8. The Parent’s Privilege: Gifting the Faith to Children by ‘Fessing Up’
- The Parent’s Privilege: Gifting the Faith to Children by ‘Fessing Up’.
“Confess and acknowledge how you have offended one another, and then pray for one another to be instantly restored, for tremendous power is released through the passionate heartfelt prayer of a godly believer… Confess to one another therefore your faults, your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16, TPT and Amplified).
Lord Protect My Child – Susan Tedeschi
Parenting is a Labor of Love. What can be more humbling than parenthood? There is no universal manual on how to be the perfect parent, no fool-proof formulas, no secret recipes, no unanimous steps to success in the home. But there we are with our own flesh and blood and wondering sometimes what to do next. Since every child is different, any parent lives with a sense of making it up as you go along. So humility is the order of the day, every day. The attitude of the responsible parent is to, among other things, do your Christian best to learn on the job; try to listen to and understand each child; get in the habit of establishing both quality and quantity time with each child; make sure each child knows that s/he is higher priority in your life than work or hobby or recreation; when a mistake is made with a child, apologize and learn from it; when a wrong is committed with a child, confess it and promise to never repeat it; put a child’s welfare above your own; realize that the bottom line of parenthood is to practice agape, unconditional love with God’s help at all times. Being a parent is basically an impossible job to do perfectly, so, as in the Christian walk and in marriage, humility and self-sacrifice practically goes without saying. “With humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2).
“To set high standards for someone else, and then not live up to them yourself, is something God truly hates. But it pleases Him when we apply the right standards of measurement. When you act with presumption, convinced you’re right, don’t be surprised if you fall flat on your face! But walking in humility helps you to make wise decisions.” (Proverb 11:1-2).
Genuine Humility. “O God, what have you done? You have made one who is ignorant a teacher, one who is blind a leader, one who errs a guide.” Anselm’s words of humility are striking, especially when you consider these lowly words were his own, prayed at his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. But there it is… Teaching, parenting and discipling children are impossible without humility. Humility means that we accept our weakness and ignorance as the necessary preludes to strength and understanding. We embrace the idea that we “are only on the borders of God’s ways,” as Job puts it. We are not in the center of the universe. The more we know, the more we realize what we don’t know. Humble people tend to be grounded and realistic, the root word for humble being “humus”, earth, soil, dirt. The parent who wants to keep learning how to be a parent is humble enough to admit dependence on God, submit to His wisdom, and surrender to His adequacy.
The Gift of Weakness. It’s just fine for a parent to admit wrongdoing, to apologize, to reveal a humble weakness. It’s okay for parents to reveal to the children that they are human. In fact, our weakness turns out to be our biggest advantage. Our understandable human weakness is actually a wonderful gift, because without it, God would not be able to have His entrance into our inadequacy and wield His victorious strength and power.
A working definition of weakness as we consider how weakness may bring us delightful victory: In the biblical sense, weakness is a lack of strength due to: a chronic sickness; a handicap or disability; an ongoing difficulty; a distressing hardship; insulting opposition; a glaring vulnerability; a limitation that puts one at a disadvantage; the bearing of a difficult burden of someone else. If any of these conditions above is true for you, rejoice! Now you are in the position in which God can use His power and strength! Now you are experiencing the blessing of weakness!
Ryan Ellis – Lean on the Lord (Official Live Video) – YouTube
Scripture Meditation on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, a weaving together of the Message, NIV, and the Amplified Bible versions:
“I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations.
Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees.
At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me:
‘My favor and lovingkindness are enough for you; My merciful love is all you need.
In fact, my strength comes into its own in your weakness.
My power shows itself most effective when you are weak.’
Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weakness and infirmities, so that the strength of Christ Jesus may pitch a tent over me and dwell upon me.
Now I take limitations in stride and with good cheer, delighting in opposition, in bad breaks, in insults, in weaknesses, in perplexities, in distresses, and in all kinds of hardships.
I just let Christ take over!
For when I am weak in human strength, then am I truly powerful in divine strength.
The weaker I get, the stronger I become!”
Ideas to Consider and Questions to Ask regarding the Gift of Weakness:
- “God is attracted to weakness.”(Jim Cymbala). Have you found this idea to be true in your observations of others’ lives and personal experience?
- “God’s power is secure in us only when it is linked to something that keeps usweak.” (Richard Bieber). Is there anything in your life that keeps you weak? Have you been able to sense God’s strength in that weakness?
- “I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency.” (Philippians 4:13, the Amplified Bible). Jacob’s clever self-sufficiency hit the wall when he encountered God in their famous wrestling match in Genesis 32.He thereafter walked with a limp, increasingly intimate with God and dependent on Him. What is your limp? Has it increased your dependency on God in any way?
- “God desires that we come to maturity by using our strengths to get us into significant trouble that exposes our weaknesses.”(Dan Allender). Describe a time when that happened to you. When your weakness was exposed, did anything good come out of the situation, or are you still waiting?
- “The weaker I get, the stronger I become.” (2 Corinthians 12:10, the Message). There are two types of weakness: the particular weakness of a certain season, a temporary inadequacy of some sort; then there is a permanent weakness, something that will not leave you. Try to describe both kinds of weaknesses in your life.
- “The weakness of the flesh in suffering provides a firm working-place for the surpassing power of the Spirit.” (St. Maximus the Confessor). When you feel weak, when you suffer, how clearly do you feel yourself as a working-place of the Holy Spirit? Is it possible to be God’s working-place and not even know it? If the Spirit goes to work when I am weak, what does He do when I am strong?
Southern Gospel Revival: Jamie Wilson – I Can’t Even Walk – YouTube
“Confess your wrongdoings to each other and be healed.” (James 5:16).
Confess: to acknowledge openly and out loud; to freely admit to wrongdoing; to announce one’s shortcomings to another and to God; to admit one’s responsibility in making a false step or doing something offensive to another; to agree with God that the wrongdoing was indeed wrong; to genuinely say “I’m sorry,” which means “What I have done has given me sorrow, and I apologize for my mistake.” James is saying that a personal apology to someone will go far in healing that relationship, and in healing that part of you that made that mistake.
“Produce fruit that is worthy of repentance, fruit that is consistent with your repentance.” (Matthew 3:8).
Repent: (Greek, “metanoia”); to change your mind; to reverse direction in one’s thinking; to quit what you’re doing and live another way. John the Baptist is telling the people in this passage to prove you have changed by deciding to live in another way; talk is cheap, but changing one’s behavior is much more valuable.
The Virtue of Confession. Keeping one’s wrongdoing a secret is usually a mistake. When we are hiding our wrongdoings from one another, there’s a good chance we are keeping our misstep from God, and even from one’s self. Confession is good for the soul, it clears the conscience and gives us peace, it strengthens our emotions, and stabilizes the mind. If our mistake has harmed family life in some way, we need to consider a more public confession. If we have wrongfully offended a child at home, we need to seek out that child and genuinely apologize privately. “People who conceal their wrongdoings will not prosper; but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13, NLT).
True for the Home Community As Well. “The open confession of my wrongdoing to a brother insures me against self-deception, and he who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. The sin must be brought into the light. The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship; the sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship in Jesus Christ.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together; a note: since his book was written to the community of men living in his charge, he refers solely to the masculine gender).
Here is a troubling and tragic dialogue between father and son who didn’t say “I’m Sorry” soon enough. This is painful to see, but really interesting, and parents remember that it doesn’t have to come to this…