Shepherding a Child's Heart

Counting the Blessings of Paying the Cost
In business, it is customary to run a cost vs. benefit analysis. The
purpose of an analysis is to ascertain if the benefits (in our case—
blessings) are great enough to justify the cost. Let us now consider
some of the real blessings for which we incur these costs.
Parent-Child Relationship
Full-orbed, rich, multi-faceted communication is the cement that
holds a parent and a child together. Communication will provide the
context for a growing unity with your children. Children know when
they have a relationship with people who are wise and discerning,
who know and understand them, who love and are committed to them.
They will know if you know the ways of God, understand life and
people in the world, and are prepared to carry on a relationship of
integrity and security. There will be times of disagreement or
conflict, but disagreement can be resolved in a relationship of open
communication.
Pressures of the teen years pull children away from home. This is
the time when they develop camaraderie with those who “understand
them.” They are looking for relationships in which someone knows,
understands, and loves them. Your children should not have to leave
home for that. You can provide family relationships in which your
children are understood and embraced.
The attraction the “wrong crowd” holds is not a license for being
bad. The attraction of the “wrong crowd” is camaraderie. Children
long to be known, understood, discipled and loved.
I think of biblical childrearing in the following terms:

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I am using the term authority a little differently here. Authority
here denotes what may be accomplished with your child because you
are stronger, faster, larger, and so forth. What parents with newborn
children may accomplish simply because they are in charge—because
they are the authorities—is at an all-time high. They call all the shots.
Baby may cry in protest, but Mom and Dad have the initiative. Even
the young toddler is somewhat intimidated by size. Parents may
buttress commands—“I told you to sit down!”—by physically placing
him in the chair. The parents’ word is law because they have the
physical capacity to enforce it.
As a child grows, the ability to control him that way diminishes.
The more Junior grows and develops physically and mentally, what
you may accomplish through raw authority diminishes.
Imagine the following scenario. I go into the room of my 16-year-
old son to wake him for school and he says, “I ain’t goin’.” What am I
to do? While I have a small weight advantage, he is stronger than I
am. Even if I could wrestle him out of bed, dress him in spite of his
protests, and get him on the school bus (all highly doubtful), what
have I accomplished? He can get off the bus at the next stop. If he
stays on, I have no guarantee he will remain in school.
I am thankful that my son has never done this, but my point is
this: I can no longer secure obedience through superior size. My
ability to require obedience because I am stronger has been eroding
since the day he was born.
While I am limited in what I can accomplish through the raw use

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of authority, thankfully, my son is willingly under my influence.
In this chart, influence represents the willingness of a child to
place himself under authority because of trust. This trust has several
elements. Children trust you when they know you love them and are
committed to their good, when they know you understand them, when
they know you understand their strengths and weaknesses, when they
know that you have invested yourself in encouragement, correction,
rebuke, entreaty, instruction, warning, understanding, teaching, and
prayer. When a child knows that all his life you have sought to see the
world through his eyes, he will trust you. When he knows that you
have not tried to make him like you or like anybody else, but only
sought to help him realize his full potential as a creature God made to
know him and live in the relationship of fellowship with him, he will
trust you.
The result is obvious: Your words will have weight. What child
would walk away from such a relationship? You have influence with
him. Each day you live with your children, your influence grows. As
children learn about life, they learn to trust their father and mother
more. Mother gives warnings about relationships and insightful
suggestions about how to be God’s person in a world that requires
conformity. They try it and it works because it is based on biblical
wisdom. Each day children live, they grow in their understanding of
the nurturing care and love of their parents.
Imagine that I was the most trusted adviser of the president of the
United States. Imagine that he never made a decision and never did
anything other than what I suggested. How much authority would I
have in the government? None. I have no elected office. No one is
required to listen to me. How much influence would I have? A great
deal, perhaps more than anyone else.
As you engage your children in the rich, full communication
described above, you not only nurture them, but develop a
relationship of unity and trust.

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