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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

Mom and Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord that the ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews, or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch, or join the Be Courageous app community, enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 Million Legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

History.org join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey. Welcome everyone. Hi, guys. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

We’re talking about don’t let your wounds become their wounds.

Obviously. Why would we kids.

Why would we be talking about that right now?

Well, you know, I think that a lot of people are visiting family during the holiday time. And sometimes being around certain family members can trigger old habits, old ways of being and other people at times. Right. And so, you know, one of the things that we’re going to be talking about as far as biblical parenting goes today is this constant challenge. And wrestling with the old self versus the new self and walking in the righteousness of Christ, and that you’re a new creation in him, and that regardless of how you were raised, there’s no excuse for the Christian, because you can. You are born again. You are made new in him. And so we have a really powerful encouragement in today’s episode for you guys. But you know, there is this challenge that people come across, especially if they were raised with a really rough childhood. Um, or maybe they didn’t have a father, or maybe they didn’t have a mother or or maybe.

It was really peaceful, but there was just no direction.

Right? Um, and maybe there was just very hands off parenting. Laissez faire, if you will. Um, and they’re realizing this isn’t working for me today as I’m raising my kids, whatever the scenario is, there could be a thousand different.

And sometimes we don’t recognize our wounds until someone points them out. And so we really believe one of our jobs is to point things out to help people so that they can be stronger parents, and to help you discover any areas where we might need to close the gap.

That’s right.

Ask for the Lord to help close the gap.

Yeah, and sometimes we have blind spots, right? And so, um, even within your parenting, of course, the best accountability partner you have is your spouse. And so for them, sometimes when you get married, there’s like this objective perspective on family relationships that you see, right where they’re able to identify dynamics that maybe you never really noticed before, or how you change when you’re around certain people. And that definitely is something you want to listen to. Um, but there’s also this element of remembering your roots. Like for those who have been blessed to be raised with strong generational blessing, if you will. Um, there is a need for us to not take that for granted. To not take God’s grace in vain like it talks about in First Corinthians chapter six, but instead to build upon that and, um, to recognize that taking a blessing of coming from a Christian home, for example, if you take that for granted, you could actually be creating new wounds in your children that you yourself didn’t have. And so, you know, there’s a lot of warnings in today’s episode, I think.

Absolutely.

So we’re going to dive into something really powerful right in the beginning secret. And then we’re going to go into the biblical road and what that looks like. And then we’re going to talk about seasons of parenting cycle. So it’s this cycle for different ages, kind of how you need to adjust your parenting as you go. And no matter what season you’re in, you want to know the full cycle so you can be mindful of it. Because too often parents stay in the same cycle, but their kids have changed, and then it creates really big problems, actually.

Yeah, yeah. So before we get started though, we just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us. This week is our six year anniversary.

So six years.

For the podcast. That’s rad right.

Yeah.

Way over 5 million downloads. Incredible. It’s been a what a journey 194 countries people are listening into. I’m sure if it was translated into other languages it would it would reach even further. But those are the English speaking areas.

And over 1.2 million downloads this.

Year.

Which is the biggest year ever?

Biggest year ever. We’re so thankful for that. We’re so thankful for everybody’s support. Obviously, it’s a free resource. We have two other podcasts that come out also free. We have free workshops, a lot of free content we put out every week, all year. And we’re able to do that because of generosity. And so we’re so thankful we have some important fundraising things to do. You can find out at Be Courageous Ministries. Org you can give there a one time gift or be a partner with us monthly, even if it’s $10 a month or $50 a month, or $100 a month, or you know more. It all matters. And we pray for everybody that gives. And it means the world to us. So would you go there and check that out? Also, get something else free the biblical parenting book that is pretty new. I think we came out with it a month ago, and I think 1500 people have already received that.

I didn’t know that.

That’s really encouraging.

Yeah, that’s really cool. Yeah.

People are. It seems like as soon as they find out about it, they’re grabbing that thing and we’re getting already testimonials about it. Uh, it’s completely free, 30 pages. And it gives you insights to Into the Courageous Parenting program. Uh, obviously that is an invite in that book to do it, but you get a little more insight what that’s all about, why over 3000 parents have changed their legacy or in the process of changing their legacy through that program. So you can find out about that at Courageous Parenting.com. But we have, um, master books is we’ve been having so much fun talking about them. Then we’ll dive in because they everything they put out is strictly checked to make sure it’s biblical. And that’s so comforting when you’re wanting. I just want to go someplace and look in a library and know that all of it’s good. So and that’s what you can do at master Books. Yeah.

