Discipline Is Always a Battle Worth Fighting

The following are my notes for today's luncheon for moms and grandmothers of preschoolers:

Disciplining Our Children Is Always a Battle Worth Fighting

Discipline

Let me be the first to admit that I intensely dislike being on the receiving end of any discipline—it hurts something fierce and it stings my pride. As a child, I was able to avoid being disciplined very often because I understood how to avoid it—please the ones in authority over me. As an adult, I have become very adept at pleasing the people in authority over me, but I do so with a better understanding of the heart issues that I didn’t understand as a child. I am a sinner saved by grace, and as such, I need grace extended to me because I am trapped in this body of flesh, and I sin often. As an adult, the difference is knowledge of the One who disciplines me and His motive. Hebrews 12 speaks of the issue of discipline from both the standpoint of the parent who disciplines a child and the One who disciplines us:

God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Once we have a true understanding of what discipline is (love with a purpose) it becomes much easier for us to discipline our children; however, we truly need to understand who our children are: They are small, wonderful little bundles of sin from the moment of their conception. Yes, they are cuddly, cute, and precious to our hearts, but they are also born with a sin nature as a result of the fall of man. Sin is not pretty—it is evil and it destroys—yet we are often content to share residence with sin running rampant in our homes because we do not discipline (love with a purpose) our children. An unknown marine wrote the following about the battle with sin:

“Two natures beat within my breast.

The one is foul, the other is blessed.

The one I love; the other I hate.

The one I feed will dominate.”

What we as parents encourage (or don’t discourage through discipline) will dominate our children. Do we really want to raise spoiled little monsters that make adults cringe when they see them coming? Do we really want to raise obstinate children full of bitterness because life won’t hand them everything they want? We are often amazed when issues arise seemingly out of nowhere, but we forget that what’s on the inside spills out. In her book, If, Amy Carmichael says, “A cup brimful of sweetness cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, no matter how suddenly jarred.” Amy Carmichael understood, as we must, that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child” and the only thing that will remove it is discipline (Prov. 22:15) that stems from love with a purpose. None of us wants to raise fools—we want our children to persevere, to be wise, strong, independent, holy, successful—all good things, but if we are not disciplining them, we might as well be waving a powerless wand above their heads for the lack of effort we put into it. That is definitely NOT a picture of love!

            God’s Word makes it clear that discipline is love, but no one ever said it was easy or without cost. Parenting (or grandparenting) alone or parenting when you are not on the same page with your spouse is difficult. Understand that you will have a hard time if you are alone in your attempts to discipline, but that doesn’t mean you just quit or let your children run wild, and it also doesn’t mean that you have to manipulate your husband or help God accomplish His work (think of Rebekah). Also, a married woman without a man willing to listen to God or lead His way always has two avenues of appeal: the first being God, and the second being her husband. If neither avenue seems to open, don’t despair!  Edward Everette Hale wrote,

 “I am only one,

   But still I am one.

   I cannot do everything;

   But still I can do something;

   And because I cannot do everything,

   I will not refuse to do the something

   That I can do.”

Do everything you can do! Love your child with the purpose of helping him or her learn to ultimately accept God’s authority.  None of us hates our children, but we often live like we do when we fail to discipline them consistently.  If you are not married, trust God and let His Word help you discipline your child. If you have a husband who makes the effort to discipline, don’t undermine him in his efforts, even though the temptation is strong to play “good parent/bad parent.” That will build a wall of resentment in your marriage that even the youngest children will pick up on and use to their advantage. Also, they will see God as weak and ineffective because we (the adults) have not recognized and submitted to God’s authority in governing our lives. When we as parents are not willing to discipline our children (children who come with foolishness bound up in their hearts), we are subjecting them to a life of ruin and war against God. Proverbs 19:3 offers this warning: “The foolishness of man ruins his way, and his heart rages against the Lord.” We have the challenge of disciplining our children instead of pampering them and enabling their decline into a life of foolish willfulness.  Discipline is not easy or optional, but it is a battle that is always worth fighting! And to do that, we have to take it to the Lord. Psalm 127:1a supports this idea: “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builder’s labor in vain.” So…let’s see what God says about discipline.

