I feel strongly that children are fully formed people.  They come out as themselves, not some empty glass to fill with whatever the parent wants inside it.  While their personhood is fully formed from the beginning (they matter, they have valid feelings and thoughts and concerns, they are already contributing to the world around them, they are worth investing in), children also require lots and lots and LOTS of training to become all that God intends for them to be.

I was teaching the kids this week about Proverbs 22:6:  “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

I asked them what “train” meant, like a choo choo?  Zach said, “No, like potty training.”

Exactly!  Learning a new skill.

I asked them what “should” means.  “Does it mean that we train up children in the way we think they should go?”

“Yes,” said all 3 kids in unison in that bored choral tone of voice that is so characteristic of classroom lecture settings.

No!  As your mommy, my job is to figure out who you are and who God has made you to be.  And then I need to help train you to become that person.  Not the person I want you to be or I wish you were.  The person that you ARE.

I asked if all kids should get the same training.  “No…” they cautiously answered, not wanting to be wrong again.

Right!  It means, “Train up a Zach in the way Zach should go.”  It doesn’t say, “Train up a Rissa in the way Zach should go or a Thanny in the way Daddy should go or a Zach in the way Mommy should go.”  Everyone needs different things to become who they are!  God knows what those things are.  We need to listen to Him to figure it out… and you’ll each need to get training in a way that fits you.

I have no idea if any of that made real sense to them, but the discussion was a great reminder to me – to refuse to force my preferences on my kids (I wish I had been a gymnast, so they’ll have to do it on my behalf! and other such nonsense).  And also the high calling of knowing them AND knowing God so that I can help them find Him and their true identity as His child, whatever that may be.

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A few days later, Matt and I were discussing how different children interact differently.  I suggested that each person can be taught how to be friendly and loving and social and he wondered if some kids just don’t have that ability… or don’t have parents with the ability to pass those skills on to them.

I realize that I fluctuate between being a raging extrovert and a “please just let me regroup alone so I can handle people again” closet introvert.  And I know that everyone has different strengths and skill sets.  So perhaps this is my extroverted self thinking here…  If I had difficulty being friendly and loving and social, I would want to find ways to instill those qualities in my kids all the more!  Why would I want them to have my same struggles?  Wouldn’t I work harder to help them surpass my hardship areas?

And then I realized something that is the very crux of my parenting perspective.  I hadn’t thought it through this clearly before, but I act on this belief system every single day that I am a mother.  Here it is:

People are selfish tyrants who care only for themselves.  They require no training to choose to benefit themselves.  They require extensive training to learn to care for others.

This!  This is why I focus so heavily on kindness with my kids.  It must be taught.

Jesus stated that the two greatest commandments were to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself, because the rest of the Law can be summed up in these two categories.  We don’t need commands for things that come naturally; we do those well enough out of instinct without further instruction.  But there is nothing natural about caring for others.  Babies come out fully aware of their own needs and making demands and convinced that everyone else exists to serve them.  We all start with selfishness – that IS our natural state.  Empathy, concern, love, kindness – awareness of other people and how we can care for them – those are unnatural.  Caring for others suggests that we set ourselves aside.  Why would we do that?

So Jesus showed us exactly what that looked like.  He came here, God in flesh dwelling among us, and served.  That was unnatural!  We should serve Him!  He is King, He is God, He is perfection, He is the embodiment of all that is right and just and pure!

But rather than demand, He offered.  And we gape at the craziness of that model… of anyone, doesn’t Jesus deserve to receive?  He gets the glory, the praise, the honor – it’s all His!  But He gave and gave and gave, and then He gave His life.  And then He gave victory over death.  Family status with God.  Life to the fullest.  All offered, all given – we are the recipients instead of the givers.

My kids need to see that model.  And they need training on how to set themselves aside.  Because I promise you, they fully know how to set themselves front and center and make demands! 🙂

I think every single person needs training in kindness, concern, empathy.  As a result of that core belief, I center my parenting efforts there and move outward.

