If our children are going to remain faithful to God in a time of trials and persecution there are some things we have to do to prepare them for something we have never faced before. One of those things is . . .
Intellectual Preparation: Relevant Reading and Value Viewing

You are probably familiar with the old adage: Garbage in, garbage out. There is a reason it is familiar to us; it is true. What we put into our minds molds what we think and feel and what we think and feel molds us into what we believe and, ultimately, into who we are. The Bible warns us of this fact in Proverbs 23:7 and points out that we should control what we think about in Philippians 4:8 and 2 Corinthians 10:5. What are we allowing our children to put into their minds? If we want them to become faithful Christians in a future that is likely to involve persecution against them, then we are going to have to train their minds.

In Jesus’ parable of the sower He explains that the seed that fell among the rocks and thorns didn’t produce fruit and even withered and died because of problems they faced. We don’t want that to happen with our children, and the only way to avoid it is to build strong deep roots and prepare them for the temptations and persecutions that they may face. Too often we have babied and protected our children’s minds from any of the negative things Christians have faced or may face in the future. Because of that they are totally unprepared for any hardships they may face. Even something as insignificant as losing a friendship or being laughed at for believing something in the Bible is enough to drive them away from the church, the Bible, and their weak faith in God. I am not saying we should be scaring 5 year-olds by telling them about all the bad things that have happened and could happen again, but we need to face it ourselves and reveal it to our children as they grow older. 

We already talked about impressing them with the Esther Factor in an earlier section. That is appropriate for even young children. As children mature, however, we need to help them discover that there is a cost to following Jesus. It’s time to help them see that things don’t always work out like they did for Esther, Daniel, Joseph, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or even Elijah and Jeremiah. The fact is that even though all of these faced danger, persecution, and/or physical harm, their lives were spared. Not everyone who stood for God was so fortunate. We need to let the older children see those that lost everything including their physical lives for God. They need to consider Hebrews 11:37 and those that were stoned, slain with the sword, even cut in two with a saw (tradition says that was Isaiah). What about those Jesus referred to from Abel and the many prophets who were killed up to Zacharias? What about Jesus Himself, Stephen, James, Paul, other apostles, etc? 

It would be good to read in the scriptures about those righteous individuals who were killed. The books of the Maccabees and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs would also be good for older children. In addition to those kinds of things it is important to be fostering a Biblical worldview in their minds and hearts with the things they read,  watch, listen to, and play. Movies, TV shows, books, music, video games, etc. all fill our minds and our children’s minds with thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. As adults we often recognize something that is not good, but children are much more impressionable and can easily come to believe things that are not true or right. Children say things they hear without knowing that there are bad things that shouldn’t be said. We recently stopped our preschool-aged daughter from watching an educational reading show because one of the characters used some slang words that we did not want her to say. Too many of the educational and entertainment products that are being produced for young children push sinful, atheistic, or evolutionary agendas, and those being produced for older children are even worse.

Perhaps the most challenging thing here may be the necessity of examining our own thoughts and beliefs to see if they really line up with the Bible’s teachings, specifically, those of Jesus in the New Testament. Violence, vengeance, hatred, enmity, strife, etc. are all contrary to Jesus’ teachings and will not please Him. Jesus’ primary teaching to us is love for God first and for our fellow man second, and we must understand the power and strength of love. If we can instill in ourselves and our children this kind of love we can do what could never be done for money, prestige, popularity, or out of hatred and anger. With love we can do even what we would not do for faith. 

Based on learning from mistakes that we covered last week, I want to give you fathers out there something to consider for your family. This is also something that goes hand in hand with the Building Boundaries subject that we looked at in the series Behind Enemy Lines. Knowing who you are, where you are, where you want to be, and how to get there and stay there is important for growth individually and as a family. It is ineffective to sit around telling everyone else what they should do and not being willing to make changes yourself. I am posting a generic form of questions to ask yourself and each other member of the family. You have to start with yourself first, then your spouse and then the children. If you want your children to fly higher than you have ever reached you have to show them the possibility by flying higher than you have in the past to give them hope. Many children with great potential are dragged down by the downward, negative pull of their parents. 