What God Says about Discipline and Training in His Word

1. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of discipline will remove it far from him. (Prov. 22:15)

2.   Apply your heart to discipline and your ears to words of knowledge. (Prov. 23:12)

3.   He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently. (Prov. 13:24)

4. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. (Prov. 14:12 and 16:25)

5.  There is severe discipline for him who forsakes God’s way; and he who hates reproof will die [physically, morally, and spiritually]. (Prov. 15:10)

6. Discipline your son while there is hope, and do not desire his death. (Prov. 19:18)

7. A man of great anger will bear the penalty, for if you rescue him, you will only have to do it again. Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days. (Prov. 19:19-20)

8. Correct your son, and he will give you comfort; he will also delight your soul. (Prov. 29:18)

9. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. (Prov. 29:15)

10. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. (Prov. 12:1)

11. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Prov. 22:6)—the alternate idea is that when we train a child according to his “bent” or own will, he won’t depart from that when he is old either!

There are many other verses throughout the Bible that relate to discipline, but as our time is limited, these present some basic but vital concepts.

So If Discipline Is Love, What Does Loving My Child Look Like?

The world views love as permissive and generous. God’s love is generous—He gave us the ultimate gift, His only Son, for our salvation—but God’s love is far from permissive. To love (discipline) our children, we must first know God because He is love.

1. Loving My Child Must Involve Studying and Praying the Scriptures—God’s Holy Word Raising children in a fallen world requires spiritual warfare. Unfortunately, many of us stumble through much of it because we don’t even recognize that we are at war, much less engage in the battle. By not praying, we are essentially giving our children to the world. God alone can change the heart of a child, but He gives every child parents to help the process through discipline and prayer. Unfortunately, we sometimes have a mistaken idea of how and when we should pray. Instead of keeping the communication lines with God open and active, we pray on the tail end of our parenting mistakes, after we have experienced the overwhelming conviction that we have nowhere else to turn. By that time, our children see us as the weak and ineffective parents we are, and even worse, many children’s image of the nature of God has been warped by our ineffectiveness as parents—the ones who represent His authority. The ultimate irony of this is that we blame God when He doesn’t answer our prayers for help.

1. We must begin with our own relationships with God: Phi. 4:6-7says, “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus.” (List below adapted from The Parent Warrior)

                                               i.     Is there sin I need to confess? (Ps. 66:18)

                                             ii.     Is my conscience clear and motivation pure in asking this? (I Jn. 3:21, Ja. 4:3)

                                            iii.     Am I listening for God’s correction in my life? (Prov. 28:9)

                                            iv.     Am I abiding in Christ? (Jn. 15:7)

                                             v.     Do I love the ones around me? (Jn. 15:12)

                                            vi.     Am I fellowshipping with God through His Spirit? (Rom. 8:26-27)

                                          vii.     Am I praying for His will to be accomplished? (Rom. 8:26-28)

                                         viii.     Have I submitted my will to Him? (Rom. 8:26-28)

                                            ix.     Am I praying with faith? (Heb. 11:6)

                                              x.     Am I offering mercy to others, as God has offered it to me? (Mark 11:25-26)

                                            xi.     Am I seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness? (Matt. 6:33)

                                           xii.     Do I trust Him to care for me? (Matt. 6:34)

                                         xiii.     Is there peace in my marriage? (i.e., Am I submitting? I Pet. 3:1; Is he living with me in an understanding way? (I Pet. 3:7)

                                         xiv.     Am I reacting to my child (yelling, etc.), or am I watching over the ways of my house diligently and speaking with kindness? (Prov. 31)

2. We must pray for our children (adapted from Donna Otto’s book The Stay-at-Home Mom)                                                                                                                                     i.     Pray that our children will fear the Lord and serve Him. (Deut. 6:13)

                                             ii.     Pray that our children will know Christ as their savior early in life. (Ps. 63:1)

                                            iii.     Pray that our children will be caught when guilty. (Ps. 119:71)

                                            iv.     Pray that our children will desire the right kind of friends and be protected from the wrong kind. (Prov. 1:10, 15; Ps. 1:1-2)

                                             v.     Pray that our children will be kept from the wrong mate and saved for the right one, remaining pure until marriage. (II Cor. 6:14-20)

                                            vi.     Pray that our children will be teachable and able to take correction. (Prov. 13:1)

                                          vii.     Pray that our children will learn to submit totally to God and actively resist Satan in all circumstances. (Jam. 4:7)