I see my kids developing tender hearts, displays of kindness, concern for the experience of others.  And I know that those things are unnatural.  Those things are from God.  Those things overcome the darkness and bring light.

I also see other children who don’t have a clue how to care for others.  Perhaps no one has cared for them and met their needs (a requirement!  we must have our needs met before we have something to offer to others!).  Perhaps no one has taught them the importance of other people.  Perhaps their parent(s) hold a different worldview.  Perhaps no one has taught them the importance of who they are!  Instead of focusing on what a disaster my kids are, I try to focus on how special they are.  How we are blessed that God chose them for our family.  That God made them, just as amazing as He intended them to be, and that He wants to transform them more and more into people like Jesus.  And that every single other human being carries that importance too.  So since God values them, we should too.

That’s my parenting worldview.  I didn’t realize it this clearly before, but now I do.  And for once, rather than shaking my head and wondering how I managed to devise something so faulty and wondering why I held that belief for so long and begging God for wisdom to find real truth instead of a lie… I actually got this one right.  I’m grateful that seeing it for what it is, I can still say, “Yeah!  That’s what I WANT to portray!  Onward!”

On the way home from VBS this morning, Zach had a seemingly simple question:

“Mom, how do tornadoes and hurricanes break things?”

I explained that the wind moves in a circle and gets faster and faster… like when water moves in a circle and makes a whirlpool.  When it moves quickly enough, it can break through things.

But then, and I can ALWAYS count on my kids to ask the hard follow-up questions, Zach said, “Well, why does God make tornadoes?”  Rissa followed up with, “Yeah, since they are bad and break things?”

Hmm.  Does God make tornadoes?  Or did He create the components and then things went badly?  Like how He made people, but then we used our worship “components” intended for Him to worship ourselves instead and things went badly?  Crap, I just wanted to take us home for lunch and now I have to figure out how to explain what I think… which means I need to settle on what I think in the first place!

I need to research this more fully, but there wasn’t really time to do that in the 11 minutes we had left on our drive home!  I know that some people believe that God is the source of all things… that good and bad come from His hand.  I know that some people believe that Satan is the source of bad things and God is the source of good things.  From my studies of the Bible, I don’t find evidence for either of those ideas, but what do I believe?  Most importantly, what does God’s Word actually say?

Without the benefit of reading through the applicable passages from the Bible with my children (since I was DRIVING), I had to tell them a summary… and I had to do it in an understandable way for my kids!  Hello, pressure!  I’m documenting it here so that I remember what I said and so that I can check further and revisit this conversation.

I explained that hot air and cold air don’t like to mix together, so when they crash into each other in the sky, they spin around one another.  Sometimes, it just happens in the sky.  Sometimes, it comes closer to the ground.  And when there is really hot air that bumps into really cold air, they spin faster and that’s how tornadoes are “built.”  We know that God created the hot air and that’s good because it helps keep us warm.  And we know that God created the cold air and that’s good because it helps cool us off.  But were they supposed to “fight?”

I told the kids that I think when the world was perfect and as God intended it to work, the hot air and cold air maybe didn’t fight.  They didn’t crash into each other and start swirling.  God made them and they lived in peace with one another.  In the same way as people were created to be perfect and to live in peace.  But then things got broken.

“By SIN!” Zach added helpfully.

Yep, by sin.  Now things die and our world is broken.  The air fights.  People fight.  Animals fight.  Everything is constantly trying to be the most important.

“Is it because of Satan?” Rissa asked.  “Maybe he makes bad things happen.  Didn’t he used to be an angel?  Was he a nice angel?”