As you look at these questions you will notice that there is a paragraph at the beginning of the wife’s section. This was written for my wife and is specific to our situation, so if you use this you will need to rewrite that to fit your family. Notice that it is full of compliments, looking at what we have accomplished, and putting out the hope that we can do even more. When you talk to your wife (or even children) about these things do it with a positive spirit of hope for the future to be better than the past and present. If you point out problems, start with the things you have done wrong, with a spirit of humility, not in arrogance or with finger pointing and blaming. Remember that as the husband and father God holds you accountable and responsible for your family’s direction and propulsion.

You will also notice generic phrases like ‘each son’ or ‘each daughter’. Personalize these and answer the questions for each one individually, not as a group. You may need more space than what is provided. In my original I have a separate page for each child with their names on the appropriate questions. Obviously, these questions will not be grasped by small children, and even some school-aged children may need some prompting or explanation. 

This is not something to do one time and stick in a file somewhere, it is like a map or set of directions that must be revisited regularly to make it to your goal. Don’t forget, you are going somewhere you have never been before. At each turn we need to adjust our vision. If my directions are to go 10 miles and turn right on highway 1, then go 3 miles and turn left on highway 2, etc. Once I have made the turn on highway 1 it would be foolish for me to think that I should drive 10 miles and look to turn right on highway 1. Once we have done that step we have to move on to the next step. We need to come back to our goals and visions to see what we have accomplished and how the future may look different. Goals for a 4 year-old are very different from goals for a 14 year-old. Goals for a newlywed couple are different from the goals of a couple with 4 young kids or a couple with grown kids or a couple with grandkids. 

Feel free to download these questions below and use them to help point you in the right direction.
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James and Dawn Pasley had the opportunity to teach lessons in Pineville, LA during their series on the family. Their topic was 'When a House of 2 Becomes a House of 7'. James' lesson to the men was 'Who Is Building Your Home?'. Dawn's lesson to the women was 'Maintaining Spiritual Growth as the Family Grows Physically'. You can listen to them below or download them. You can also download his outline and resource list or her Powerpoint and resource list.

As I think about fasting and why we don’t make it a spiritual habit in our lives is unfortunately because of the sinful selfishness of our flesh. Consider the real reason you don’t fast. Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 6:16, "Moreover when you fast, . . .", and when asked why His disciples were not fasting like the Pharisees and John’s disciples His response was prophetic, " . . . Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast." Matthew 9:15. Well, here we are in the time when the bridegroom has been taken from us. I know He is "with us", but He has gone back to Heaven. The disciples in the early church fasted and we claim that we are trying to restore New Testament Christianity.

Colossians 3:2 tells us that our affection (our love and desire) should be set on things above and fasting helps us do that. The fact is that many times we are more like those mentioned in Philippians 3:18-19 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) We certainly don’t want to think of ourselves as the enemies of the cross, but if our focus is on the world and our physical body we are. Look at that phrase ‘whose god is their belly’. Do you think that describes a society where there are almost 4 times as many eating places as there are churches? How many times do we think that fellowship means food? We as a society and even Christians are obsessed with food many times. Fasting teaches us to eat to live instead of living to eat.

Whether you agree with these things or not, you are probably wondering why I am bringing this up in a Father Friday post. The answer is that it will make a huge difference in many areas of your personal life. It takes commitment, self-control, will-power, strength, endurance, and patience to fast. All of those things are beneficial, even necessary, traits for the Christian father to have in his life. A lack of self-control is a root of all kinds of evil. That is what James describes. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust. Practicing fasting is a way to practice self-control so that your self-control muscles will be strong the next time you are faced with temptation. If you can go through a whole day without food which is necessary for life, then you can go through days without yelling at the kids or wife, looking at pornography, telling dirty jokes, lying, stealing, drinking, or whatever other sinful things you struggle with which are not necessary for life.

