Welcome to another episode of Struggling Well. We're glad you're here and we are going to go in a direction this morning that we may tease out over the next couple of weeks. We're not sure. We are trying to listen to the spirit of God in this, but we want to talk a little bit about struggling well with life as you parent.
Yeah. So, it's a little bit more specific. Now, if you get the book, which I hope you do, there's not a chapter in there specifically on this subject, but the whole book is written from the idea that we struggle well with life and want to have an honest look. And we're just diving into the segment of parent parenting as one of the places that we want to try to take the things that I believe God has shown me in writing the book to the specifics of parenting.
And this is a tricky subject because within Christendom, there's probably I don't know how many different ways of parenting. And Jimmy and I are not here to tell you how you should parent. we believe that God has given you your children and he will give you the wisdom to know how to walk with them, teach them, train them because they are your kids. But we can at least come in and point out some things that are scriptural basis for parenting that is in line with what God wants.
You look like you're going to say something.
No, I am. I was going to say that, you know, the verse that many times gets used when you talk about parenting is Proverbs 22 and verse 6. And again, we'll talk about that verse in just a second. But when you come to the book of Proverbs, I think it's important to understand the literary style that Proverbs is written in so that you don't turn something into an ironclad promise that God never said was an ironclad promise. the book of Proverbs is written Solomon, others with basically looking at life and saying if you give me a hundred situations in life h 98% of the time this is the way it's going to turn out it's not a guarantee it's the idea that this is generally what happens and so when you say people take proverbs 226 direct your children into onto the right path and when they're older they'll not leave it well that's a promise I'm going to do the right things I'm going to raise my kids the right ways and that way that means God is obligated to make sure my kids always follow him which is isn't true.
Yeah, it isn't true. we are I don't know if the word experienced parents would be the word. We have three children as we hope you know and we have eight grandchildren. And what's been interesting is parenting was kind of I mean I had no idea what I was doing. No idea. We were young when we had our kids
and you we just went every day with the best that we could and I think God was kind and compassionate to give us wisdom along the way. But now we have grandkids and it's a little different because we're looking at these grandkids in a different way than we looked at our own. I think when I looked at my own kids, I felt so much pressure that they had to get it right. And if they didn't get it right, they would end up in dire straits. Their life would be horrible and they needed to walk a certain path. And so I believe that what I tried to do was set up the cones along the path and cover up the potholes so they didn't fall into some place that would they could never recover from. And I don't know as a young I was a pretty young believer then too, but as a young parent if I gave any thought to how did God design this kid? How can I lead this child in a way that they will well a couple of things. They'll love God. They will love the word of God and they'll want to follow where he's leading them. I really didn't know how to do that.
Yeah. And I you were saying the other thing, Suzi, I think that I would add into that in our parenting at least I'll talk from my perspective. It was also a sense of moving our children down that path as they were growing up to be sure that they didn't embarrass us.
Yes. Oh yes.
So it's not just that they you wanted them to avoid certain things for their good, but it was that we didn't want to be embarrassed. Well, and the other thing too about not being embarrassed that it just kind of triggered in me is you know my growing up was very different than our kids. And so I wanted them to experience things that I didn't experience the good and avoid the bad things that I experienced. So there were certain things that I look back and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what was I thinking?" I wanted them to excel. Like for instance, I'll give you a silly example. I've always been mesmerized by SW swimmers and the beauty of the of swimming and the strokes and the just it's a beautiful sport, I think. And so I wasn't a swimmer. I was terrified of water and but I wanted my kids to know how to swim and but not just know how to swim but be good at it. So I encouraged that's not the right word. I forced our eldest daughter to join swim team cuz I thought she's tall, she's lanky, she'll be great. She was what, 10 maybe when I put her into swim team.
I did not even ask her. I didn't know whether she wanted to do it. I just I wanted to do it, but I couldn't. So, I would be the only adult on the kids swim team. So, I put her in swim team. And I will never forget as long as I live her standing on the block before a race and we were at this big swim meet, people everywhere, kids that swam and loved it. And I remember the man that had the starting gun and he's getting ready to have that gun go off and our daughter is on the block and he goes, "On your mark, get set." He stops talking and he says, "Honey, sweetheart, on block number five, are you okay?" Well, block number five was my daughter. And on block number five was this little girl. She was shaking so much she could hardly function. And the guy with the starting gun had enough awareness to see that she didn't want to do this. She was scared to death. But by golly, I wanted my daughter to be a swimmer. And so I don't even remember what happened after that. All I knew is that I don't know if she jumped in. Do you remember? Did she swim? Did she swim?
Oh my gosh. But you would have thought that I learned. No. No, I did not learn. I also wanted my children to be dancers because I always wanted to dance. So, I sent them to dancing class. And that same daughter, the same one, she's was is our eldest. We're in the car one day. We're driving to dance class. And I am speaking very firmly with her about how she will enjoy this and she will go every week and she will get to be in the recital. And she's crying in the seat. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. And I'm just getting angry and angry. You will go. And she looks at me and she goes, "Mom, you're the one that wants to dance, not me. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, how many times as parents do we do that what the spirit of God has for them? I don't have a clue, nor do I care. I am going to make my kid do the things that I couldn't do. And I'm going to make sure my kids don't go in the bad places I went to. And I have no idea how God designed them or what he wants from them because I'm too busy pushing my agenda. I'm still embarrassed to this day. Yeah. And but and Suzi, we all have that. We have those experiences if we're honest. and there's no there's no manual written. I don't believe the Bible is a manual written on how to raise your kids. There's a lot of areas that you have to make choices and there needs to be wisdom involved.
including at times listening to your kids.
Yeah.
And being willing as a parent to say to your kids, I made a mistake. I blew it. but we've been gifted with these precious lives. Here's the thing that I'm reminded of and a friend of mine said this to me last week. here's the reality. God loves those kids more than we do. And can I listen at all to what he has for them in their life? Do I have responsibility as a parent? I do. Do I have the responsibility of setting direction? I do. But I also have the responsibility to listen to what God wants for each of my kids
because you can in our case we raised three daughters all raised in the same household all three very different from each other
and what worked with one didn't necessarily work with the other in terms of providing the kind of discipline that was needed
and so in the coming weeks we're going to get into some more conversation about what does it mean to parent effectively the way God would have us parent our kids and God would have us raise our kids And again, we're not telling anybody how to do it, but we are saying this. Whatever you choose, however you choose, listen to what God says and how he sees your children.
Thanks so much for tuning in to our podcast. We appreciate it more than you know. And we hope that you have a great week and we'll talk to you next Wednesday.