(HT:Z)

Today I have to throw away the snowman.

For 5 years, we’ve had a snowman standing sentinel in our front yard. For 5 years, his lights have delighted our children and marked our home on cold, dark December nights. He’s made one more with us across town and survived being shoved in the shed and garage 5 times over. But two weeks ago, his head stopped working. The lights are going out. So it’s time to throw him away and move on.

Not such a big deal, right? Not for us – we throw away stuff all the time. But the snowman feels different.

I bought the snowman 5 years ago, 2 months after our little boy was diagnosed with leukemia. We bought him in the midst of being in and out of the hospital after we knew that we wouldn’t be traveling to see family at Christmas. We bought him because we thought it might be a small way to bring joy to a little boy who was in almost constant pain. And we put him right outside our big front windows so that Joshua, when he was too weak to walk up the stairs, might sit under a blanket and see him all lit up.

And he stayed lit up that year, every single night. We would bundle up and go for a walk around the neighborhood and my son would smile when we came home. He would point at the snowman and laugh.

Then the next year, when the treatments were still ongoing but had subsided somewhat, he was excited to get him out again. And we put him up, and there he stood for another year.

As I lay in bed last night thinking about everything that had to be done today to clean up after Christmas, my eyes got a little watery when I thought about the snowman. The snowman that had seen so much. The snowman who had brought our family joy in the worst of days. I thought about how much life has changed over these five years, and how even this year, with two more kids added to the mix and a cancer free little boy, they were still smiling as they picked out the place where he would go in the front yard.

There’s no big resolution at the end of this post; no big revelation that the snowman has brought me. Just a nostalgic feeling of thankfulness for small, common graces like the laughter of a child that has been brought about these 5 years by some pipe cleaners and wire hammered into the ground. And thankfulness for the ability to tell the story again to our kids of why we, for the first time 5 years ago, went to the trouble of decorating the outside of our house for Christmas.

That’s what my 7-year-old said at dinner the other night when he was confronted (again) with the answer of “no” for something he wanted to do (I think it involved eating peas). He’s living under the mindset right now that the rules are there to cramp his style. They deny him freedom to do what he really wants to do and if all these restraints were lifted, his life would be much happier.

This is a lie ingrained into our hearts.

“I love the rules.”

That’s what the 4-year-old sitting across from him said with a glint of pride in her eye. She lives to please authority right now, and does not think of herself as sinful in any way, shape or form. Obeying fills her with pride, and she can’t imagine that anything in her heart might need to be changed because she is very proficient at following the rules. If, in fact, there were more and more rules she would be much happier because she would know exactly what the minimum was expected of her and she could perform accordingly.

This is a lie ingrained into our hearts.

Licentiousness and legalism sitting there together at the kitchen table, one believing that the rules deny him happiness and one believing that the rules justify her.

And the gospel is for both.

Thank God the gospel frees us from the lie that sin is freedom and happiness and moves us toward the joy of obedience and intimacy. And thank God the gospel frees us from the lie that we are “okay” and makes us into the humble people that are “okay” because of Christ alone.

And thank God that the gospel is still for a dad who from one day to another needs grace to love both of these kids in good – and hard – ways.

So maybe some of these things might be help to you, from one dad who is still growing into a spiritual leader in the home, and making plenty of mistakes along the way.

1. Don’t go at it alone. This isn’t just about a husband and wife working together (although if you have that option, it’s obviously helpful). It’s about using a tool to help you. It’s incredibly intimidating to sit with youf family with only the Bible in hand and open it up and read. I think that probably works better when the kids are a bit older, but for now, we’ve found the book, Long Story Short and The Jesus Storybook Bible to be really age appropriate and helpful tools that make family devotion time manageable.

2. Mix it up. There are certain components we have every morning, as guided by the books above. We always pray. We always talk through a Bible passage. But some mornings I ask the kids to act out a scene. Every Friday we ask each kid specifically what they’re thankful or how we can pray specifically for them (most of the time Christian says “milk” for both). But it helps to keep things interesting.

3. Be ready. This has been key for us. In order to make sure we have time before school for devotions, Jana and I have to get up earlier than we used to. We have to be completely ready for the day with breakfast going with the kids get up at 7 (and they get up at 7 every stinking morning). It often means that I read through the devotion the night before. Anything we can do to make the morning run more smoothly is helpful.

4. Make connections to reinforce the whole story of the Bible. I don’t think I’ll ever forget a week ago when we were in the book of Joshua talking through the story of Rahab. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, it’s an incredible gospel-laced account of a woman of questionable reputation who was saved from destruction. And how was she saved? Because she put a red rope on her door, marking her house to be spared. And the lights came on for the kids:

“Do you guys remember any other people that put something red on their doors?”