So obviously we’ve been sharing the past few months that we are using a lot of their curriculum with our kids for homeschooling this year, and we’re homeschooling all from kindergarten all the way through high school. Our fourth is graduating high school this year, and so in all in between and super impressed with the curriculum. Love that. It is something that I can continue using some of the curriculums I can continue using with kids over again in the future too. So that’s just something to think about. If you are thinking about homeschooling, you don’t have to keep buying new curriculums. I have loved all the resources that I’ve had over the years to be able to pull those out again and again when time allows. And one of the things that I’ve loved about master books is that they also offer a lot of books just reading material. Like Isaac said, that’s biblical that you can add on to your curriculum. So as your kids get older and you want them to start reading about defeating Darwinism, for example, or you want them to start reading some books on apologetics, or maybe you want to get a book that is about, um, politics today and the issues of today. And what does the Bible say about that? They actually have a lot of good reading material that will help you as a parent. Also, to be able to lead your kids, if you were to just read it and then teach your kids. But if you need like add on things that you want to have your kids write a paper about after they read it when they’re in high school, there’s some really great resources there. And so even if you are already doing something else, I would just encourage you to go to Master books.com/courageous and check out what they have. Um, might be a good thing to for the new year coming. Sometimes people switch curriculums halfway through the year because they haven’t been enjoying what they were doing. So if that’s you and you want to try it out, I highly recommend it.

So okay, let’s dive in.

So you might have heard this before, but hurt people. Hurt people. You might have heard that before. No parents are trying to hurt anybody. Everybody every parent loves their children, I think. I mean, at least a high, high percentage. And and it’s, uh, the last thing we would ever want to do is hurt our children. But sometimes, unintentionally, we can buy. Maybe there’s a gap in our parenting. Or maybe because of something that happened to us, we’re missing something, or we’re not willing to do something biblical because it was done wrong to us. See, there can be sound biblical principles in parenting, but if it’s done in a terrible way, if it’s done not well, then we might never do that biblically sound principle, for example. So there could be things that have warped us away from the very best influences we possibly could be that are needed to equip them in these unprecedented times. So. So we’re going to talk about that. Your influence matters tremendously. Your words matter. Your example matters. Everything matters and I don’t want to put weight on your shoulders. And let me take it back off you for a second. If you understand the gospel, then you understand that none of us are perfect, that all of us sin. We make mistakes, and you’re never going to be a perfect parent. They don’t exist. And we understand our need for Jesus and what Jesus did on the cross for us. And the more we understand that, the more we can rest in. Thank you God for your wisdom. Thank you, Jesus, for what you did on the cross. I don’t have to be perfect, but while understanding that we can all strive to do better and that’s what we want to do.

I think also there’s an element of pressure, pressure that we put on ourselves or pressure that maybe we feel is put on us, and expectation, if you will, right to be a certain way or to be the perfect parent. Right. And when you fully understand who does the saving, I think that a lot of parents have this like illusion that they have control, right? And especially when your kids are younger, obviously you are more control. There is more control. You have to make the decisions. You’re leading the day. You’re telling them when bedtime is, when nap time is, when to brush their teeth. You’re directing pretty much the entire day, right? You have a structured day, and your kids, little ones are following that structure, whether that’s feeding times, nap times, all the things. But as they get older, you get less controlled in how you parent because they start becoming independent individuals. The older and older they get. You want them to be able to launch from your home and not be a person. That requires being micromanaged their whole life. Right. Courageous parenting is all about raising confident, courageous kids for an uncertain world. Well, they need to be able to launch into that uncertain world with confidence and be able to manage their life. And that is a that is a big thing to be thinking about.

And if you have little kids, you might be going, oh, Angie, my my oldest is two right now. I can’t even think about that. But I do want to say, here’s the deal. When you are in the season of what we call like the mommy years, when when you’re the mama mommy, um, and you’re in the trenches with the, you know, the kids are they’re nursing, they’re sleeping, they’re waking up in the night. It’s it can be physically exhausting. And at the same time, you do take on the responsibility to structure and manage and direct the day that’s part of your jurisdiction. But do not confuse that with the fact that you don’t actually have control over their salvation. And I think a lot of parents do because they’re experiencing I’m in control. I make the decisions, I choose their friends, I, I right, I’m choosing their curriculum. I’m choosing what school they go to when they’re little. Um, so then you can easily believe the lie that what you do or don’t do is going to affect if they’re saved or not, when in reality that’s all about Jesus and the cross. And so understanding that yes, you are called to be intentional and to be that purposeful parent being that is not what saves your kids.

But it is important that at the same time, we believe we make an impact in a difference. Yes, in pointing them to God, that makes a higher percentage chance that they’re going to walk with God. I absolutely believe that because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t even try.

That’s right. I mean, obviously, we are the greatest influences in our.

