Experiencing God at Home (25 page)

Adjustments Families Must Make

When it comes to our family, there are two primary forms of adjustment that must be made if God is to involve our family in His work. First are the adjustments our children will need to make. The second are the adjustments
we
must make as parents if we are to join God in His activity in our home.

1. Our Children Must Learn to Make Adjustments to Go with God

The world in which our children are growing up is continually teaching them to be self-centered. The media celebrities hungrily followed by tabloids take self-indulgence to record levels. The marketplace is saturated with cars, medications, clothes, holidays, homes, electronics, and much more—are all designed to make our lives more
comfortable
.
It goes completely against our natural instincts to let go of our pampered lives so we can join God in His activity. That is why our role as parents is crucial. We must teach our children what truly matters in life and what does not. We don’t want to raise children who greedily grasp temporal pleasures that are fleeting while missing out on God’s will. Learning to embrace God’s will is best learned in our home where we grow up. Of course not everyone experiences a Christian upbringing. However, as you raise your children, be continually watching for ways to help them make whatever adjustment is necessary to fully participate in God’s activity around them.

There are innumerable ways to help your family adjust to God’s activity. A simple effort to teach your preschooler to share his toys with a friend from a poor family can set your child on the path to walking with Jesus. We grew up in a home where visiting speakers to our church regularly shared a meal at our dinner table. While that might mean we had to carve our lone pie for dessert into a few more slices, it also meant that as children we got to meet some amazing men and women of God! Some families regularly host international exchange students in their home for several months at a time. This calls for the children to adjust to a long-term houseguest who may speak poor English, but it also introduces them to people from around the world. We know of one kindhearted family who invited an international college student to their home for Thanksgiving. The student was from a different religion. Before she could share a meal with her North American hosts, she had to go out into the garden and ceremonially sprinkle dust over her plate and utensils to purify them! To say this family was not stuck in “traditional” Thanksgivings every year is an understatement!

Many families today are adopting children from poor countries or children with disabilities. This, of course, involves enormous adjustments for the entire family. The children must sacrifice time with their parents for their adopted sibling. They may have to share a room or toys with their new family member. Yet the impact on birth children after embracing an AIDS orphan from Uganda or a disabled child from China as a new brother or sister can be enormous. Other families regularly go on mission trips together. Whether it is helping serve food at an addiction recovery center downtown or ministering to orphans in Africa, investing the family’s resources in missions is life changing. Both of us have gone to great lengths to send our children on international trips. There is always a cost involved as well as much investment of time and energy putting the trips together; yet the impact on our children has been priceless.

Adjusting in the Philippines (An Example from Richard)

I was once scheduled to speak in the Philippines where, among other things, I would be meeting with President Gloria Arroyo at her presidential palace. At the time, my son Daniel was a university student who was struggling with a sense of purpose and divine calling for his life. Daniel had traveled the world the year after high school, but this was almost two years later. Bogged down in assignments, exams, and books to read, it seemed like he could use a “booster” to keep his life in perspective and to receive a fresh word from God.

I intentionally scheduled the trip over Daniel’s spring break from university so he would not have to miss too much school. Still, the trip was for two weeks, which meant he’d have to miss one week of classes. I had Daniel approach all five of his professors to ask permission to miss, telling them he had a wonderful opportunity to speak to large crowds gathered in coliseums and to meet a world leader in her presidential palace. Four of the professors were excited for him and said he could make up any exam or assignment he missed upon his return. The fifth professor informed him he’d be missing a midterm, and if he was absent, he’d fail the class. Now Daniel has never been squeamish about skipping classes, but he did not want to lose credit for an entire semester because of one missed exam. Ultimately, however, we sensed that this was a divine invitation from God and that Daniel needed to make whatever adjustment was necessary in order to go. He dropped that class and went to the Philippines. (Daniel has also never been squeamish about dropping classes!)

Daniel had a life-changing experience. He met amazing people who were investing their lives to reach that great nation for Christ. It was his first experience of having a personal bodyguard! He spoke in large meetings. He addressed youth groups across Manila. He was enticed to eat the Philippine’s infamous delicacy, balut (I don’t recommend it). He shook hands with a national president. He spent quality time with his dad and grandfather. And, during our trip home, I spoke in a large church in South Korea where Daniel witnessed the powerful moving of God.

Making the adjustment necessary to go on the trip required a sacrifice for Daniel. He had to make up a lot of reading and classwork upon his return. He also had to pick up an additional class over the next two years if he was to graduate on time (he did). Of course, not every parent has the luxury (or air miles) to take a child to Asia. But the fundamental truth applies to every family: Are you prepared to make whatever adjustment God asks of you in order to go with Him?

2. Adjusting Our Life As Parents

One truth that ought to give parents pause is that children who grow up in selfish homes tend to become selfish themselves. If we are reluctant to make adjustments in our walk with God, then our children will be disinclined to do so also. However, if we continually make whatever adjustment is necessary to be a part of God’s activity around us, then our children may be inspired to do so as well.

To be an outstanding parent, making adjustments is a prerequisite! That’s partly because when we begin having children, we do not have all the wisdom or experience that is necessary. We have to learn on the job. And, if we are open to His leading, God will guide us to make whatever adjustments are required. The following are four areas of your life where you may need to make major adjustments if you are to join God in His activity in your home.

