They're Called "Disciplines" for a Reason

When receiving our blueprints, many parents are overwhelmed.  To be fair, our blueprints do come off as a syllabus you would get on the first day of your college class.  However, our consistent focus on 6 disciplines of faith throughout the life of your growing children has caused reactions from parents that have ranged from:  "This is great!  I now have a place to begin with my child!" to "This is impossible!  How could you ever expect parents to accomplish all that you have written in these pages unless they did nothing else but what you have written down?!" and everywhere in between. 

Now I believe that every parent that takes seriously the calling to disciple their children in the Lord  agrees that the disciplines of faith that we focus on (Bible Reading, Prayer, Fellowship, Outreach/Service, Discipleship & Giving) are important for their child's faith.   

Yet, even the joyous ones, over time, often fall behind with their children's discipleship, if not kept accountable.  

Have you ever wondered why that is?  

Despite our intention to raise our children in the Lord, we often find ourselves neglecting that which is most important for lesser things.  Our child comes home from school one day and espouses an attitude or asks a question that exposes their lack of biblical understanding in a subject we are sure they should have already known.  The guilt comes in and we recommit to double down on their biblical teaching...only to have the same thing happen a couple of months later.

Why is consistently teaching our children about the Lord so hard?!

Well, part of the answer is found in the very thing that we are trying to build within our children:  Discipline.

While it would be nice to see that our hearts and the hearts of our children, at the moment they receive Christ, would naturally gravitate toward the things of God and not the things of this world, it doesn't quite work out that way.  A child that has accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, just like the rest of us, still struggles with sin in a way that as parents we are all too aware of.  It's why we have to tell our children 1000 times to clean their room or do their homework or to stop hitting their sibling or a number of other things that parents face on a daily and hourly basis.

In our best moments, when confronting those struggles, we will remember to come back to God's Word concerning the situations that they are struggling with:  "God wants you to obey your parents" (Eph. 6:1-3), or "We need to do our best not just in the classroom but even at home with our homework because that brings honor to God" (Col 3:17, 22-24) or "God doesn't desire us to sin in our anger, but rather to be kind to each other" (Eph. 4:26; 31-32).

Yet, we find ourselves doing the same thing as our children, but in different ways.  A hard day at work or home makes it easy for us to drop the training of our children in Bible Reading for a little peace and quiet.  An introverted demeanor puts Outreach on the list that we outsource to the church because we aren't comfortable with it.  It is easier to drop our disciplines for a trip to the zoo or amusement park and the memories that we will make with our children because "our time with them is important".

Don't worry, I've struggled with and given into the same things.  And there is a time for forgoing a discipline for the freedom we have in Christ.  However, too often that freedom turns into a lackadaisical pattern toward discipling our children.

The reasons are simple:

1)  Discipline is hard!  

The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:  

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Hebrews 12:11a (emphasis mine) 

It almost seems sinful to think of Bible Reading as painful, but it is.  Think about all the days you have struggled to get into the Word of God and even read one Bible verse or one chapter of Scripture.  If you have to fight yourself to read the Word of God, I totally understand the struggle of gathering your children and trying to teach them the importance of reading the Bible or getting them to read it themselves.  The whines of your children echo your own cries on the inside because you want the reading of God's Word to be a joy and not a fight.  Yet, glazed over eyes and pitiful statements like, "Do we have to do this today?" tempt both them and you to give up on it this day for a better attitude in doing it tomorrow (which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't).

The same could be said of all the disciplines.  Bible Reading, Prayer, Fellowship, Outreach/Service, Discipleship & Giving are a struggle more often than we would like to admit.  They are painful at times to do.  And certain disciplines have always been harder than others for us.  The same will be true of your children.  Don't expect the whines to go away anytime soon because discipline is painful.

2)  Discipline is unnatural!

Our natural state is rebellion.  Even as believers in Christ, there is a war between the flesh and the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-26), between old life and new life (1 Peter 4:1-5), between old creation and new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).  What is natural is what we have known in the past.  It is what we gravitate to in times of trial, struggle or boredom.  

However, to choose the Spirit, the new life and the new creation we are made to be in Christ requires discipline resting upon the grace of God given to us in Jesus.  But make no mistake, it won't come naturally for us, nor will it for our children.  Therefore, we must acknowledge the struggle of our sinful nature and model the discipline needed for our Christian walk so that the fruits of the Spirit may be more evident in our lives, and subsequently the lives of our children.

Paul compares it to runners in a race in 1 Corinthians:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?  Run in such a way as to get the prize.  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.  No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.  --1 Cor. 9:24-27  (emphasis mine) 

"Strict training" and "beating one's body to make it our slave" doesn't sound natural because it isn't.  But it is necessary in our growing relationship with Christ and it will be necessary for your children's walk with Jesus, as well.

However, this final reason should help us overcome the struggles that discipline brings.

3)  Discipline produces life, peace & righteousness!

No one wants to do hard and unnatural things just for their own sake.  Walking through the disciplines of faith will require a sacrifice of life.  However, there is a promise that comes with sticking with these disciplines.

We do the strict training and the battering of our body and the dying to ourselves so that we may gain "a crown that will last forever".  This is the ultimate goal of practicing and prioritizing the disciplines of the faith for ourselves and for our children.

The second half of that verse in Hebrews puts it this way:

Later on, however, it (discipline) produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. --Hebrews 12:11b (emphasis mine)

Parents, notice how this sentence starts..."Later on".  It isn't immediate.  It doesn't come easy.  It isn't even natural.  But if we don't give up on our training, it will produce what we have always desired for our children:  life, peace & righteousness.

Parents, keep your eyes on the goal and it will help you during those many times it seems too hard and too unnatural to complete.  You'll be glad you did.

If you'd like a copy of our blueprints, check us out at www.thenextgenerationministries.com .  You can do this parents!  We can help!