Fighting the Desire to Have Good Kids

  I am a lucky woman. Actually, no I am blessed beyond what I deserve. It blows me away that God would choose a mess-up like me to be responsible for the lives of two little people. I am thankful everyday that I get to be "Mom" to these two precious kiddos.

   And while I would not change a single moment of the past six years, I will be honest in saying that life is not always easy with these two. Yes, they are cute and precious and smart and wonderful, but they are also whiny and manipulative and stubborn and disobedient. In other words, my kids are sinful. Just like me.
    We all have those days. You know the ones I'm talking about. The days that start out wrong and never straighten out. In case you are the rare unicorn who has perfect children that never experience bad days, let me paint a picture for you.
    Both children are awake and oh so cranky before 7 AM, even though they did not go to bed until almost 10 PM the night before because community group ran long. They are crying and falling apart because you don't fix drinks fast enough, you aren't changing their wet clothes fast enough, they don't get to sit beside you on the couch, the sun is yellow, etc. Your two kids, who can at times be the best of playmates, cannot get along to save their lives. They are arguing over the television, seats on the couch, toys, books, air, you name it. No one wants to eat breakfast. No one wants to brush their teeth. No one wants to do their school work. By 10 AM, they have each been in time out in their beds at least twice. Finally school is done and it is time to get ready for storytime at the library, one of the kids favorite activities during the week. You  tell your kids to get dressed and you take the dog out, get dressed yourself, brush your teeth, etc. You walk into the living room 15 minutes later to see your kids lying on the couch still in their pajamas. It is at this point you become a raving lunatic and start screaming at your kids which of course leads to them crying. And all of this before lunch.
   Days like these are the days when I find myself expecting my kids to be good simply for the sake of being good. I find myself screaming at them, why don't you just obey? You know what to do, do it! Be good! Be good! Be good! You are failing, do better.
    I forget so often that my kids are sinners in need of the saving grace of Jesus, just like me. I have the desire for my kids to be well-behaved super children who never disobey and are always polite and gracious. I want to be the mom who is complimented in the store for how awesome my kids are. Instead, I am the mom who gets the sympathetic (or judgmental) looks because my 4 year old is on the floor melting down in the costume aisle because I don't have $20 to spend on a Rapunzel costume.
     Growing up, it was ingrained in me to be good. I was taught that I should be good and obedient to please God. I was taught morality and because of that I always felt as if it was up to me to EARN God's favor. There was a list of things I should do and if I did them I was good. Being a Christian became synonymous with being good. If I wasn't doing the things on the list then I wasn't really saved. My salvation, while it came from God, was still greatly dependent upon my performance.
     Surprisingly enough, I failed all the time and thus never felt good enough for God. No one really taught me that I was NEVER GOOD ENOUGH for God. I was not shown that God saved me by his grace alone, not because of what I did or some untapped potential in me, he saved me simply because he loved me. It took me a long time to realize that it was not up to me to earn my salvation in any way. I could never be good enough to be accepted by God. I was saved by grace and grace alone. God did  all the work and I had no part to play in my salvation. I obey God, not because it makes him happy, but because I love him because he first loved me. My obedience is an act of love, not a performance.
     As I am learning this truth for myself, I am desperate for my children to learn it as well. I don't want to watch my kids struggle to be good enough for God. I don't want my kids to carry the weight of failures when they can't measure up to some unrealistic standard. I want my kids to know from the very beginning that their salvation is not dependent on them or anything they do; their salvation was fought for and won by Jesus' life and death on the cross. I want my kids to see their need for Jesus from their earliest days.
    My struggle comes in the balance. I do want my kids to understand that they are sinners who need Jesus, but I also want my kids to obey me to keep peace in our home. I don't feel the desire to have obedient, respectful kids is wrong, but my problem is that sometimes that's all I want from my kids. I don't always point out sin to my kids. I don't always pray with my kids that God will help them overcome their sin. Sometimes I expect perfect obedience, discipline when that does not happen and repeat the cycle.
    On the other end of that spectrum, sometimes I do take the time to point out sin to my kids, but I don't point them to the cross. I realize that I am really good at focusing on my kids sin and depravity, but not so good at pointing them to the grace of the cross. I tell them I forgive them, but I don't remind them that God forgives and loves them too. I am quick to show my kids their need for something more, but I don't always show them that what they need is Jesus.
     As a parent, I experience God's grace abundantly. I fail my kids so often, and yet they always love me and are quick to forgive and forget my screw-ups. My kids melt my heart every day and teach me the pure innocence of unconditional love.
      This post has been cathartic and convicting all at the same time, but I don't want to leave it at that. I want to share some of the things that we do with our kids to be intentional about showing them grace and their need for Jesus. I don't present these as a step-by-step checklist to better kids. I also don't present them as things that I am always consistent at doing. Finally, I also do not present these as, "hey look at me and how awesome I am, I finally figured it out." Hopefully you saw the truth in this post that I fail A LOT! I present these things because I don't want to just point out the problem and leave it at that. I want to share some practical solutions that can help us.