“Yeah. Like when that angel killed people.”

“Correct. It was the Passover. And why was that called the Passover?”

“Because the angel passed over their houses.”

“And what did the Israelite army do to Rahab’s house?”

“They passed over it.”

And so on it went, eventually to remind us that the wrath of God passes over us because our lives are marked with something red – the blood of Jesus. The kids thought this was genuinely exciting, and they felt genuinely smart because they saw how it all fit together.

5. Think about the long term. There are spiritual moments with your children that are paper thin, and they don’t seem to happen that often. It’s those times when you really sense they are understanding the nature of sin and our great need for forgiveness, and then they’re thinking about Pokemon again. Paper thin moments, but they’re there.

Every morning isn’t a home run. Sometimes it’s a sacrifice bunt that you believe that God will somehow use in the story of their lives. So we choose, by faith, not to be discouraged, but instead to believe in a God who is drawing our kids’ hearts to Himself.

6. Show up. This is the biggest one I think. Just show up. It’s hard to get started. Harder still to maintain. But if we really believe in the power of God and the power of the Bible, then just show up at the table every morning. And then tomorrow, show up again.

But my favorite thing she prays for our children is something that’s not necessarily written on one of these cards. It’s also something that our kids, particularly the 7-year-old, is not excited to know that Mommy prays for him. Jana diligently beseeches the Lord that our kids will get caught.

She prays that no sin will be able to be hidden and that there will be no secrets with our kids. And she trusts the Lord that He’s going to answer her prayer and expose them. And you know what?

It’s working.

There was that time Joshua tried to sneak a toy out of the house to school that he’d been told not to take.

Why did Mommy have to open my backpack that day?

Then there was the time when Andi was spitting out her vegetables in her napkin and then throwing it away.

Why did Mommy have to look straight into the trash that night?

This is a good thing to pray because, by God’s grace, it is building a few things into our kids. They are coming to understand how long and wide is the vision of the Lord. That there really is nothing hidden before Him to whom we must give an account. And they’re learning that there’s no such thing as a consequence-less act. Their choices matter, even when they don’t seem like it.

Kind of makes you think that getting caught is actually a good thing.

But I hope they are learning that it’s always better to live in light rather than darkness. So keep praying, Jana. By God’s grace, our kids will continue to get busted.

At noon on a Thursday in mid-May 2010, we received a phone call that our foster care license was active. With significant limitations placed on the agency with regard to the kinds of kids we could take, I was extremely skeptical that we would ever receive a placement.

At 3:30 that same afternoon, we received another phone call asking us to pick up two African-American/Hispanic sisters, ages 2 and 3.

They are leaving as quickly as they came. They were here, but now they are back again. It’s a new reality worthy of a few reflections:

Read the rest of his thoughts here.

That kid’s mom and dad were more like their friend than their parent.

But part of us, even as kids I think, looked at this situation and felt something uneasy about it. Though we might not have articulated this at the time, we implicitly sensed that an adult’s job isn’t to be their child’s friend – it’s to be their parent.

We know that. But still – isn’t there something inside of you, way down deep, that wants to be their friend? That wants your kid, above all other things, to like you? There is for me. But the gospel frees us from that need.

It frees us from that need because the gospel reminds us that we don’t really need any approval from any man. Or woman.

Or child, for that matter. In the gospel we have the approval of God in Christ.

That approval arms us for the hard road of parenting. It frees us to do the difficult work of discipline. It propels us to choose what is best rather than what is convenient, easy, or comfortable for our children, even if those choices make them not like us in the moment.

Because of the gospel, I don’t have to be friends with my children. I can instead be their father.

These are just a few of the options on the table before our kids for extracurricular activities. And they’re 7, 4, and 1.

I know these decisions are going to get harder as time goes on, both for them and for us. On the one hand, you want your children to be well rounded and have a variety of experiences. You want them to find “their thing,” but at the same time have appropriate priorities and boundaries in their lives and in the life of your family.

Not only that, but in all these activities, how do you measure success? Is it simply that they are participating? Is it that they are the best? Neither of those seem right. So Jana and I are continuing to wade through these waters of helping our kids to be proud but not arrogant, accomplished and not apathetic. For now, we are emphasizing to our kids that there are only 3 rules for dance, swimming, piano, reading, and most other activities they’re involved in:

1. Try hard. Don’t just show up; show up and do your best. It doesn’t matter if your best isn’t the same as someone else’s best. The important thing is that you do the best you can with God has given you. So try as hard as you can at what you are doing.

