12 Control
Principle: The goal of parenting is not control of behavior, but rather heart and life change.
Every September a sad thing happens. Thousands of supposedly Christian students go off to residential universities and begin the process of forsaking the faith.
Sharon has devised a good behavior award system. Every time her children have a good day, she puts a quarter in a very visible glass jar in the kitchen. When the jar is full, they get to go to McDonald’s for their favorite dinner.
Jim’s sons shared the largest bedroom in their suburban home, but they just couldn’t seem to get along with one another. Jim solved the problem by getting a $100,000 loan and building an addition on his home so his now teenage sons would each have a room of their own.
Becky created the concept of “Saturday Silent Suppers” so that at least one day a week she could enjoy dinner with her husband and their four boys without it descending into noisy chaos. The boys now dread the Saturday dinner meal because they have to eat in total silence.
Fran and Joe have put a monetary value on every chore that they want their children to do. On her iPad, Fran has created a chart that keeps track of the chores each child has completed and how much money each has accumulated as a result.
Bill has created a quiet place in the house where his children are required to go and sit by themselves when they have been disrespectful or disobedient. He says he not only wants them to sit and think about what they have done, but to dread being told to go into that room.
Sam sent his son to college with no money to spend. If he needs or desires anything, he has to call home, and Sam puts that amount into his ATM account. Sam not only wants to teach his son to be thrifty, but to carefully control his spending.
All the Smith children have cell phones, but they’re on a pay-as-you-go plan so that their parents can easily control the amount of time they spend on their phones.
When her children were still in elementary school, Mary came up with the idea of “Good Grade Gifts.” A monetary value was attached to each good grade, and when the child had earned twenty dollars, she could go to her favorite shop or web store and make a purchase.
Jenny got so tired of her children fighting over the remote control for the flat-screen that she created a “Remote Control Usage” chart to schedule who had the remote when and to finally create a little family room peace.
Jared can’t wait to be old enough to get out from under his parents’ control and their endless rules and make a few decisions of his own.
Liz hates the way her mom makes her dress and often changes clothes after she has left the house.
Cindy is exhausted at the end of another day of trying to do anything she can to control her little gang of three boys and one girl.
One theme is woven through each of these vignettes. Did you see it? These are parents from different places, with children of a variety of ages, yet each parent has given himself or herself to the same thing. Not everything they’re attempting is wrong, but it’s all inadequate. Each little slice of parenting life that I’ve given you above pictures either an attempt by a parent to control the behavior of a child or the results of those attempts. Do our children need to be controlled? Absolutely! Is controlling the behavior of your children enough of a goal as a parent? Absolutely not!
In this chapter I want to pick up and expand a theme of this book: as a parent you have been called to something more foundational than the control of the behavior of the children that God has entrusted to your care. I have touched on that subject in many of the chapters you have already read, but I want us together to focus our attention on this subject more fully here.
What Our Children Need
Consider this: the true needs of your children are what form your job description as a parent. What you do as a parent shouldn’t be shaped by the values of the surrounding culture. What you do as a parent shouldn’t be shaped by your reaction to how you were parented. What you do as a parent shouldn’t be shaped by what you have dreamed your children could become. What you do with your children should not be shaped by the ups and downs of your emotions. Your parenting of your children should be shaped by what God says every human being needs. What follows is a list of those foundational human needs, but here’s what I want you to notice about the list: not only are these the things that are to shape your parenting, but these are the things God promises and does for each of his children. What God as your heavenly Father knows you need, he has called you to provide as you represent him in the lives of your children.
These are things that every parent should be daily committed to lovingly, patiently, and faithfully deliver to their children. These are more fundamentally important than many of the things that command our attention, eat up our schedules, and sap our energies as parents. If God promises these things to you, he knows you need them, and you cannot independently provide for them yourself. And if that is true of you, it is also true of your children, so God calls us to be the delivery agents of these good things in the lives of our children.
God does call you to exercise daily control over your children, so that you regularly provide these things for them. You must give them God’s law and the household rules that apply those laws to daily living. You must constantly teach them what is right and how to live right. You must step in again and again and protect your kids from themselves. You must prepare them to live well in this broken world. You must structure their days and teach them how to invest in their future. You must impart wisdom to them and teach them what it looks like to live it out. You must confront them when they do what is wrong. You must discipline them in the face of their rebellion. To do these things you must be in control and you must exercise faithful control over your children. But even if you faithfully did all these things, you would not have done enough.