1. Instill in your kids that you love them no matter what.
    If there is one thing that I feel I have gotten right with my kids, it's that they know I love them, even when I'm angry. My daughter will look at me and say, "who are you mad at Mommy?" Sometimes I will tell  her I am mad at her or her brother and tell her why. She will then look at me and, "but you still love us even when your mad, right?" I have said that phrase many times over the past 4-6 years, depending on which kid you are talking to. I have also shown my love to my kids enough, that they are confident of my love even when I am screaming at them or sending them to their room. My kids know that they do not have to earn my love, but that they have it simply because they are my kids.

2. Show your kids grace.
   At our house we don't do Santa at Christmas. We have told our kids that we don't believe in Santa because there is not a strange man who drops off presents for them because they are good. The presents they receive on Christmas morning come from Mommy and Daddy because we love them and we want to give them gifts. We show them grace in that. Sometimes I will buy my kids something at the store or take them on an outing, even when they are not behaving. When I do those things, I tell them, "I am giving you grace. You don't deserve this toy or to go to the museum, but I love you and I am doing it anyway. You did not earn it, I am showing you grace." The first few times I did this, I felt so awkward and pompous, but now I see how important it is. I want my kids to begin to understand that grace is something we receive when we don't deserve it. You cannot work for and earn grace. Sometimes grace is given when we LEAST deserve it. I whole-heartedly believe that by showing my kids grace (and explicitly telling them it's grace), I am helping to prepare their hearts to receive God's grace.

3. Share the truths of Scripture with your kids.
    We began homeschool this year with our kids and one of the things we do every morning is go through a catechism question and memory verse from the North Star Catechism. We are teaching our kids spiritual truths that they can memorize and stand on. My kids are learning important aspects of our Christian faith. They are memorizing Scripture. We are building disciplines in them they will help to sanctify them (not save them) later. I love that my kids know that God exists forever as three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. My kids know that no one is truly good except God. They may not fully understand the truths now, but they are learning them.

4. Finally, point to Jesus as much as possible.
    I am working on doing a better job of pointing my kids to Jesus as much as possible. When we read our Old Testament Bible stories at night, my husband and I are quick to point out Jesus. We emphasize that the great feats in the Bible (Joshua and the battle of Jericho, David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion's Den) are accomplished solely by the work of God. These events did not happen because the men were good or obedient or faithful. They happened because God willed them to. We also make sure that God stays the main character of all the Bible stories we read. We don't want our kids to think that the main character of David and Goliath is David, and that they should be courageous like David. No, the main character is God, they should be learning what the story teaches them about God.

  A big difference in teaching morality and teaching grace, is looking at who the main character is. Take the Ten Commandments. Morality says to kids obey the Ten Commandments because THEY need to be good so THEY can make God happy. Grace teaches kids that the Ten Commandments were given to us by God as guidelines to show us that we can never measure up, so God gave us Jesus to save us and make us righteous even when we fail to meet the standard. Do you see the difference? Morality makes you and me and our kids the main character, where Grace keeps God in the center as he should be.

