Imago Dei Blog

This is the final blog in our series titled “Sinners Raising Saints,” which has been an exploration of ways we can help keep healthy behavioral expectations for our kids without teaching them that God’s acceptance of them is based on their ability to behave well enough. So far, we have looked at the idea of our being created in the image of God as the foundation for our understanding of behavioral expectations and have also looked at how God deals with our failure, recognizing that even as we talk about behavioral expectations, we know that we are marked by imperfection.
To wrap up, I would like to explore the central idea that, as parents, we are not only trying to get our kids to adopt certain behaviors; we are trying to shepherd their hearts.  One of the potential dangers of this entire behavior conversation is to assume that raising well-behaved kids is our ultimate goal. While I would certainly not say behavior is unimportant, neither would I say it is the bottom line. As parents we are ultimately trying to help shepherd the hearts of our children.
Behavior is important because it reflects the heart, but it is not the only thing that reflects the heart. There are many other things, such as attitude, tone of voice, posture, respectfulness, etc., that can give us a glimpse into the hearts of our kids. It is entirely possible to have compliant, well-behaved kids who are simply doing what it takes to keep us pleased with them, while inside they don’t really care about why they act a certain way. They just know they are supposed to. And we are often OK with that, that is until they are old enough to not have to try and please us anymore and seem to completely disregard everything they have been taught.  Then we wonder what went wrong. Sadly, this is too often the story of the church kid.
The truth is, as parents it is often much more simple to deal with behavior than it is to deal with the heart. Behavior is usually black and white. You either do it or you don’t. Expectations are easy to set and rewards or punishment can be clearly laid out. When it is unclear, you can clarify, restate or revise them. Shepherding your child’s heart can be much more difficult. You are actually trying to discern what is going on inside of them. This is subjective. You could read them completely wrong. Sometimes we are completely unsure about what is really going on with our kids so we back away and only deal with what we can be sure of ¬– their behavior.
I would hope to be clear here that I am not trying to pit dealing with behavior against dealing with the heart. The two are integrally linked. In referring to the religious leaders, Jesus used the analogy of a tree and its fruit. What is produced is directly reflective of what’s inside. He says you will know what is in the heart of a person by the fruit they produce. Behavior can often give you a window into the heart of your child, but it can also go deeper than that. Jesus also addressed some religious leaders as “whitewashed tombs,” because while they did everything they could to make themselves appear to be really good, their hearts were corrupt and “unclean.” Jesus never seemed to be satisfied by people who simply did the right thing. He always seemed to be interested in peoples’ hearts, and he suggested that the best way to understand behavior is by examining the heart.
Your children need you to pay attention to their hearts. Where are their loves directed? What strikes fear into their heart, and what causes joy? What is drawing them and to where? Why (really) are they crying…or laughing?
They need to see you growing in areas such as faith, love, selflessness, and respect. They need to be aware of who you worship and who, or what, they are worshiping. They need to see the deeper issues behind your expectations in sense that surpasses “because I said so.” Teach them, explain to them that your expectations, even if hard to understand, are intended to begin developing in them a character that will help them function well in the chaos and pain of a world bent on causing their suffering. As you teach them to love God, you can show them that their actions flow from that love-initiated response of worship.
And this is the point where this task seems to move from very difficult to impossible! And on some level, it is. But this is what we are committed to. This is where we aim. This is what we invest ourselves in, and we can’t afford to shrink back from this only to make the excuse that it is too hard. Teaching your kids to love God is worthwhile in the deepest sense, and we take comfort knowing that we are not in this alone.
This is Christ’s work, and we play our part. We consider how we are praying for our children and ask that Christ would be at work in their lives. We submit to Christ’s guidance and ask him for the strength to consistently live according to Gospel truth, paying attention to the way He wants to involve us in the process. We pray for spiritual discernment. We have to trust.
In the end, we hope to raise kids who stand before God openly and honestly, not trusting in their own ability to earn God’s favor by their good behavior; instead, we strive to raise kids who truly desire obedience as a worshipful response to God’s great love poured out for them. This is where we all need to be. My prayer is that as parents, we would be pointing our kids in the right direction from the start. I don’t pretend that this will make our jobs as parents immediately easier. Sometimes it is quite the opposite. But I am convinced that this will make our parenting better and that this is where we truly enter into the blessing of being a parent.
I would love to hear from you some ways you may already be doing this. How has this been helpful? What are some of the difficulties? In what ways does this create confusion? Thanks again for reading and I’m looking forward to hearing from you!