Confused? Well, read carefully through the list of needs and accompanying passages that follows.
Guidance
“Where there is no guidance a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (Prov. 11:14)
“For you are my rock and fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead and guide me.” (Ps. 31:3)
Protection
“Like the birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.” (Isa. 31:5)
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” (Ps. 91:1)
Instruction
“Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.” (Ps. 25:8)
“Thus says the Lord of hosts. . . . Will you not receive instruction and listen to my words? declares the Lord.” (Jer. 35:13)
Wisdom
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” (James 1:5)
“And because of him you are in Christ, who became to us wisdom from God. . . .” (1 Cor. 1:30)
Authority
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Rom. 13:1)
“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’” (Matt. 28:18)
Rules
“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” (Ps. 19:7)
“But you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true.” (Ps. 119:151)
Structure
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer. 29:11)
“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.” (Ps. 33:11)
Preparation
“The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” (Prov. 16:9)
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” (2 Pet. 1:3)
Understanding
“I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.” (Ps. 119:99)
“The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” (Ps. 119:130)
Confrontation
“He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke? He who teaches man knowledge. . . .” (Ps. 94:10)
“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Heb. 3:13)
“Know then in your heart, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you.” (Deut. 8:5)
“For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Heb. 12:6)
Warning
“He said to them, ‘Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law.’” (Deut. 32:46)
“Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.” (Ps. 19:11)
Love
“The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Ex. 34:6)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. . . .” (John 3:16)
Forgiveness
“But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” (Ps. 130:4)
“As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.” (Col. 3:13)
Security
“He gives them security, and they are supported, and his eyes are upon their ways.” (Job 24:23)
“You, O Lord, will keep them; you will guard us from this generation forever.” (Ps. 12:7)
Read back through this list and ask yourself what’s missing. True, it’s a wonderful list of things everyone needs, and if you make sure that your kids have these things, well, that’s a very good thing. But it is an incomplete list. God promises you all of these things, but as your heavenly Father, he would not be satisfied if you had them all. Exercising control over your children so that you deliver these things, and in so doing shape their behavior, is not enough. God, who called you to the task, promises you more and has called you to more. In fact, the need that your kids have for these things is rooted in a much deeper, more foundational need. God calls you to do more than just battle for control. He calls you to engage in a battle that is the battle of battles. It is the battle that is the main drama of the story of redemption that is the main theme of his Word. He calls you to keep this battlefront in the center. He calls you to understand that all the other good and needed things that you work to provide for your children aren’t the goal of your parenting, but a means to a greater end. He calls you to be as zealously committed as he is to this deeper need, so that you do not get distracted and sidetracked, becoming satisfied with a job partially done.
He has called you to the job of jobs, and he will be with you and provide for you every single thing you need. He calls you to exercise faithful control, but never to be satisfied with the fact that you have. Your dear children desperately need your parental control, but they will not be all God has designed them to be if that’s all that you give them.
Every Child’s Deeper Need
If you carefully watch your children and stop to think about the things that you have to deal with as their parent, you will be driven to the conclusion that they need more than careful parental control because something has gone wrong inside them. It’s not just that they make foolish choices, or argue with you endlessly, or mistreat one another, or are entitled and demanding, or act as if they have wisdom that they don’t, or question your authority, or find “no” more natural to say than “yes,” or seem scarily attracted to the world, or seem to lack interest in the things of the Lord, or pout when they don’t get their way, or refuse to be happy until they get what they want. It’s that all these things are moment-by-moment symptoms of a deep, abiding, and inescapable need that they came into the world with. And no matter how successfully you control their choices and behavior, your control cannot and will not free them from this deeper need.
To properly understand this need and the shaping impact it must have on your parenting, there is no better place to look than Psalm 51.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
There is so much help in this psalm for understanding the deepest need of your children that I think you could write a whole parenting book from it alone. The implications of what David confesses and cries out for set a whole new agenda for what God has called us to in the lives of our children. As I explore the implications of this psalm for understanding the task of parenting, I want you to notice the focus of David’s confession. He doesn’t say, “I messed up and I’m sorry.” Far from it. David is deeply aware that he has more than a behavior problem. When you read Psalm 51, you are hit with the fact that embedded in David’s confession of specific and concrete sins is a cry for God’s help with a even deeper moral drama. Let me draw six agenda-setting observations from this psalm for your work as a parent.