There are so many spiritual benefits to regular fasting that it is no wonder Jesus said that his followers would fast. Jesus fasted, if we want to be like him why would we skip this tool. For those that only care about the physical, there are physical benefits: a couple could cut their food budget by 14% if they fast once a week, it is also a way to cleanse the body of impurities, and you may lose weight as well. The first meal after fasting tastes better than normal. Which brings us to another type of fasting that the Bible mentions, we’ll talk about that next time.

We have talked about teaching and training, Bible study and prayer, discipline and exemplification, punishment and encouragement, accountability and responsibility, marriage and parenting, and several other things over the past year or so, but there is one subject that we have neglected up to this point. It is a subject that the church has largely ignored for the past century. When it is mentioned we often assume that the person bringing it up is liberal or has been influenced by denominational thinking. I have only preached on the subject once (a series of 3 lessons) in over 16 years and I believe I have preached on it more than the average preacher. Even in the denominational world it is not a hot topic. What am I talking about? Well, Let me just give you this example before I tell you. On Sermon Central, a website where preachers of all kinds post sermons, I did a search. Prayer returned 3,000 results, parenting - 970, holiness - 1966, even singing (remember most of these are from denominational sources) has 149, but this Biblical topic only had 61. The topic is fasting. Poorly understood, rarely taught, more rarely practiced, but desperately needed in the life of a Christian. It is mentioned 32 times in the New Testament. By comparison, prayer is mentioned 160+ times and baptism is mentioned nearly 100, but singing is mentioned less than 10 times have you heard 3 times as many sermons on fasting as singing? I seriously doubt it.

As a rule we don’t practice fasting. Before I get too much hate mail, I realize that there are circumstances and health conditions that could make it unwise and even dangerous for some to fast. There are articles on WebMD warning of the dangers and mentioning the benefits of fasting physically, but Christian fasting is not about the physical, but the spiritual. One preacher said jokingly, "I fast every night from the time I go to sleep until I wake up." That is probably the extent of most fasting, but I want to give you something to challenge the status quo. If you have never fasted you have missed unlocking a key to God’s power in your life. I am not talking about when you go in for surgery and they say don’t eat anything after midnight. That is fasting, but not spiritual fasting. The purpose of fasting in the scriptures is two-pronged. First, it is to force the body into submission in the Old Testament Israel was commanded to fast and the term ‘afflict your souls’ is used to describe the process the word translated souls in the KJV is the general term that describes any breathing creature, even animals. It does not mean they are afflicting themselves spiritually, but that they were to suffer from the hunger. The second prong is to bring yourself closer to God, His will, and His word. Fasting is often associated with prayer in the New Testament for this reason. It is an act of submission to God.

Some will say that we are not commanded to fast and that is technically true. However, Jesus said His followers would fast. Consider what fasting is and look up some of the verses that speak of it and describe it. We will look a little deeper at fasting next time.

I have been doing this post for about a year now, as you can see this is #51. I think in many ways it has probably helped me more than any of you who are reading it. There is something about putting thoughts down in a concrete way that makes you think about them more thoroughly than you otherwise would. Something may seem like a good idea in your head, but when you actually put it out there and read it you may realize that it is stupid, or someone else may help you realize that it is stupid. That kind of thing happens to me a bunch and I scrap the whole thing and start over, but it helps to have a clearer picture of what does make sense so I can course correct.

One of the problems many of us men have is that we stubbornly hold on to what is not working. Men have often been accused of not stopping to ask for directions when they are lost. We could probably all tell about an article of clothing that we have that wouldn't even make a good rag anymore. As fathers and expecially as Christian fathers we must honestly examine our lives and throw out the bad so that we can bring in more good.