2. Pay attention. Whoever the coach or teacher is at the moment, that person is the authority. As such, they should be respected and obeyed. They should be answered with “Yes ma’am” or “No sir.” God has put that person in charge of the swim team or the piano lesson or the dance class, so when you honor them, you are honoring the Lord.

3. Have fun. It matters that you are having fun. Kids don’t have to be a part of any of these things; they’ll grow up fine (I hope) without them. None are imperative to life. Having fun at these activities helps to separate the important from the essential. Though these things may be important, they can go away, and our family will continue to move on. I remember the freeing look on my son’s face when it was time to sign up for another baseball season and I asked him if he wanted to play. He looked surprised at the question, and then we decided it was time to move on and try something else.

What about you? Would you add anything to this list?

But let me pose the scenario for you:

Joshua, our 6 year old, has started going to “big church” this year. He gets approximately 30 minutes of worship and then a 40 minute sermon. More Sundays than not, it’s a struggle. If you asked him, “Joshua, do you want to go to big church?” he would probably answer no. It’s boring. But we make him go.

Should we do that? Here is one reason you could argue why we shouldn’t: we are teaching him a form of legalism. He isn’t going because he has a genuine affection for God but because he’s supposed to. If we keep doing that, he’ll grow up to only do the right thing because he’s supposed to, not because he genuinely wants to. Or he’ll begin to resent church and spirituality altogether and become embittered and rebellious.

Let’s expand the issue from this point. Let’s say that I wake up tomorrow morning and don’t want to read my Bible. Do I do it out of obligation, because I’m supposed to, or do I not?

Do you see how the issue gets a little tricky?

Ideally, I will want to read the Bible. And ideally, our children will be pushing us out the door to church. But it doesn’t always work like that.

I would argue that you make your children go to church even for the same 2 reasons you make yourself read the Bible even when you don’t feel like it.

1) You are acting in faith when you act even though you don’t feel like it. You trust that when you saturate your child in the things of God and the preaching of the gospel that something is going to get through. Eventually God is going to use those moments to bring about an awakening to the truth of faith in his or her life. You believe this, and therefore you act.

Similarly, you believe that the Bible is the Word of God. That it’s living and active and sharp. So you read it in faith, believing that the power of the Holy Spirit to illuminate His word is more powerful than your feelings.

2) Feeding a particular area of life makes it grow. We’ve all experienced this in a negative sense. Think about the escalation of drug addicts. I’ve heard that often addiction begins with experimentation and goes on from there – from something minor to something major. The appetite is fed, and as it is, it grows.

Or this one: It’s easy to sleep in one morning and not exercise. The next day it’s easier than the first day. And so it goes. We feed our laziness, and laziness feasts and grows fat.

Doesn’t it stand to reason the opposite would be true? When we discipline our children to go to church, we are, slowly but surely, feeding their appetite for godliness. It’s one spoonful at a time, to be sure, but in feeding it we are helping it grow.

In the case of ourselves, we feed our appetite for spiritual discipline. For prayer. For study. For meditation. And then the water of the Spirit makes it grow inside of us. So big does that appetite grow that it actually begins to push out other appetites.

And low and behold, we wake up one morning and actually want to read the Bible. Unfortunately, it’s hard to do then because our children are up early asking when it’s time to go to church.

“Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

I found this list of “ways you might be provoking your children” to be helpful:

- By constantly criticizing them and not encouraging them.  When they feel they can never please us enough.
- By having double standards – Do as I say, not as I do.  Expecting them to do things we don’t do, e.g. ask forgiveness, humble themselves, etc.
- By anger and harshness
- By a lack of affection
- By telling them what to do or not do without giving Biblical reasons (e.g., Do it because I said to do it, or because it’s just wrong).
- By being offended at their sin because it bothers us, not because it offends God.
- By comparing them to others (Why can’t you act like your sister?)
- By hypocrisy – acting like a Christian at church but not at home
- By embarrassing them (correcting, mocking or expressing disappointment in them in front of others)
- By always lecturing them and never listening to them
- By disciplining them for childishness or weakness, not for sin
- By failing to ask their forgiveness when we sin against them
- By pride – failing to receive humble correction from our spouses or our children when we sin.
- By self-centered reactions to their sin (How could you do this to ME?)
- By ungracious reactions to their sin (What were you thinking?  Why in the world would you do that?)
- By forgetting that we were (and are) sinners (I would NEVER have done that when I was your age).

(HT: Z)