I stumbled across a true story recently that blew me away. The main character is a twentysomething guy. Athletic. Talented. Popular with the women. Adventuresome.
What grabbed my attention was his relationship with his dad. When difficult times came, what did he lean on? Guidance from his dad.
When he had opportunities to counsel others, whom did he quote enthusiastically and unapologetically? His dad. That kid believed father knew best. (And when his friends followed dad’s advice, the results were positive.)
What were the special moments in his life? Hiking trips with dad. Dad and son loved those times together where they would get lost in conversation and laughter.
The fact that such a relationship can exist in the 21st century was a shock to me and brought tears to my eyes and a bit of envy to my heart at something I never had.
If you are a parent, grandparent, youth leader or discipler a thought might be going through your head right now. Namely, how can you impact your kids, grand kids, or younger people you work with like that dad did?
That is a question you must ask: How can you have maximum impact for Christ on the younger generation?
This is such a great topic let’s ask for help. We need it.
Heavenly Father,
All of us are burdened about impacting others for Christ. We want to do that with all our hearts. And we want to do it well. But we can’t do it without You, and we wouldn’t even want to try. So give us teachable attitudes and humble spirits because we might have to make some changes. We have much to learn. We ask for, we need for Your Spirit to guide us. And we pray this from helpless but hopeful hearts. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
We start with familiar turf. When the topic of impacting younger people for Christ is raised, four verses are usually trotted out.
Deuteronomy 6:7 you shall teach them diligently to your sons and talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you raise up.
Meaning – use all the events of the day as life lessons to teach the young.
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart.
Yes, he might wander for a while – but generally he’ll return to the fold.
Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Colossians 3:21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children that they may not lose heart.
Lots of different ways to exasperate your kids. Beware.
Four key verses stating clearly that the spiritual education of kids is given to parents – not just moms. Both parents should carry the load-and the idea of outsourcing all the Christian education of kids to Sunday school or Christian school or someone outside the family should be rejected. The #1 spiritual teacher of kids should be parents – meaning dad and mom.
These verses are talked about so much you might get the false impression these are the only verses of advice to parents. Beware of grabbing onto a verse or a few verses on any topic and ignoring everything else in the Bible. You’ll be giving a distorted message with that approach. And you’ll distort your impact on younger people if you only use those verses.
Beware also of taking a spiritual fire hose, aiming it at the people you want to impact for Christ, turning it on full blast and expecting that that alone will get the results you want.
I don’t know about you, but I have stood in front of a fire hose that was turned on to the max ; it wasn’t fun. Actually, it hurt. Nor is it helpful to stand in front of fire hose Christianity that assaults you with so many facts and figures and life lessons so fast you don’t have time to process them or apply them.
Fire hose Christianity seems to have the attitude “jam it in, cram it in, people’s heads are hollow. Jam it in, cram it in, there’s surely more to follow.” Who wants that?
Teaching is needed and priceless. And parents and grandparents and youth leaders and disciplers are all in the teaching business. Message received.
But before you plant your garden in the spring, before you ever thought of planting seed you worked the soil, softened it up, pulled out some rocks, broke up the large clumps, smoothed it out.
Then you planted the seed. All summer you picked weeds and continued to cultivate the soil around the sprouts for maximum growth…. which is exactly what teachers need to do on a spiritual level in the hearts of their students. We must do that…
…..which means we need
Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart,
And let your eyes observe my ways.
Top flight teaching, impacting people to the max for Christ is best done in a close relationship.
To the valuable four verses we started with we must add the prerequisite of
Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart,
And let your eyes observe my ways.
Why this verse gets so little attention is puzzling. Let’s look at it closely.
Does it read “give me your obedience”? To hear some parents talk you would think that is how this verse reads. My kids are GOING to obey.
Well, if your parents taught you to obey you learned something priceless. As you went through life you didn’t need a boss to breathe down your neck because you were so reliable that wasn’t necessary. You could be sent on assignment with confidence you’d get the job done.
Giving parents obedience is valuable. But there is something more important than that.
Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart,
And let your eyes observe my ways.
Does it say you are expected to attend church with parents every Sunday? Nothing wrong with that. But I can remember daydreaming my way through Sunday worship while my mom sat next to me jabbing me in the ribs and whispering that I needed to show respect to God. Two minutes later who was making out her grocery list?