Dr. Henry Cloud has written a book called Necessary Endings. He is not a member of the church, and this is not a "Christian" book, it is more along the lines of psychology and sociology. I have not read this book, although it is on my list, but I have heard him discuss it in an interview and I read an earlier book he wrote called Boundaries which is a must read for preachers and counselors and just about everyone who has a family member that is too involved in their lives. The point of Necessary Endings is that we have to stop doing things that do not work. One of the examples he gives is of GM and their Pontiac brand. They were finally forced to kill it off when they went into bankruptcy, but it had been losing money for over 20 years and they just kept going further and further into the hole. We sometimes do the same thing in our families.

Real leaders are strong enough to admit that they made mistakes and try something else. We usually are afraid to try anything different because we are afraid that it may not work. This is especially true of something that is working "kinda ok" even if we are sure there must be a better way. The better way may be different from anything we have done before and might be scary. If it doesn't work you can always go back to the kinda ok way until you find something better. The problem is giving it a real serious effort instead of a half-hearted try takes a lot of work. As Christians we should take commitment very seriously (to Christ, the Church, our spouse, our children, keeping our word, etc), but in some of these areas at home we think we have to commit to doing things a certain way for the rest of our lives. We can decide that we are going to try a certain budgeting technique, homeschooling curriculum, diet, schedule, etc. for a certain period of time, a year, 6 months, or whatever we decide on as a family.

Go ahead and try to make something better in your family.

Do you ever get sidetracked? I know we do at our house. It isn’t that we don’t know what is important or what we want to do, it is just that the little things of daily life get in the way. I believe it is a problem for any families that are trying to live beyond the day to day activities of living. I have been thinking about this a great deal lately and hope to start implementing some things that will help our family get back on track and stay on track more than we have been.

The fact is no family is perfect and every family will have ups and downs. The key is to get back up when you are down, to get back on track when you are off. There are course corrections that have to be made regularly. As the father of the family you can’t just let the family take its natural course or it will crash. Like driving a car you have to keep it on the road. If you take your hands of the steering wheel things may look okay for a few seconds, but the car will soon be heading into oncoming traffic or toward the ditch. Sometimes we veer a little, and sometimes we may even take a wrong turn and be on the wrong road, but we have to turn it around and get back to the road we want that is going to take us where we want to go.

I recall trying to get somewhere and following someone else who was supposed to be going to the same place. I did not have my own directions, and they didn’t know where we were going like I thought they would. Needless to say, it was a mess. We took several wrong turns that I could have avoided if I had good directions to follow. We need to remember that it is our responsibility as fathers to get our family where we are going, and we can’t just follow someone else. A preacher, elder, deacon, or other seemingly spiritual Christian may wind up leading us down the wrong road if we don’t have our own set of directions to follow. If we have directions and we see someone else take a wrong turn, we can still go the right way.

We have to beware of following the majority or a group. Exodus 23:2 says, "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:" I was going to a large event one time in a larger city than I was used to. I knew generally where to go, but not exactly. I figured since it was such a big event that once I got close I could just follow the many cars that would be going that way. It didn’t work out quite right. Apparently there were some other things happening that a bunch of people were going to as well. I saw a line of cars getting off the interstate at one particular exit and thought that must have been it, so I followed. You guessed it, wrong! At the end of the exit ramp those cars went all different directions and I didn’t know which way to go. Even in the church, a group of people who are all supposed to be trying to go to heaven, people are going all kinds of different directions. You can’t just blindly follow the majority even among Christians.

Take hold of the wheel and guide your family. We sometimes try to push and pull and lift and everything else. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to push a car to the right or left compared to the ease with which you can do it from the driver’s seat with the steering wheel. Drive your family, don’t push them.

Acts 4:13 "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus."
Can you think of a better compliment that someone could give you than to know that you have been with Jesus? The thing is, YOU HAVE TO SPEND TIME WITH JESUS FOR PEOPLE TO NOTICE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN WITH JESUS! Sorry to yell, but I am afraid that too often we want the end result without putting the effort in on the front end. It won't work - Gal 6:7-9 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (8) For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (9) And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Wow 2 scriptures today! Enjoy the bonus.