                                         viii.     Pray that God will hedge our children in so they cannot find their way to wrong people or wrong places, and that wrong people cannot find their way to our children. (Hosea 2:6-7)

                                            ix.     Pray that our children will honor their parents so all will go well with them. (Ex. 20:12, Deut. 5:16, Col. 3:20)

                                              x.     Pray that our children will grow strong in body and spirit. (Psalm. 144:12)

2. We must understand that “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity” (Matthew Henry Commentary—Jn. 2). Some of the following verses and quotes show an understanding of this concept we find so hard to accept:
1. “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.” (Psalm 119:71)
2.  “Those things that hurt, instruct.” - Ben Franklin
3.  “Pain plants the flag of reality in the fortress of a rebel heart.” - Chuck Swindoll
4.  “C.S. Lewis [author of Narnia Chronicles] said that God whispers to us in our joy, speaks    to us in our conscience, and shouts to us in our pain.” –Tim Hansel

3. We must know that God is the only hope for our children—not our success at raising them, not our money in providing for them, not the school nor the church they attend—“Christ alone the hope of glory.”
4. We must know that God will give us the strength to raise the children He gave us if we seek Him. In Phil. 4:13 Paul states, “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”  Think of I Cor. 13:4-7 this way: I can be patient, loving, kind, rejoicing in truth, protective, trusting, hoping, persevering, not envious, proud or self-seeking, not easily angered, not keeping any record of wrongs, nor delighting in evil.

5. We must understand and believe that love never fails. I Cor. 13:8 says that love never fails. It is eternal. It beats any other gift we could bestow on our children. It is what He gave us in the gift of His. God disciplined Himself to live among us, and he says that discipline is love
6. If we are wise, we will build up our homes, not tear them down. - Prov. 14:1
7. We must understand that mothers set the temperature for the home. Proverbs 10:1 brings this home: “A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother.”

Where do I begin if I am overwhelmed?

            There is no easy formula to fix everything that is wrong with our lives, but there is a God who has offered forgiveness of our sins and His perfect peace that enables us through Him to deal with everything that life throws at us. Understanding that God is a God of order is a good place to begin. Understand who He is first, and make sure of your relationship with Him. Then, let the Word guide you as you wade through the mess—yes, we create mess when we try to do things without Him! Often children become the center of the home—everything revolves around them, their schedules, their activities, and their desires. The end result of this is an ego-centric child who is often angry or petulant in and out of the home when others don’t give in to his/her will. While the world sees discipline as a negative thing, we cannot if we truly love our children. God equates discipline as love. Discipline is essential for the well-being of our families, our homes, and even our country—think about the description of the end times, and you will see a social collapse that begins within the family unit (OT, Is. 3:12-26; NT, II Tim. 3:1-7). Sometimes when our children need discipline, instead of loving them, we try to avoid confrontation by reasoning with them. Think of the absurdity of this! God’s Word says that foolishness/folly is bound up in the heart of a child—yet we want to try to reason them out of misbehaving. This inverted order of the child being in control and the parent submitting to the child only leads to chaos, and chaos is frustrating, confusing, overwhelming, and exhausting!

Are you overwhelmed and exhausted in trying to discipline your children? If so, God’s word urges His people to “be strong and courageous…” (Deut. 31:6-8). Courage is often mistakenly thought of as having no fear when facing something scary, but Webster’s 1828 Dictionary offers this insight: courage comes from the French word for heart, coeur, and “is the quality that enables one to face difficulty and danger with firmness, without fear or depression.”  The sad truth is that we create much of the mess that so overwhelms and scares us and then we refuse to deal with it because it is just too big for us.

Getting our priorities straight is a first step out of the chaos that we’ve created. Emily Barnes, in her book A God of Order shares this creed her family uses: “People before things; people before projects; family before friends; husband before children; husband before parents; tithe before wants; Bible before opinions; Jesus before all.”  Solomon, who received wisdom as a gift from God in abundance, offers this encouragement to parents in Proverbs 23:16: “My son, if your heart is wise, my own heart also will be glad; and my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right.” Translated: Joy comes after the discipline is instilled because of the fruits that grow from it. As mothers and grandmothers, we can help to build and establish homes filled with joy, but we have to be wise and love our children with the purpose of holiness rather than happiness. It’s definitely a battle worth fighting!