Devotional Life

If you want to be involved in what God is doing in your family, you may well need to take your walk with Him to a deeper level. We once had a friend named Lou who was inspired by the fact that our father, Henry, rose at 4:00 a.m. each morning to spend time with God. He decided that he would follow the same schedule. When his face kept wearily falling into his plate of food at dinnertime, his wife urged him to forego his early morning routine. The husband complained, “You can’t have a Henry Blackaby for a husband who doesn’t keep a Henry Blackaby schedule.” (He eventually adjusted the starting time for his devotions to a time he could manage.)

When God places children in your home, it is an awesome responsibility. Jesus clearly understood this truth. Though Jesus was not a parent, His Father did entrust Him with twelve disciples. As a result, Jesus prayed, “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth” (John 17:19). Having been given the responsibility for twelve people, Jesus knew He could not be careless with His own walk with His heavenly Father. We, too, must recognize that we cannot take people to places spiritually where we have not gone ourselves. If we want to see our children go deep in their walk with God, then we must go there first.

This certainly is true of our devotional life. While having children at home can certainly be demanding, it is not the time to be careless with our prayer life. In fact, God may ask you to deepen your time spent in prayer while your kids are in school or when they become teenagers and face increased temptations and pressures. Tom and I well know the value of parents willing to make adjustments in prayer for their children! When we were in university, we both attended a weekend conference in a city seven hours away. On our return home, we were driving sixty miles per hour on an undivided, two-lane highway when our car struck a patch of black ice. The vehicle was spinning in circles down the middle of the highway. An eighteen-wheeler was heading straight for us from the opposite direction. At the last moment, our car tires caught dry pavement, and we were hurtled backwards into a snow-filled ditch.

When we finally pulled into the driveway of our home, our mother came running out to our car. “What happened?” she asked. Apparently that afternoon, while our dad was enjoying his Sunday afternoon nap, our mother was puttering in the kitchen when she was suddenly struck with grave concern for her three sons who were returning home on the highway. So burdened did she become that she woke our father from his slumber and knelt down by the bed with him and prayed for our safety. Upon our return, she asked what time our car had spun out of control. It was at 2:30 that afternoon, the exact time our parents were on their knees interceding for us. We have been thankful ever since that our parents were prepared to make adjustments in their prayer life when God summoned them to.

Could we offer one other challenge to you in this regard? If you are going to raise your children to know, love, and obey God’s Word, then you must know it yourself. One of the games we played as a family when driving in the car on long trips was the “stump Dad on the Bible game.” We would turn to an obscure passage in the Bible and read a verse or two and then see if our dad could tell us where the verse was to be found. He might not always know the
exact
reference in Leviticus where God gave instructions on making freewill offerings, but he could routinely identify the chapter of the Bible where it was located. We were always impressed. Yet there are parents who can tell their kids the batting average against left-handed pitchers that the winning third baseman had during the 1973 World Series, but they cannot give their children a verse that explains why they should remain a virgin until they are married. If we truly want godly children, we will pay the price to know God’s Word ourselves and to share it regularly with our children.

Schedule

A second area of adjustment God may ask us to make will be in our schedule. To say that having children is time-consuming is a huge understatement! Yet we know parents who insisted that having children was not going to cause them to dramatically alter their schedules! These parents continued to indulge in their golfing, hunting, and other recreational activities just as before. They spend weekends glued to the television or catching up on their work from the office. These adults fail to understand that when they became parents, they assumed the commitment to make whatever adjustments were necessary to be involved with God’s activity in their children’s lives.

Our uncle Will always understood that his schedule as a parent belonged to God. For many years, he and his wife, Margaret, were youth sponsors at their church. The teenagers of the church loved them and expected to see them at all of their activities. We have volunteered to coach our kid’s sports teams. We often weren’t the most experienced or skilled coaches, but we wanted to be a part of whatever God was doing in our children’s lives. We found that participating in team sports provided a marvelous opportunity for our children to learn about teamwork and how to get along with other kids. Tom’s son Matt excelled in basketball. Tom often volunteered to coach Matt’s team and spent countless hours shooting hoops with him and talking about how to be a team player.

For several years Richard coached both of his sons on the same in-line hockey team. Richard’s job as a seminary president required extensive travel, and so every year he would try and step down as his sons’ coach. Each year the league director would call Richard and inform him that no other parent had volunteered, so Richard would take the helm of the team for another season. One Saturday, Richard had a game to coach, but the contest backed right up to his seminary’s annual graduation ceremony. That Saturday, Richard arrived at the arena in a suit and tie. Everyone thought he was taking his coaching responsibilities a little too seriously! Even as the team was returning to the locker room after the game, Richard was frantically racing to the church where the commencement ceremony was being held. The Registrar had Richard’s doctoral robe at the ready. He flung it on and seconds later was leading the procession of faculty members down the aisle to begin the ceremony!

As we’ve already shared, parents must be prepared to adjust their schedules at a moment’s notice. One day you might sense one of your children needs your attention, so you schedule to have lunch with her. Or you take you son with you on a business trip. Or you adjust your schedule to attend a child’s band concert. Allow God to show you what adjustments you might need to make in your schedule so you don’t miss what God is doing in your home. One day Richard’s teenage son Mike mentioned he didn’t have to go to school that day. Seizing the opportunity, Richard suggested he take his son out for lunch. “Uh-oh,” Mike moaned, “where are we going for lunch?” “It doesn’t matter,” replied Richard. “Wherever you want.” Mike then confessed that his father had developed a pattern. Whenever he wanted a private place to talk to his son about awkward issues, such as the dangers of pornography, he would take Mike to a large Chinese buffet. When talking about drugs and peer pressure, Richard tended to take his son to Dairy Queen. Mike wanted to know which restaurant they were going to so he could prepare himself for the kind of talk they were going to have!