Last night at bedtime, as I was trying to get my girls tucked in for the night, my 7-year-old said, "Knock, Knock". Of course I asked who was there and she said, "Olive". I replied with the proper, "Olive who?" To which she replied, "Olive you get in bed this second." She had made that up on the spot. Our family lives a very punny life, yes, that’s punny and not puny. When my son was about three he got a little plastic toy shaped like a llama. He has always been one for naming things a little strange (he had a panda named Nanu, and a potty training doll named Roller-Coaster. He named our second child Pumpkin before she was born, and the second girl was little stinker before her birth, which I’ll leave to my wife to explain. He and I refer to the twins my wife is currently carrying as Alfalfa and Buckwheat instead of Baby A and Baby B.) so it was not too surprising when he called this little plastic toy Bean. His mom asked him why he chose that name and he said as though it should have been obvious to anyone with two brain cells, "Because he’s Llama bean." I am pretty sure that my children are learning to be like me in this way because I constantly turn puns on them and they also love the Amelia Bedelia books. It causes some laughter and some anguish, for my wife particularly, when they play these word games of puns or taking something too literally (like when they are told to pick up the living room and reply that they aren’t strong enough to do that.)

I enjoy seeing them be like me in some ways, but then I also see that they are developing some of my negative traits as well. I have to constantly struggle with procrastination(why do today what can be put off til tomorrow, besides if Jesus comes back tonight I won’t have to do it at all), over sleeping(They wouldn’t put a snooze on the alarm if you were not supposed to use it 10 or 15 times), being easily distracted from my work(I’m sorry, I got distracted and forgot to put an example in here), a degree of OCD type characteristics (Doesn’t everyone alphabetize their M&M’s and Skittles according to color and then eat them orderly), and a temptation toward eating way too many things that are not good for me(you know chocolate covered strawberry ice cream will get your dairy, fruit, and chocolate groups in one thing, chocolate is a food group, right?). There are probably a hundred more I could list (and my OCD part really wants to do it and then rearrange them either in alphabetical order or in order from least bad to worst) but I’ll do that later(It is tough to really be good at OCD when you are a procrastinator like me). 9:45 - Sorry, where was I? Let me just read this paragraph and wait a minute, I need a snack. 9:47 - That’s better, hold on I have something else I have to do real quick, won’t take a minute. 10:31 - Ok, I’m back, told you it wouldn’t take a minute. It never does. It always takes 30 minutes or an hour and half the time I forget what I was doing before I got side-tracked. It shouldn’t surprise me that my kids have some of these same struggles.

As a father, I know that I will influence my children. Consciously, unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally, by my presence or my absence, when I don’t think they are paying attention, when I don’t want them to be paying attention, by the things I say and do, by the things I don’t say and don’t do, in ways I expect and ways I don’t expect: I will affect their lives for the rest of their lives. I want to do everything I can to purposefully change their lives and guide them, and give them a good example to follow. I don’t want to drift aimlessly along hoping they will catch some good things. The old adage: ‘More is caught than is taught’ is not really true because we are teaching all of the things that are caught, just not deliberately.

In Luke 14:28-30 Jesus said, "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? (29) Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, (30) Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish." Now I know he was talking about being a disciple, but the principle that applied to building a tower and to following Jesus can apply to so many situations in life. We need to apply it to child rearing. Too many times we get things out of order. Instead of ready, aim, fire we often do fire, ready, aim or some other combination. The cost is not always financial. Time, energy, pride, selfishness, dreams, etc. may all have to be sacrificially spent to build a child’s life in a way that will please the Lord. It is not necessarily hard work to raise children, but it is definitely hard work to train them up in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6) and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). With a building project you can abandon it if it gets to be more than you can handle, and some people do the same with their marriages, families, and children. But these things are so much more important than a house or a bridge or any physical construction project. Everything built by mankind from the beginning of time will be destroyed, but those precious souls will live eternally and it is our charge to build them so that they can reach the right destination. Get back to work on the building project God called you to oversee.