Kids lives.

Right? And they’re going to hear about the Lord and they’re going to be introduced to a relationship with him. And we’re called.

To and they’re going to watch what.

You model. Right? Like if you have a walk with God, they’re going to see that. They’re going to see you be a changed person yourself, being born again or not. If you’re not right. And so I guess that that’s a huge umbrella over what we’re talking about today. Not allowing your wounds and who you are or who you were in the past to become the wounds that you then scar your children with. Right. But instead recognizing you have a choice.

What an interesting topic that we just got into. We weren’t expecting. God is sovereign, right? His sovereignty means he’s completely in control. He’s all knowing. He. He is all powerful. He knows the beginning and the end.

He has numbered your days.

He’s numbered your days. He knew you before you were in your mother’s womb. You know just what an incredible God. Yet he gives humans responsibility. Why? Because he wants real relationship. And you can’t have real relationship with someone that doesn’t make any choices.

And so we do about the heart.

We do have choices, and we do have jobs to do. And even though he’s sovereign, we have a huge job to do called father and mother or mom and dad or grandpa or grandma. By the way, I love the word grandpa. I just love it. Why wouldn’t I want to be called grandpa?

You crack me up.

This is coming from when? When? When we got our. When the Lord blessed our family with our first grandchild.

Right. I hope I’m a grandpa. I’m working on it.

She’s two and a half. And we were. It was the first time becoming grandparents. And we were like, oh, what are we going to be called? And so we were like, asking people what they were called. And there are so many names.

Lots of names out there, which is totally fine, honey. Yeah. Totally fine. Like all the different names.

Right. And I’m going over them with Isaac, and he’s like, I just want to be grandpa. It’s pretty grand.

Like, how do you beat that?

And then one day, I’ll be great, grandpa, and I’ll be both. I’ll be great and grand. And I’m just like, yeah, why is it that people are trying.

To get different names? No big deal.

But me personally.

I.

Love it. Okay, another bonus there. All right, so the first point here is we don’t want to be pendulum swinging. Meaning there’s a ditch on one. Imagine a road going down this this beautiful scenic byway, and it’s just a beautiful road. It’s just perfect. It’s like what you would see in an artist painting. But what you don’t see in the painting is what’s beside the road, because you’re not in it. And when you’re on the road and you’re looking at the road, you see the beautiful road. But if you go to one side, it’s this ditch. And if you get in the ditch, you’re stuck in the ditch. And if you’re stuck in the ditch, what are you trying to do? You’re trying to get out of the ditch. And too often people go from this ditch and they’re back on the road for a second, and they just go into the other side of the road on the other ditch, and they think they’re winning. They actually think they’re on the beautiful road, but they’re actually just in the other ditch. And that’s not what we don’t want to be. And an example of that is like, if you grew up with harsh parents, there wasn’t a lot of love, there wasn’t a lot of grace.

Maybe they frustration, maybe they didn’t.

Really understand the gospel, or they weren’t Christians or they were religious Christians, but lacking understanding of really how to be loving and and so then what happens sometimes if you have that, then sometimes people stay that. But a lot of times what happens is people learn a lot and grow a lot, and they become strong believers, but they they jump into the other ditch. And the other ditch is a passive parent where the kids are running the house.

And yeah.

That’s a challenge we want to be what, on the biblical.

Road.

That’s what we want to be on.

Right.

So in anything there’s ditches on either side of the road no matter your topic. Right. Um, and the goal is to be seeking biblical wisdom. And a lot of times for those of us when we when we consider our past, we don’t even fully know how we’ve we’ve been potentially impacted by it. Right. Or how we’ve been.

Warped.

So to speak. And so we would just encourage you guys, one of the exercises to do, and we know that the last few episodes that we have done with the Courageous Parenting Podcast have been all about like next year and thinking forward and like initiatives. And what do you want to change? And this is actually a really good question for that. If you’re going through that process right now and kind of following our lead on those last three podcast episodes, ask yourself if relationally, if your household family culture is affected by your upbringing and what ways that’s positive and what ways that’s negative. That’s a really healthy question to ask, because sometimes we can identify what the problem is, like, oh, I’m struggling with, um, being OCD. Let’s just say I’m being let’s just say I’m struggling with being OCD about cleanliness, for example. And you come to your husband and you’re on your date night and you’re talking about family culture, and you’re evaluating the different areas of your life like we talked about. And you get to your get to your household and you go, you know what? I feel convicted that I’m just I’m harsh with the kids. I’m always telling them, clean this, clean that don’t do all the things. And your husband goes, where do you think that came from? That would be a really good question for the husband to ask. Where do you think that came from? Because the truth is, is if you want change in your life, sometimes you have to go back and experience healing and look and see if there’s a bitter root that’s there or if there’s unforgiveness, which obviously the unforgiveness creates the bitter root. So clearly if you have a bitter root it’s because of unforgiveness. But think back to where did you learn that? What triggered you to want to be more controlling about things or thinking that everything has to be perfect all the time?