Getting our kids to Sunday school, worship service, youth group, is valuable, but we all know some people with perfect attendance at those activities who today are far from God.
Look at the verse carefully.
Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart,
And let your eyes observe my ways.
The best parenting, best grand parenting, best discipleship is steering someone’s heart towards the truth. Not just feet.
“In the Bible the heart is key to everything, the inner life of a person including goals, character, affection, will” which is why Proverbs 4:23 should be obvious.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.
If the heart symbolizes the real you, be careful what you let into your heart. Be careful whom you give your heart to.
Think about it – God the Father wants our hearts! He wants more from us than a prayer asking Him into our lives. He wants more than a few minutes a day reading His book or one whole hour on Sunday morning. He wants all of us, especially the heart that holds the control room of our lives.
If you want to have maximum impact on your kids, your grandkids or people you are discipling you want access to their hearts because your goal is to steer the heart, the inner life of a person, towards God. Then, and only then, will you have maximum impact for Christ.
So how do you get access to a person’s heart?
Proverbs 23:26 ……..give me your heart……
Obviously this can’t be forced. If that is not obvious, it should be.
So the task of impacting your children to the max or grandchildren or people you are discipling has got to be focused on getting access to their hearts.
What we need to think about is how can you get access to a heart so you can steer it to Christ?
For starters: why should a kid give you his heart if you haven’t given him yours? “We must begin by giving to our children what we seek to get from them. Think about that; repeat it.”
Much of what we are looking at was inspired by the book “Masculine Mandate” by Richard Phillips.
During the Vietnam War his dad spent an entire year deployed there. “Recalling my personal letters from dad practically brings me to tears even now. He would begin simply by telling me about his life, not big issues, but neat stuff that he saw or did.
“Then He would talk about my life. Case in point: Dear Son,I heard you had a great baseball game and made a great catch. Your mother told me how exciting it was when you won. How I wish I could have been there, but I can see you making that catch in my mind.
“Do you see what my dad was doing? My dad was telling me that I was his boy and that his heart was fully engaged with me- even from ½ way around the world.
“My father’s letters discussed everything in my life: school, church, sports, home life.
“In the midst of a life and death war zone with all the weighty responsibilities of a senior Army office my father was truly absorbed in my life, and I knew it.
“So when he said to me – in effect – My son, give me your heart he had already given every bit of his heart to me. I was his boy. I couldn’t possibly do anything else but give my heart back to him.”
He continues: “At my father’s funeral I gave a eulogy explaining what a privilege and blessing it had been to be the son of this fine man. One of his many army friends came up to me and said, “I would give anything to have my son speak at my funeral the way you spoke about your dad today”.
“I didn’t have the heart to respond honestly because I knew him and I knew his son. His child would never speak about him the way I had spoken of dad because he had not given his heart to his son, and his son’s heart was bitterly estranged from him.”
Question: what do our kids most want from us?
Answer: our affection, our approval, our attention, our involvement, our time.
Are our kids getting from us what they want the most? Our affection? Our approval? Our attention? Our involvement? Our time?
Beware: if a kid doesn’t get that from parents, he’ll turn to something or someone who will give it to him. And who knows what that will be? That should prompt serious reflection.
You can’t make your kid/grandkid/ whomever you are discipling give you his heart on his own. The ball is in your court. It will take time and energy to live such an appealing life that your kids will want to give their hearts to you.
The first job description given to man was Genesis 2:15 where he was told to cultivate the soil of the ground. If you want your kid to give you his heart you must cultivate the soil of his heart just as you cultivate a garden you care for.
No one, no one should get more praise and attention from a parent than his kids. No one. Show them that they mean something to you.
That makes sense. But besides sincere praise how specifically can you cultivate your child’s heart, your grandchild’s heart, or the heart of someone you are discipling?
Let’s look at a simple formula one father came up with to cultivate a deep relationship with his kids: Read. Pray. Work. Play.
Read
Read the Bible with your kids or grandkids….or whomever.
I know one worship leader who every single Sunday will share between songs what his son and he read in the Bible together the prior week. If you were a fly on the wall what would you hear? Probably a conversation that meanders here and there discussing truth to be soaked up, but you’d also see a son soaking up the fact dad is making time for him.
