, and a Christian parent goes into their job understanding that ".•.the whole world is under the control of the evil one." (1 John 5:19 NIV) Funny, isn’t it, how many of us have read this and believe it to be true, yet how few of us have applied it to parenting. This is evidenced by the fact that we so often throw our kids into world-run institutions and allow them to be influenced by un-Christian(and sometimes anti-Christian) sources.
Between the hours of television, movies, and ungodly institutions of learning, the hour or so that our kids spend learning the Bible in Sunday School or youth group each week is sure to have little or no effect. Thus we are seriously hindering their chances of coming to Christ.
5. By elevating rules above love and forgiveness. Sometimes in our zeal to raise godly kids we forget the basics-such as how to say, "I’m sorry" and "I forgive you." Our kids grow up seeing faith in Christ as something that makes people rigid and unloving. Who could blame them for not wanting any part of it? I think some dads wrongly believe that being the leader of their home means they always have to be right and any admission of guilt or error would weaken their leadership standing. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kids need to see you make mistakes and respond to them in a godly manner. Being willing to admit that you made a mistake and seeking your kid’s forgiveness goes a long way to making you real and your faith in Christ relevant and touchable. Anything else is going to be a hindrance to them.
6. By allowing marriages to end. We may never know the extent to which we have hindered our children from coming to Christ by allowing our marriages and families to beak up. In Malachi chapter two, the Lord God reveals to the Israelite men why he has warned them against “breaking Faith” with their wives. He starts by reminding them that a man and woman become “One Flesh” in marriage. and then he says:
Has not [The Lord] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why One? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. (Malachi 2:15 NIV)
Isn’t that incredible? God is seeking "godly offspring" therefore He warns us not to allow divorce to enter our homes and hinder our children from Christ.
1. Stop sacrificing your kids on the altar of money and possessions. If you have small children at home and you’re asking (or demanding) that your wife work to help maintain your financial lifestyle then you need to reconsider why you decided to have kids in the first place. I’m sorry but you can’t parent your kids when you’re not around! Daycares and schools certainly aren’t going to do the job for you. If your wife doesn’t work you may not be able to afford that extra car, or boat or even the house you currently Live in. But are those things really worth more than your kid’s eternal future? I have to tell you, it brings a lump to my throat when I meet a couple who has moved their family to a town where there’s a lower cost of living just so they can get by on one income and let mom stay home and raise the kids. These kinds of families don’t have nice cars or nice clothes or huge vacation budgets, and they live simply, but they have something others don’t—a loving, stable home where "family" comes first and Christ is honored.
2. Stop ignoring the decline of society. The idea that "it takes a village" to raise our children is just not true. Before you leave your children to the influence of "the village" you might want to take a hard look at how kids in the village are turning out. The village, or society, or whatever you want to call it, has lost its moorings and cannot be depended upon. Littleton is a tragic example.
I don’t know if you saw the interview with Cassie Bernall’s parents on television after the Littleton shooting, but this girl that everyone has been raving about was a very troubled teenager heading in all the wrong directions-and fast! Her parents were more than alarmed and decided they needed to take some drastic measures to save their daughter. Those measures included moving her to a completely new school, restricting her from certain friends and limiting her extra activities to church-related events. They even went so far as to search her bedroom. Does that shock you? It might some people in this day and age of exalted "personal rights," but Cassie’s parents saw the danger as too real to ignore. So they decided to act like parents. And they’ll tell you it was an uphill battle all the way, but they saw their daughter transformed by the power of Christ from a dark and depressed teenager with shoulders slumped forward to a wonderful, bright and effervescent witness for Jesus. (2)
3. Stop expecting others to do the work for you. How many Christian parents do you suppose have regular family devotions with their kids? (I’m talking about sitting down and reading the Bible and praying together.) I’ve not seen any statistics on the subject, but my guess is that it’s shockingly low. Most rely on others, like youth leaders and Sunday School teachers to do the Bible teaching. But frankly that doesn’t cut it.
I think a lot of fathers are intimidated to have a Bible time with their family because they don’t see themselves as the kind of spiritual leaders that can do that sort of thing. But they miss the point of what’s needed. It’s God’s Word that’s needed, not a demonstration of your own brilliance. How tough is it to read a chapter of the Bible and spend some time praying for needs? If we would just get our kids in a place where they’re hearing God’s Word. He will do the rest!