   Let's commit to pray for each other that we will not simply desire to have good kids, but that we will desire to have kids saved by grace!

I Am Not God!

    Sometimes I think I know better than God. There are times when I believe that I know exactly what should happen in a given situation, and I pray for exactly that outcome. When the answer to my prayers is "no" and things don't go according to my plan, I doubt God's sovereignty and his plan. In the times when the answer is "no" I begin to doubt if God actually hears my prayers and I doubt whether he actually is working towards the good of his people. I forget that I am only seeing a minuscule part of a massive and intricate picture. I forget that I am not the center of the universe.
      There is a person in my life whom I have been praying for fervently. I believe that I know exactly what this person needs (apart from a true relationship with Jesus) and I have been praying for my plan for this person to come to fruition. I have found Scripture to pray through for this person that I think justify my perspective. A couple of weeks ago a situation arose in this person's life and I truly believed that my plan was about to be enacted in this person's life. I actually thanked God for the situation because it meant that what I thought should happen would happen. Then God answered my prayers with a great big resounding, "NO".
      In the days that followed I questioned God. I just could not understand how he could tell me "no" when clearly my plan was the best thing for this person. As I talked to other people connected to the situation we all talked about how it was hard to see God' sovereignty. Because I could not see the bigger plan, I chose to believe that God had dropped the ball. My arrogance and sin kept me from seeing God's grace in the life of this person.
     How often do we chose to question God rather than trust him? How often do we chose anger over being told "no" rather than rejoicing in our God's sovereignty? How often do we believe the lie that we are God?
     The truth of the matter is that I am not God. It is not up to Lisa Tant to keep the universe moving. It is not up to Lisa Tant to bring about the ultimate plan of our great God. It is not up to you either! Our plans cannot compare to the big beautiful plan that God has had in place since the beginning of time. That is a truth that is really difficult to grasp, but it is a beautiful truth worth clinging to.
      God has had an ultimate, complete plan since BEFORE the beginning of time.

     Psalm 139:16 - "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written every one of      them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."

    Isaiah 46:9b-10 - "for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,           declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My         counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish my purpose,"

    Our God created the whole universe by simply speaking it into existence for the sole purpose of bringing glory to himself. God put into play, from the beginning, a beautiful salvation plan that calls his people to himself. Our God is at work and who are we to question his great plan?
     When I begin to question God's goodness and sovereignty in the plans of my life, I remind myself of the story of Job. Job was a good, righteous man who feared the Lord and Satan attacked him and caused him great suffering. We, the readers, are able to see the greater plan at play in this story, but Job was never given that privilege. He only knew his current suffering and yet he still trusted in the goodness of his God. I love the end of Job, chapter 38 to the end. The Lord speaks into Job's situation, not with a great revelation of the plan at play, but simply by saying, "who are you?" Basically God says to Job, "were you there when I created everything? Are you able to control time? Do you possess the ability to control any part of creation?" God does not reveal his plan to Job, but simply establishes that he has a plan.
       We need to remember that God is in control and we have done nothing to earn knowledge of that plan. We cannot comprehend the thoughts of God and we are foolish to think that we can come up with a plan that can outdo God.

     Job 42:2 - "I know that you can do all things, and that no plan of yours can be thwarted."

    Isaiah 55:8-9 - "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,                declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than            your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

   God is in control, and that is all we need to know.