1. Your Children Need to See Their Sin, So They’ll Cry Out for God’s Mercy
Psalm 51 begins with a cry every human being should make, but sadly billions don’t. You only make this cry when you have come to the point where you acknowledge that the greatest danger in your life lives inside you not outside you, and because of that you are a person in desperate need of God’s help and the helpers he has placed in your life. There is no more important function for a parent than this: to lovingly and patiently bring our children to the point where they too cry out for God’s mercy. Crying out for God’s mercy happens only when you have acknowledged the sin that is inside you from which you are not able to free yourself. Children who begin to humbly and willingly acknowledge their sin not only run to God for his help, but they quit resisting the help, guidance, correction, and instruction of their parents too. How sad would it be if you successfully managed and controlled the behavior of your son or daughter, but they left your home never acknowledging the sin in their hearts and their desperate need for God’s mercy?
What if our kids received a good education and landed a good job, and are healthy, successful, and well-liked, but have no sin awareness and no hunger for mercy? Perhaps David’s cry for mercy confronts us that as Christian parents, our problem isn’t that we set the parenting bar too high, asking too much of our children. I think we set the bar too low, settling for horizontal success, when God has called us to be agents of radical heart and life change.
2. Your Children Need to Understand the Nature of Sin, So They Don’t Minimize Its Danger (vv. 1–3)
Here is something you need to consider. It is not negative and condemning to talk to your children about their sin. Think of it this way: all loving parents warn their children about the dangers around them that they need to be aware of and avoid. You do this because you love your kids and you want to protect them from things that could harm them. There is no more harmful thing in a child’s life than his own sin. To be made aware of it and its power to destroy is a good and loving thing.
It’s important to understand that your children don’t come into the world seeing their sin or acknowledging its gravity. That’s your job as a parent. Here again, Psalm 51 is incredibly helpful because the three words that David uses for sin graphically portray its life-crushing danger. The most basic word that David uses for this deep brokenness of heart is sin. Sin means that your children, with all of their natural gifts, abilities, and efforts, will consistently fall below God’s standard. To use the bow-and-arrow illustration, it’s not that your children aim and miss God’s mark. It’s that they aim, pull back on the bow, and shoot—and every single arrow falls short of the target. Not one arrow even hits the outer ring of the target. Every arrow falls to the ground short of God’s targeted destination. Sin means our children, on their own, have no ability to live as God has ordained and commanded them to live. No parental control, no educational system, no personal success will give them this ability. They need divine intervention.
The second word that David uses is iniquity. Iniquity is moral uncleanness. It is heart-breaking to consider, but biblically true, that our children come into this world unclean on the inside. What does this mean? Moral uncleanness means that they are naturally attracted to what God says is wrong, and because they are, they are susceptible to the myriad of temptations that greet them every day. The problem with our children is deeper than the fact that they have less-than-perfect parents, or siblings that are selfish, or friends that are mean, or that they live in a world that is broken. Their problem is that they come to all of these situations with a susceptibility to temptation and an attraction to what is wrong. If you look carefully, you will see this attraction and susceptibility operating in your children almost every day.
The last word that David uses to describe sin is transgression. It’s not just that sin makes our children unable, and it’s not just that sin makes our children susceptible. Sin causes our children to be rebels. Transgression means to consciously and willingly cross God’s boundaries. It is seeing the “No Parking” sign and parking there anyway. It is seeing the “No Trespassing” sign and climbing the fence and going in anyway. As I wrote earlier, it may be hard to accept, but our children are natural rebels against authority (God’s and ours), and they have a natural inclination to want to step beyond the boundaries that have been set for them. They will tend to inch closer and closer to the line, finally crossing it in an attempt to experience the temporary feeling of being self-governing. The struggle with our children is not just that they are ignorant and in need of instruction. If all that our kids needed was good instruction in order to live as God designed, then, I repeat, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus wouldn’t have been necessary. They need that divine intervention because, by nature, they are rebels against any authority but their own. You see that in the little girl who finds it easier to say no to her mommy than yes, or in the teenager who tends to argue every time he is told to do something, no matter what it is.
If your children are going to come to the place where they fear the sin that is inside them and seek God’s help and yours, they will need to understand the gravity of sin. These three words capture the danger of sin and how important it is for your children to acknowledge that it lives inside their hearts.
