Practical application: parenting
In Colossians 3:18-19, Paul pointed out the oh-so-practical place to practice living like Christ – in our relationship with our spouse. His next connection stays within the immediate family and is just as practical.
Colossians 3:20-21
Children obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so they won’t become discouraged.
As parents, we love this first sentence. We secretly relish when the preacher or our kid’s group leader brings up teaching like this. They need to hear this, we congratulate ourselves. Maybe if they keep hearing from other adults, they’ll do it more at home. Wouldn’t that be nice…
Paul gives the Colossian Christian children this command – obey your parents in everything – because it’s something they need to learn. Let’s camp out on that thought for a moment…obedience is something that children need to learn. They’re not going to get it right away. Their entire focus is on their own needs, and not the needs of others. Obedience is like any other skill we develop as we grow and mature…it’s going to take time, it’s going to take practice, and there are going to be failures along the way.
How we handle our children’s failures will heavily influence them…in their childhood for sure, but our actions will also echo throughout the rest of their lives. We know this because we still feel the echoes from our own upbringing, but for some reason we tend to forget that reality the moment we’re dealing the shortcomings of our own kids.
More than any person in a child’s life, we fathers have the greatest influence in this area. Apologies to all the moms out there, but we just do. And the impact we fathers have on our child’s perspective is even greater than we realize. Paul warns against discouraging our children, and the word he chose relates to feeling disheartened, dispirited, or broken in spirit. A father’s reaction to his son or daughter’s failure is truly a make-or-break moment.
Paul says we push our children toward discouragement if we exasperate them. When we push them to their whit’s end because of our insistence on “getting it right”, or when we bring them to angry tears just to make sure they understand and “get it” – whenever we take our authority too far, we run the risk of exasperating them.
Unfortunately, I have been guilty of doing just that to my children many times over the years. It typically happens when I’m rigidly demanding more than my son can give…and he cannot meet the standard I’ve set for him. If my expectation was too high for his skill level, then he is doomed to failure even before he begun. Instead of recognizing I set the bar to high, at times I’ve even doubled back and berated them for missing the mark. I know when I’ve gone too far, too – I can see it in their eyes as they stare at the floor, their shoulders sink in despair, and their posture communicates that they’ve completely given up.
A child of any age can become exasperated and discouraged, but it is especially easy when they are young. This doesn’t mean we don’t confront error or that we should only give easy challenges to our children; rather we need to actively match our expectations with our children’s abilities, and then be willing to be both gentle and firm as we lovingly deal with their failures. Men, our ability to guard against this damaging practice is for us to apply the Christ-driven characteristics that Paul listed in the preceding context of 3:12-17
…put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience…
…forgive one another…just as the Lord has forgiven you…
…above all, put on love…
…be thankful…
…let the message of the Messiah dwell richly among you…
…whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus…
Our children’s hearts and maturity depend on it.
Keep Pressing,
Ken