Ladies~ Have you blown it with your children? Are your children disrespectful, disobedient, and causing chaos in your heart & home? Do you feel desperate for someone that understands your plight? Is your heart aching for answers to fix the mess that your family is in? Do you feel that you’ve passed the point of no return and that there is no help for the turmoil that you live in daily? God wants to help you with answers that really work, He glories in working through our messes and bringing us to victory. You and your family are not too hard a case for Him. Here is a response that I wrote to a question that was asked me in these areas that may also be of help to you: There are so very many things involved in each unique situation when you get into child training. It is hard to counsel a scenario that I am so far from knowing the specifics about. My suggestions to you are based on the Word and things that God teaches us, what I know of families, and what I have seen through the years. I cannot know what has transpired specifically through the years in your home and family that may have progressed to the place that you are at right now. There are things that we can look back at in our homes and wish we could do differently and start anew. Yet there are also things that come from our children that leave us confused and scratching our heads thinking we tried harder than what we end up with for results. It is true that looking back has its benefits…perhaps by looking back you can see where you went wrong and therefore at least verbally apologize both to the Lord and to your children, as well as help others avoid the same errors. However, living trapped in your past failures will not help you now, nor will it help your future. There does come a point in every parent’s life where they need to, humbly apologize for their sins, failures, and lack of wisdom and show by their example of godliness that they mean it. You need to accept Christ’s forgiveness, whether your children will forgive you or not. It takes faith to go forward in times like this. Another thing that we need to remember is the big picture. So often people get caught up in their heart aches and goals that they forget that there is a bigger war going on. The bottom line behind every conflict between parents that are striving to do right and their children, weighing them down, is that Satan has an agenda. He wants your children, and he wants you exasperated, but ultimately and worse than anything else, he wants to dishonor God through you. He does so by tempting us with things like… 1.) Trying to get you to put more stock into your children and what they think of you than you do in your relationship with Jesus. Believe it or not, your children can become idols in your hearts. I know that I have been guilty of this more than once! Although all of us mothers can relate to having a supreme love for our children, does not soften the sin that it is before God. Children are certainly to have a high place in our hearts, God would want them to - but they cannot be everything to us. If they hold first place in our hearts we will be willing to compromise truth to try to make them happy. The truth lived out in your godly example is really what they need, more than anything else. 2.) Causing you to doubt His Word and His answers to life. When you feel that you have really put forth honest effort to do the right thing with your children, and the results don’t reflect the success that you were planning on, it can get extremely disheartening. It can make you wonder if anything in life is really clear and if following God is really worth it. This exposes a heart of conditional love. Do you only serve God for what you may get for results or can you say with Job.. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”? Remember – if you are a Mom, you are a sinner raising sinners; all you can do is the very best that you know how through continually yielding to the Spirit, praying, studying, and trusting His Word. It is God that gives the increase. Only God can save a soul. You need to give honest and humble effort to be sure that you are seriously giving your entire life to the Lord’s Word and His work in your life or you will be tempted to resort to discouragement and feelings of doubt. When you live in a defeated mode, you lack faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God. We need to heed James 4:8 “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” Remember God wants us to do right and He has given us answers to life and godliness. 3.) Making us feel like we cannot go forward. When families have problems the heart feels torn and bleeding! Their emotions fly and swoop to depths that they have never thought were possible. People struggle with depression, blame, feeling they’ve failed, and viewing themselves as ‘good for nothing.’ When the ones that you love the most, break your hearts, it can feel devastating. Jesus knows and cares about these things and He wants us continually reminded of that. If your focus is on your family, your children, or any other thing; it won’t be enough to you that Jesus cares. But if you can, in faith, believe that Jesus really does care, and in fact wants to use and bless you even now - you can go forward. There is nothing that a Christian can do that Jesus won’t forgive. That’s not to encourage you to presume upon His mercy, it is just a fact. Satan doesn’t want that, if we trust God’s forgiveness and go forward it will honor God. So he will continually remind you of your failures, he will use your children against you and you against them, he will tempt you to be dragged down through the mud that Jesus keeps cleansing you from. Parents need to get into the Word and renew their minds or Satan will wreak havoc with their emotions. When little children won’t pay attention to you, what do you do? You cup their chin in your hands and direct their face to look into your eyes. This is similar to what God does to us when our focus gets off. When we are preoccupied with everything around us, we need to stop, look into God’s Word for answers to what He wants from us and trust His Word. Satan doesn’t care how he ruins your testimony, he doesn’t care how he deems you ineffective; he wants God’s people down because all he cares about is that he dishonor God. It dishonors God when His people won’t trust and live for Him. No matter what you have done in your past, Jesus has a plan for you now, do you trust that? Pray for your children. Prayer is powerful. Trust Jesus with what happens. Strive to be the very best testimony that you can be. When you fail, don’t stay defeated… trust Jesus when He says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jhn. 1:9). It takes faith to live this out. But without faith it is impossible to please God. Remember too, that if your children are bitter, some of that may have been caused by you. It is frustrating for children to have some of the pressures that life has brought to them. You cannot be perfect parents even if you try, and sometimes children cannot get past things that they continue to hold on to. We need to really care that they are hurting too. Satan doesn’t want families to be close, God wants families to do right and pass His Word down to each successive generation. He wants us to honor our parents even when we don’t live at home any more. Everything that God sets up as good Satan strives to ruin…including the family unit. Sometimes there comes that dreadful point in your lives where you need to know that you cannot control the decisions that your children will make when they get older. It hurts parents tremendously to have their precious children turn from the God that they love, not respect them, not care about them, and not want to be close with them anymore. It hurts the parent when their child chooses to reject the truth, hates who they are, and argues against them. It is hurtful to have them choose not to include you in their lives. It brings stress and turmoil into the very core of parent’s beings to have to face rejection from their own flesh. However, it is something that you can bring before the Father, strive to reflect Jesus in your everyday lives, show them that you care and love them, but also that you are going to follow Jesus with or without them. Focus and heart relationship to Jesus is always the key to every single thing that we face. No matter how far you have fallen, no matter how impossible your situation may look, no matter how bleak your heart feels, no matter how many tears you cry or emptiness you live with, no matter who cannot know your heaviness, Jesus knows and has a plan for you; and for your child. Trust Him and cling to Him. Be willing to go forward and He will lead. He loves you like no one else can!
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 09:55:26 +0000
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