Not Alone: Trusting God to Help You Raise Godly Kids in a Spiritually Mismatched Home (11 page)

1. Before moving further in this discovery, this is the time for you to truly contemplate and pray about your commitment to a church body. Ask yourself if you are part of a Spirit-filled church where you and your children can thrive. If you aren’t sure or you are unsettled about attending church, pray and ask God for His direction and guidance in this area. Finding a church that fills your and your children’s spirits takes time, effort, sometimes lots of visits and Holy Spirit-inspired prayer. Pray now if you need to. Pray every day until you are settled into a body of believers. Write your prayer.

2. Think about some of the conflict you’ve faced on a past Sunday morning as you prepared to leave for church. What were some of the flash points? Were they internal (disappointed expectations)? Were they with your spouse or your kids?

3. What are some actions steps you can take to manage your disappointment and your unmet expectations of yourself and others as related to church?

4. Using your answers to question number two, what can you do differently in the future to defuse conflicts with your spouse over church attendance?

5. List action steps you can take to help your children be ready for church on Sunday mornings.

6. What is the payoff of being in church? Describe the benefits of attending church that you recognize in your children today. What do you want for your children and their involvement in church in the future? Finally, how can you pray for your children and their church experience?

Prayer

Heavenly Father, make me ever mindful of the need to be in Your house with my children. Lord, keep me from bitterness because I sit alone in church and must shoulder the responsibility of raising my kids in faith. Make Sunday mornings a day filled with joy in our house. Free me from disappointment and unmet expectations. Father, release into our home a hunger for us to be with other believers, and place around us Your people who model Christlikeness to my children. Let my children see Jesus in these people’s faces and feel love when they are in Your house.

Father, I ask You to lead our home as we wait and pray for the salvation of my children’s father. Perhaps it will be the faith of my kids who bring their father to know Christ. Help me to teach my children to hope and pray for their dad.

Help me to look for those who live on the fringe of faith and to teach my children to love those who don’t fit in as well as others. Give me grace on the difficult days, energy when I’m exhausted and love that overcomes. I love You, Lord. Thank You for Your body of believers. I know that I will spend an eternity with them. Your church on earth is only a taste of the amazing friendships and love with others that we will share in heaven. In the name of my King, Jesus. Amen.

Respecting Dad

Many unbelievers’ convictions about church, more specifically about religion, have been adopted over the years from misinformation and distrust. The media influence and the continuing disparaging reports regarding faith do little to dissuade negative perspectives. As we begin to understand their questions about faith and the challenges of distrust, let it encourage us to be patient with Dad and his objections to church. I believe this potentially contentious topic of church attendance can actually open the doors to discuss our faith in Jesus in a mature and calm manner. It’s in these moments that we can take the focus off the negative and can accentuate the positives that come from training our children in faith. Turning our focus to virtues such as kindness, compassion, generosity and love for all people can soften a hardened heart. I know that for me, simply telling my husband, “Church makes me happy,” seemed to help him come to terms with my commitment to attend church.

Church can be a difficult topic of conversation. Enter into it with love, compassion and respect. Find some point of agreement at which both you and your husband can have peace.

Finally, include Dad as much as you can and as much as he is willing in your church activities. And don’t overcommit yourself to church. Many men struggle with feelings of rejection or competition due to the amount of time we spend at church. Respect and compromise are crucial. Pick and choose your battles, and cover church attendance with a ton of prayer.

Peaceful Kids

Saying No When the World (and Dad) Says Yes

Dineen

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is
noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—
think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received
or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And
the God of peace will be with you.

PHILIPPIANS 4:8-9

My youngest daughter once told me that the more I said no to something, the more she wanted it. And she said it as if she thought I should already know and understand this!

The funny thing is, she had a point. The more we define something as off limits, the more our fallen human nature seems to want it. Diets are proof of this frustrating behavior. The most effective and long-lasting diets are those geared toward what you
can
have and include the added benefit of making permanent lifestyle changes. In other words, dump the negative connotation and spin things in a positive light. It’s all about perspective.

In the writing world we call this slanting a negative point of view to a positive one. Instead of saying that something isn’t valuable, it’s more powerful to say it’s worthless—what it
is
instead of what it
isn’t.

I have found great value in this concept, especially when relating to tweens and teens who are desperate to know what their parents are for or what they believe in, not just what they’re against. Therein lies our opportunity to inspire our kids to greatness and to show them a path of righteousness worth traveling and holding to, no matter what’s presented to them. As parents, we want to release the potential God has placed in our children.

The best way I know to do this is to view each person and each situation I come across as an opportunity to show Christ. To be that aroma of Jesus right in the moment (see 2 Cor. 2:14-16). In our first book,
Winning Him Without Words
, Lynn and I talked about being the aroma of Christ in our marriages. We can be this same presence in our children’s lives as well. Practice what you preach, but don’t preach! Lead by example. Nothing shuts a kid down faster than being subjected to a lecture. Instead of pounding at their minds, we often have to appeal to our children’s hearts and engage them there first. And sometimes the best thing we can do is just listen.

It’s About Legacy, Not Legalism

The promise is for you and your children and for all
who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.

ACTS 2:39

In the book of Romans, Paul goes to great pains to explain that the laws the Jews had held for so long did nothing to bring them closer to God. Quite the opposite, actually. The Pharisees had turned the very laws designed to keep peace with God into the people’s greatest barrier to having a relationship with Yahweh.

How you walk with God and pursue your faith on a daily basis will be your greatest influence on your children, but I can tell you from experience that most of the time you will be unaware that you are affecting anyone. You may even think you’re not doing anything special at all, but you are. Whatever we make important in our lives reflects our heart to those around us. If your relationship with God comes first in your life, you will set an invaluable example to your children that will carry into their adult lives.