4. Stop hindering God’s blessing ill your family. When I’m doing marriage counseling I like to ask couples if they want to have God’s blessing on their family. They always say, "Yes!" I then take them to Psalm 133 which says,
How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore. (NIV)
So where does God bestow His blessing? Where there’s unity! Agreement! Oneness! Togetherness! Singleness of hear and mind! But what is required to hare this kind of unity? The answer? Humility and wisdom. Humility so you don’t always have to be the "winner" of every argument (as if there really is a winner), and wisdom to know when it’s absolutely necessary to stand your ground.
Here’s the bottom line: when there’s unity in your home there’s blessing, and where there’s blessing there’s I strength, and where there’s strength, there’s order, an5 where there’s order there’s peace, and where there’s peace there’s an environment that’s favorable for encouraging your children to walk with Christ. The opposite of peace is unrest, and attempting to pass along Christian principles in an environment of unrest is-to use a biblical phrase-like "kicking against the goads."
Brothers, I pray the Lord’s richest blessings on your homes and
families. Events such as those in Littleton inform us in a most
sobering way that it’s time to get serious about raising our kids
in the way of the Lord, and make no mistake about it—-it’s a full
time job!
SUMMER STATS
According to figures gathered by Christian camping International, 268,000 campers accepted Christ in 1996, and over 200,000 former campers are now serving in church leadership positions.
–Single Parent Family, Mar 1999 (page 4)
(1) I have no doubt that there is such a thing as Attention Deficit Disorder. But the truth needs to be told that the majority of parents that use the A.D.D. excuse are simply covering up for the fact that they’ve done a very poor job of parenting.
(2) Cassie Bernall was the young woman who was asked by one of the gunmen if she believed in Jesus Christ and who was shot after responding, "yes!" Incidentally, although TIME magazine reported the gunman only asked her if she believed in I "God" the acts, as reported by kids who were there and survived the shooting, are that he specified belie/in Jesus Christ.
And One Last Thing…
Paul Harvey read this on his radio program:
For the life of me, I can’t understand what could have gone wrong in Littleton, Colorado. If only the parents had kept their children away from the guns, we wouldn’t have had such a tragedy. Yeah, it must have been the guns.
It couldn’t have been that half our children are being raised in broken homes.
It couldn’t have been that our children get to spend an average of 30 seconds in meaningful conversation with their parents each day. After all, we give our children quality time.
It couldn’t have been that we treat our children as pets and our pets as children.
It couldn’t have been that we place our children in day care centers where they learn their socialization skills among their peers under the law of the jungle while employees who have no vested interest in the children look on and make sure that no blood is spilled.
It couldn’t have been that we allow our children to watch, on average, seven hours of television a day filled with the glorification of sex and violence that isn’t fit for adult consumption. Enter into virtual worlds in which, to win the game, one must kill as many opponents as possible in the most sadistic way possible.
It couldn’t have been that we have sterilized and contracepted our families down to sizes so small that the children we do have are so spoiled with material things that they come to equate the receiving of the material with love.
It couldn’t have been that our children, who historically have been seen as a blessing from God, are now being viewed as either a mistake caused when contraception fails or inconveniences that parents try to raise in their spare time.
It couldn’t have been because our nation is the world leader in developing a culture of death in which 20 million to 30 million babies have been killed by abortion.
It couldn’t have been that we give two-year prison sentences to teen-agers who kill their newborns.
It couldn’t have been that our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud by teaching evolution as fact and by handing out condoms as if they were candy.
It couldn’t have been that we teach our children that there are no laws of morality that transcend us, that everything is relative and that actions don’t have consequences. What the heck, the president gets away with it.
Nah. it must have been the guns.
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Paul LeBoutillier
Proverbs 3: 5 –6
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MAN TO MAN is a non-profit, interdenominational publication of Calvary Chapel in Ontario, Oregon and is published 4 times annually at no cost to the subscriber. Our goal is to inform, encourage and support Christian men in their God given role as leader and head of the home. |
MAN TO MAN 1775 Alameda Drive Ontario, OR 97914 (541) 889·2260 mantoman@calvarychapel.com ©1999 Paul D. LeBoutillier Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. |