I explained that Satan used to be a nice angel.  He was beautiful and one of God’s special helpers.  (They learned today at VBS that God is the only God and they studied how He proved that on Mt. Carmel with Elijah).  So using their current knowledge, I explained that God is the only God ever and we already know that.  But Satan decided that he wanted to be God.  And since God is in charge and no one is powerful enough to make Him stop being God and take over and become God instead, Satan decided to tell everyone that he was god, even though he isn’t.  “It sounds so silly, doesn’t it, guys?  That an angel would start saying, ‘I’m god!’  Because everyone knows that he isn’t!”  They agreed.  But Satan believed he was right.  And he convinced some other angels.  And there are people who believe that God isn’t the real God, so they believe the lie too.

Then I told them that Satan is happy when bad things happen.  Our broken world isn’t working the way God intended it in the beginning, because of sin and death.  And Satan thinks that’s great!  Because he is mean and bad and only cares about himself.  And if the things that God loves are hurting, things like our planet and the people who live here, Satan wants them to hurt and he says, “Ha ha!”

Nathaniel piped in, just as I knew he would, “‘Ha ha!’ is WUDE!”

That’s right, Buddy, “Ha ha!” IS rude!  Because Satan is mean and he likes that things are broken.  So our world breaks and bad things happen.  And God is saddened because this is not what He wanted for His people and His world.  But who is in charge?

The kids acknowledged that God is.  “Even when bad things happen?  Even when Satan is excited that we are hurting?  Who is in charge then?”  They knew.

It IS God.  He is still God!  He will always be God.  When the tornado went through my house, Satan was happy.  People died.  The houses were gone.  Everyone lost everything and it was horrible.  But who was in charge?  God was!  He saved my family’s lives… several times!  We didn’t die.  And Satan said, “you are going to die.  Your puppy died.  Your house is gone.  All of your food, all of your clothes, all of your toys, all of your stuff for school…” (the kids asked if my special blankie and stuffed animals were gone too) “…your special blankie and stuffed animals… EVERYTHING.  You’ll die too.”  But he was lying.  Because God saved my family.  He didn’t save everyone’s family, and I don’t understand the reasons for all of that.  But He saved us.  We didn’t die.  And our friends gave us food and clothes.  And our insurance company gave us a new house.  And we had each other, and our friends, and we trusted God!

We said, “this is hard and we don’t understand.  But we know that God is in charge.  So He will take care of us, no matter what.”  And God said, “I AM in charge!  I am taking care of you.  Look, you have each other and your friends and you have Me.  I will use this for good.  Thank you for trusting Me.”

“Yeah!” said my kids.  “You got new toys!  And a new house!  And a new puppy!”  They were right, we did.

So no, I don’t think God causes calamity and disaster.  I think He is heartbroken every time something hurts that which He loves.  If only humanity had trusted Him from the beginning!  He knows the hurts from which we would have been saved.

And also, NO, I don’t think Satan causes calamity and disaster.  Sin breaks our world.  Satan prowls like a lion, looking to devour us, yes.  With lies, the most potent weapon of all.  We see the brokenness and we hear the lies that it can’t be redeemed, that everything is hopeless, that only we matter.  That I am the most important person and I can be my own god.  And then we do all of the terrible things that pride and power and self-importance drive us to do.  And we die because the brokenness crushes us.  Satan had to ask God for permission to attack Job.  Perhaps he has some control over weather and other things, or perhaps that is something God allowed just in that instance.  I often think we give Satan too much credit.  He senses our doubt and speaks lies to us, yes.  But does he cause disaster?  I haven’t found evidence of that.  I know that he delights in disaster because disaster was not God’s intent.

Regardless of where evil comes from and why God lets it happen and whether I have all of these details accurately portrayed…

I told my kids that God is in charge, always.  He is God, and we can trust Him.  Those two truths are foundational to everything else in my worldview.  We know that God sent Jesus to redeem and to restore all that has broken.  God is undoing the bad, the broken, the diseased, the dead.  He is making all things new.  Satan can enjoy the destruction while it is here, but I will never believe his lie that he is in charge or in control.  That title goes to God alone.

Whew!  God uses these kids regularly to refine my faith!  I’ve never needed to be so prepared to give answers about the hope that I have as I have been during motherhood!