Small Window of Opportunity
When I came to know Christ at the age of 20, I was excited to delve into my Bible. I remember struggling with some of the stories in the Old Testament, which made me think that God could be really mean at times.
I particularly couldn’t understand the account where the Lord tells Abraham to take the life of his son. This request seemed antithetical to who God was in my mind. It wouldn’t be until later in life that I would begin to understand the point of that account, which is so aptly addressed by AW Tozer in the “Pursuit of God.”
He writes to the wondering patriarch. God says, “It’s all right, Abraham, I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there.”
It’s interesting to consider that something as natural as loving our children can get out of whack when we are out of line with our own priorities with God. I believe most parents would resist the notion that their children were idols because we disassociate the harmful correlation between putting our children on equal ground, or worse yet, ahead of our relationship with God.
It is clear what God thinks of family: “Behold, children are a gift from God; the fruit of the womb is His reward” (Psalm 127: 3-5). We err greatly if we are complacent with the profound commission that is present in this verse. Children are to be whose reward? “His reward,” not ours, even though they are entrusted to us. We are called to raise them to know God; love God and seek Him first and foremost in their lives.
We are expected to teach them spiritual truths at home, take them to church, and raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. These are not options but commands, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7).
Let’s be real: Raising children has the natural tendency to put our lifestyles in a busier mode as we dutifully run to practices, games, gymnastics, recitals, etc. And no one must remind us to do that for them other than a calendar to keep us punctual. It’s part of our parental responsibility.
But sadly, unless a parent is intentional about spiritual training there will be a natural deficit in the child’s development and love for God. If there are no set times for the things of God, (as we talk, sit, walk, lie down and rise up), then it will never happen organically.
And the very season, where they are most dependent on us, is the one where their comings and goings with us passes so quickly. The window of opportunity closes before you know it. As they grow older, and out of your purview, the opportunity to be influenced by the world’s messages will increase as evil ideas will gladly fill any empty voids.
From the book Discerning the Devil’s Playbook, “The future of any nation rises or falls on the worldview of the youth. Hitler once said, He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future….”
Ironically, we rationalize that their busyness is good because it will likely keep them out of trouble as well as lead them to better successes. And it might! But the imbalance of seeking earthly accomplishments above seeking heavenly things is a surefire way to spiritual malaise or worse yet eternal destruction of the soul.
John Calvin once said that our hearts are idol-making factories. The question is not whether our hearts are manufacturing idols, but which ones.
When kids become our idols there is a fine line between being a loving parent and hovering over them trying to move the pieces of the chess game to gain a win. As we completely forget that God is in control of everything.
No one can deny that children are a real blessing and our love for them gives us a foretaste of God’s love for us. But it is possible to become over focused on their “happiness” over their “holiness.” It is when we bend to what they want rather than what we know God wants. It shows up in how I mitigate conflict with them, make concessions that violate my standards, prioritize their wants over their needs, lend my bank account and calendar to things dictated by them rather than by God.
At the end of Solomon’s days, even with everything he had accumulated, he realized that true happiness came down to this, “Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
Like Abraham, we need to remove our children from the throne of our hearts and give Christ His rightful place. And the natural result will be sowing our beliefs into our children; as children naturally learn more by what we show than by what we say we know.