3. Your Children Need to Understand That Their Problem Is Not with Their Parents, but with God (v. 4)
It seems almost weird for a man who has committed adultery and murder to say that his sin is against God and God alone. But the fact that David says this means he understands not only the gravity of what he has done, but the seriousness of the condition of his heart that caused him to do it. Our children need to understand this too. Every sin is vertical. Every sin is a fist in the face of God. Every sin is a desire to remove God from his throne and sit there yourself. Every time your children sin, they tell themselves that they are smarter than God, that they know better and can write their own rules. Every sin is claiming independence from God. Every sin puts your children in the center of the world and makes life all about them.
You see, our children were created to live for God, to give their lives to him, to willingly stay inside his boundaries, and to do what they do for his glory. Sin is about refusing to live for the glory of another. It’s about your sons or daughters reducing their life down to their wants, their feelings, and their happiness. No sin is purely horizontal. When your children are disrespectful to you, they dishonor God, because it is God who has commanded them to respect their parents. When your children fight with one another, they are fighting against God, because it is God that called them to live at peace with one another. When a teenage boy gets a girl pregnant, his moral violation is against God, who commands him not to use the body of another for his selfish pleasure.
As a parent, you must always remember the verticality of the wrong that your children do and not make it just about you. But you must also help them to understand that they were made for God, created to do his will, and because this is so, every wrong thing they do is done against him.
4. Your Children Need to Understand That Sin Is a Nature Problem That Produces Behavior Problems (v. 5)
When David says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” he is saying that my biggest problem is not situational, it’s not geographical, it’s not relational. No, it’s my nature. I was born a sinner. I came into the world this way. This point is significant and vital for you and your children to understand. It’s not enough to say that your children sin. You and they must come to recognize that they are sinners. Sin is not first a bad behavior; sin is a condition that produces bad behavior. A sinner can’t simply say to himself, “Tomorrow I am not going to sin anymore,” and actually pull it off.
It is loving to help your children to understand that it’s not enough to confess that they sometimes do what is wrong. They need to come to the place where they confess that wrong lives inside them, and because of that they are in desperate need of God’s rescuing, forgiving, transforming, and delivering mercy.
5. Your Children Need to Understand That Since Sin Is a Heart Problem, the Only Solution Is a New Heart (v. 10)
You know when anyone cries out for a new heart that he has come to understand what sin, their greatest need, is all about. The only solution to the heart-infecting disease of sin that is in our children is a divine heart transplant. That’s why Jesus was willing to come and subject himself to this fallen world, that’s why he was willing to endure the cruelty of the cross, and that’s why he had to exit his tomb, so that he could deliver to us and our children the one thing we all need: a new heart. More than just being managed, our children need to be delivered. More than being instructed, our children need divine surgery. And it’s not enough for you to recognize that need; they must come to recognize it as well, or they will continue to resist your help and not admit their need of God’s.
6. Your Children Need to Be Taught to Run to the Only Place of Hope: The Forgiving Grace of God (v. 14)
I have written this elsewhere, but it needs to be said here as well: the doorway to hope is hopelessness. Until your children begin to give up on themselves, their wisdom, their strength, and their righteousness, they will not cry out for God’s mercy. As long as they retain hope that they can make it without your help or God’s, they will deny the sin inside them and take life into their own hands. The person who is seeking forgiveness is acknowledging that they are not in charge, that their life does not belong to them, that they have transgressed God’s boundaries, and that they have no ability to buy their way back into God’s favor. Then in their hopelessness, they run to the only place of hope: the forgiving and restoring hands of the Redeemer.
Parenting is about being used of God to bring your children to that wholesome and heart-changing place of personal hopeless. This is not a process of condemnation, but of patient and loving rescue. Don’t you want this rescue for your children?
You are called to make use of every opportunity that God will give you to help your children to become aware of the grave danger of the sin that lives inside them. You don’t do this with irritation or impatience, but with grace, acknowledging that you are just like them, a person in need of God’s mercy. Self-righteously pointing out the sin of others never works; it is offensive and condescending, and it will close down the hearts of your children. Ask God to give you the grace to come to them to talk to them about their sin as a person who is much more grieved by the sin that is inside you than the sin that is in them. When you come this way, your tenderness and humility becomes a workroom for God to do in the heart of your child what you can’t do.