Joy and Grace in the Daily Mundane Life

    Time for confession and repentance. I don't always like being a stay-at-home mom and the keeper of the home. I kind of despise the fact that I have to load the dishwasher EVERYDAY. It gets on my nerves that the day after I get all of the laundry folded and put away, there is another basket of clothes waiting to be washed. I get really angry at the fact that within 30 minutes of me cleaning up the living room it is messy again. I have stopped trying to organize the playroom, because within 5 minutes all the toys are thrown around the room. In those moments, I am not a pleasant person and it is hard for me to see the joy or God's grace in my life.
     Before I continue, let me be clear that I LOVE being a wife and mom and I am truly thankful for the opportunity to be able to be home with my kids. I am looking forward to the opportunity to begin homeschooling next year and being the one who is instructing my children. I would not trade my life, even on the bad days, for anything. This post is a confession that I allow the mundane and monotony of being a homemaker rob me of my joy and blind me to God's many graces.
     For example, last night as I was getting ready to go to bed I walked through the kitchen and realized that I had not loaded the dishwasher yet, so the sink was overflowing. I had known all afternoon that I needed to load the dishwasher, but I had just done it the day before and I kept putting it off. I was tired of the monotony and I procrastinated to the point that I had to stay up an extra 20 minutes to unload and reload the dishwasher. To put it nicely, my thoughts and actions in those 20 minutes were not glorifying. As I laid down to prepare for sleep all I could think about was how much I hate doing the dishes everyday. I allowed my disdain for the mundane to keep me from remembering all the good things that happened that day.
      Yesterday was actually a break from the monotony of my day-to-day life. I did not have to nanny yesterday, so I got an entire day with just my daughter. We were able to go to the zoo with a couple of friends and that was wonderful. I was reminded yesterday of how precious is the gift of friendship. My daughter and I were able to eat lunch with my husband at work and then we got to come home and nap together on the couch for 30 minutes. There were many moments of joy yesterday, but I could not recall any of them because I was wallowing in my sin of anger and resentment at having to do the same task yet again.
      This morning I decided to make a change. I am realizing that my attitude is trickling down to my children. My kids have a hard time identifying the good things that happen each day and I think that has to do with my lack of modeling it. I know that if I am going to change my heart to focus more on joy and God's grace, I am going to need the power of the Spirit working in my heart. To be able to speak truth into my heart, I must first know the truth, so I spent some time in the Word this morning searching for verses about joy. Here is a list of what I found.

      Ecclesiastes 9:7 - "Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do."

     Romans 15:13 - "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope."

    Isaiah 12:5-6 - "Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."

    Psalm 16:9, 11 - "Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure...You make known to me the path of life; in your presences there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

    1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 - "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

    Psalm 118:24 - "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

    As I meditate on these words of truth I am convicted to be more intentional about identifying the moments of joy and evidences of God's graces in my day-to-day life. This morning I decided to make a change in the attitudes of my family. As the kids and I were driving to school, I told them that we were going to start taking time each night during our family devotion and prayer time to share a moment of joy and an evidence of God's grace from the day. I took time to talk to the kids about the importance of focusing on joy and God's grace so that we don't became angry and frustrated. I then gave them examples from the past couple of days of God's grace and moments of joy.
     To end this post I want to share a few moments of joy from just this morning:

• First thing this morning Sophia came into my bathroom and asked me if the baby I nanny for was still sick, when I told her no, she brushed her hand across her forehead and said, "shew". Precious
• In the car, Sophia said, "stupid is a bad word" (which in our family it is). Eli was about to tattle on her, when I asked her, "if it is a bad word, why did you say it?" Sophia paused for a few seconds and then with the cutest look on her face she said, "no, no, no, I didn't..." It was just so cute that I had to smile.
• Frozen is a current favorite thing in our house and we listen to the soundtrack EVERY TIME we get in the car and this morning my 3 year old was singing "Let It Go" at the top of her lungs-adorable
• My son offered to help his sister put her cup in the cup holder without being asked
• My son gave me the biggest kiss before walking into school and then looked back at me before going in the door
• I get to have lunch with my husband again today
• Tonight I get to spend time in community with some pretty awesome couples

     I have so much joy in my life and God's grace is so evident that it is time to stop allowing the mundane and monotonous rob me of experiencing the life God has blessed me with to the fullest.