If the lines to the worship song “We are hungry, we are hungry, we are hungry for more of you” were sung at my house before lunchtime, I’m sure that YHWH would not be pleased with our longing spirits. Although the words would probably be true if we were personifying food in that hungry chorus.
All figurative puns, lying aside—I mean laid aside—I touched on lying last week. All puns aside, words have power to heal and power to hurt, and often the differentiating factor is the spirit in which they are delivered.
As many are doing these days, we are homeschooling our son. Homeschooling is both rewarding and frustrating. Like many, if not most students, our son’s a whiz kid when he wants to be. But rather than whizzing, he’d often rather be in the yard helping dad with power gadgets. He’ll work up a hard sweat helping with the lawn, cutting wood, or washing cars and come in with his hair dripping and matted to his forehead full of enthusiasm. The discouraging twist here is that his enthusiasm, when faced once more with schoolwork, deflates to the point of being abraded by one or both of his parents and many times to the point of triggering discipline. This sadly is a regular occurrence in the safe place we call our home. At times, I want to give up with the discipline. At times, I think I have scolded him more than could possibly be helpful. Yet, I often discover afterwards that my focus, the impetus of my words, was too myopic. The sun sets, and I find myself yearning to excuse my helicopter behavior, so I walk down the hall to his bedroom and stand at his bedroom door. At this threshold, I usually start with my intended apology. Then words of logic usually come rushing to my defense which, again in hindsight, I'm sure punches down the believability of my attempted reparation. He listens well to both my sunken confessions and my righteous vindications, but more so I find him wading through my words, looking, searching, and waiting for my commendation to arrive. He depends on my faith, my belief that he can and will succeed in life. And I see how he’s crushed when I highlight his failures.
I rationalize my coarseness away, comforting myself when I’m appalled at my strict schooling, schooling that at least initially intended to spur my son on toward honest goodness. Thankfully thus far, he has forgiven me each time that I discover a new parenting flaw, but to my point, there’s a story I've uncovered, one that he actually read to me a few nights ago from Mark. The story is classic and is one that characterizes Yeshua’s care and concern for mankind. It’s a short and sweet read (Mark 10:13-16).
The moral is clear: children get in the way like an iceberg that’s in the path of a confident ship. Unaware, children accidentally slit open the backseat of the new truck with a new pocketknife and are quick to brainstorm that it must have been their friend’s fault. They tap their fingers obnoxiously nearby when complete focus on an IRS audit letter is required. And they repeatedly disobey mom while claiming ignorance of the chore that is written in black ink on the whiteboard of their schoolroom. But despite their irritations, Mark 10 shows that children still need to be invited along on the family journey. They are starving for that. While much displeased by our pushing kids away, Yeshua softly reminds us that the little ones rightly fit inside of their parent’s comforting, metaphorical shadow and are blessed when they see how their parents, on their behalf, face and protect them from the brutality of the afternoon sun. Children need to hear an abundance of blessings spoken over them, and get this:
Children can only hear a blessing if the blessing is spoken aloud and if they’re within earshot to hear it.
Obvious, right? But obviously overlooked too. I'm sure a psychologist somewhere would agree that speaking aloud and within earshot are two critical elements of turning the parenting ship away from embittering a child (Colossians 3:21) and instead toward empowering them (Colossians 3:16).
James 3 is also a convicting read if read under the lens of parenting advice. Even under the fierce winds of hunger and disobedience, a word of blessing, a compliment, or a recollection of success turns the cruelest single-masted cog around. I've seen it directly. So, bless your children, and do not curse them. Speaking of anathema, I laughed when I looked up in Strong's Concordance the Greek meaning of the words "envy" and "strife". It quaintly reflects my attitude toward my son pre-mealtime and also mid-school drag-the-feet hour. Let me paraphrase: Where [math instructor] zeal and [me-time] contention exist, there’s a disheveled nesting ground for all kinds of [parenting] evil.
In response to this realization, James encourages a medicinal dose of "wisdom that is...first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy" (James 3:17). Call it a Biblical multi-vitamin for parents, and especially for dads. It’s in this healthier body of water that the boat turns away from the iceberg. It turns by the tongue, and this is ever reproving for me to hear. Blessings are by far more mediating than curses, and if our angry lunchroom was a laboratory, I sure have plenty of test results to prove this tonic effective.
Keep blessing the little ones (they won’t be little long),
JH
Photo by Maximilian Weisbecker on Unsplash
Photo by Steve Shreve on Unsplash
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