Lots of us didn’t grow up in families that made time for family devotions, but that custom, that tradition must be revived for more reasons than one.
But you say you are not a Bible scholar? There is so much about the Bible you don’t understand, so many names you can’t pronounce. Join the club.
Psalm 19: 7-10 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; 8 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Navigate around what you don’t understand to what you do understand: the life changing, priceless, unique power of this Book that you want to unleash in your kids.
Focus on the path this Book puts you on and the practical help it gives you along with its incredible promises and possibilities of what a Bible built life can be for your life and your kids or grandkids or whomever.
We go to market to get building materials. Do we go as often to the Bible for the spiritual building materials it gives us for daily living?
Do we know our way around the Bible better than we know our way around our favorite store?
We cultivate the soil of our kids’ hearts by reading the Bible together.
We cultivate the soil of our kids’ hearts by praying together.
Pray
Question: Whom are you closest to?
Answer: If you are walking with the Lord your closest friend is probably your prayer partner. Over time you have learned that you can trust your prayer partner to keep secrets and to work hard at praying for you. The result has been a close bond between you and your prayer partner and a whole lot of answered prayers.
Can you guess where I am going with this? Imagine, parent or grandparent or youth worker, if you set out to make your child or grandchild your prayer partner. Imagine how much you would be teaching a child about prayer, but maybe even better – cultivating your child’s heart so you can point that heart to God.
James 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
Is it possible that the promise at the end of this verse can include bonding between parent and kids, adults and youth?
We cultivate the soil of our kids’ hearts by Bible reading.
We cultivate the soil of our kid’s hearts by praying together.
We cultivate the soil of our kid’s hearts by working together.
Work
Work? Working together helps to cultivate kids’ hearts?
Sure! Think back to the last time you worked hard with fellow believers to remodel their flat or fix their car or harvest their garden. Yes, you came home filthy dirty, maybe even drenched. But in that hard labor you laughed with people maybe you’d never laughed with before. You struggled together and saw God accomplish through a team what He could never do through just you.
As you struggled together to finish a task, walls between people were slowly torn down and now you feel closer to others. Definitely, hearts of young people can be cultivated by working together.
Read together! Pray together! Work together!
Finally, play together!
We cultivate the hearts of our children by playing with them.
Play.
All during my grade school years for “family vacation” my parents would drive the kids to the town where dozens of relatives lived. I had a wonderful time on my grandparents’ farm driving the tractor, playing hide and go seek in the corn fields, climbing the bales of hay, or going into town to swim in the river.
During that time I would bounce around from one uncle’s home to another having the most fun time of my childhood. It did not occur to me until a few years ago that during that annual “family vacation” I hardly saw my parents at all. Spending time with my cousins was so much fun I never noticed my parents’ absence. The golden memories of my childhood and my parents were not included by their own choice. A missed opportunity to cultivate my heart.
Contrast that with a father who tried to be sensitive to what his children wanted to do during vacation and create some great memories with them-cultivating young hearts through play.
Read! Pray! Work! Play!
This requires time, but “time is the currency with which I purchase the right to say my son, my daughter give me your heart.”
Proverbs 23:26
What rewards will come to you if you do cultivate young hearts so they give you their hearts? Well, did you look at what follows? It always helps to read a verse in context.
Proverbs 23:27,28 For a harlot is a deep pit,
And a seductress is a narrow well.
She also lies in wait as for a victim,
And increases the unfaithful among men.
A warning about sexual temptation but no surprise to those who have worked with teens over the years. Kids with strong relationships with their parents- kids who have given their hearts to their parents – more likely than not don’t see a need to give their hearts to immorality.
If they already have a secure heart to heart relationship with their parents, if they already have the best that love can offer them,
why would they go looking for a cheap substitute?
The child or grandchild or person who has been discipled, who has given his heart “is the one who trusts, admires and loves his parents or grandparents or discipler.” and is more likely to navigate well the pressures of toxic culture.
“A heart that is steered to the Lord means that person is going to have a passion for the glory of God. And if you have a passion for the glory of God you’ll have strength and with that comes offensive and defensive capabilities to live and live well.”
How to impact younger people for Christ? It must start with a close relationship, and that is what Proverbs 23:26 is all about.