Perfection. Controlling, fear based. Right? Um, that all goes together and usually it’s a reaction to hurt, right?

Exactly.

And so you’re not you are going to actually leave a legacy of wounds in your children as you’re parenting them in regards to leaving those same. Um, it’s really a prison. Like if you think of a kid who’s growing up in a home where they feel like they always have to be perfect, they always have to behave, they always have to obey the first time, every time, which, yes, you want to train your. These are all things that you want for your children, right? These are biblical things. But when they feel like they’re walking on eggshells in fear of the parents all the time, there’s going to be some relational tear, if you will, and for for for you, the only way to truly break free from that is one you have to reflect. You have to own your own mistakes. You have to forgive, and you need to repent of what you’re doing today.

You might be a more legalistic home if that’s the case, and you want a more grace giving home another on the on the other side of not letting your wounds become their wounds is maybe you grew up with a really hands off family, really passive family, and you’ve gone into the other ditch of being harsh and making sure and fear based and controlling, because I don’t want the things to happen to me, happen to my kids. And then you go too far. And I think what we need to do is stay on the biblical road or, you know, how about church? I grew up in church and it was super legalistic. It was super rigid. It was all about the rules. It wasn’t about relationships and these kinds of things. People were very hypocritical. And you might have a little bit of a distaste now for church. And so, yeah, you’re a Christian, but do you take your family to church? Yeah. We we belong to this church. No, no, no. Do you actually take your family to church, like, every week you possibly can, like you’re trying to.

You want to. That’s your church family. You want to be there.

You see? It’s important.

Yes. And you see.

It impacts your.

Family. And you want that.

To rub off on your kids, too, and them to see it’s important when they launch and these kinds of things, these are just good things to check on. The why do we behave the way we do today? Is there a core reason for that? And if we address that core reason now, we can change.

And just to be clear, when you were sharing that and you were speaking in third person, for people to be asking themselves if they grew up in a legalistic Christian, um, home in that sense, because you weren’t raised in that kind of a situation?

Yeah, it wasn’t my story.

No, it wasn’t his story. But we know a lot of people that they. That resonates with them. And so it’s important to reflect and to just ask yourself like how? What. How was I raised? Especially as you’re thinking about family culture. Like that’s what people are thinking about right now, right? They’re thinking about how they’re going to lead their family. How are they going to be, um, intentional with their mission, with their family. And so sometimes you have to go back and do some healing in order to be able to lead in a healthy way.

And wow, so good for your spouse to hear it. They’re gonna be so much more understanding about your hiccups, your challenges. We all have them. And if they understand the core, the root of it, they also know how to pray for it and encourage you, so that’s.

Good for sure.

Proverbs 15 one through four says, A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the months sorry. The mouths of fools pour out folly. The eyes of the Lord are in every place. Keeping watch on the evil and the good. A gentle tongue is a tree of life. But perverseness in it breaks the spirit. So we can get people to do things by breaking their spirit. And just because people listen to you and do it, does that mean that’s the right way to do it?

Nope. Not biblical.

And you know what? I think a good portion of us fall to that sometimes. And I think it’s important that we’re just introspective and we ask the Lord to help us, and we help each other because you want your legacy to be vibrant. You want a faith filled legacy. You want your children to love the bride of Christ, the church. You want your children to love God and love the Bible and and and want to raise their family up on a biblical road that’s full of relationship based and focusing on the heart and the condition of each other’s hearts and our hearts. Make sure they’re pointed towards the Lord in our family, in our family culture, too.

Yeah, so the challenge is to not be normal.

Yes.

I mean, really, that’s I love that.

I’m so glad you said that.

Well, it’s it’s to not it’s to not go the path of nominal Christianity or not go the path of your normal environment that maybe you’re in, right? But instead, to always have this heart of Lord, show me the way I should go. Show me the biblical road. Right. Because it’s a journey. Parenting is a journey.

Yeah, it’s.

A very long journey. It never ends, actually. And there’s a lot of growth opportunities along the way. There’s a lot of adventure. There’s trial, there’s hardship, there’s challenges. There’s growth opportunities. There’s rejoicing, there’s milestones, there’s fun. There’s all kinds of things in this journey of parenting. But along the way, when it comes to relationships and how you interact with people and what is at the core of those relationships, you have to pursue the biblical road always.

The problem with not embracing normal and not being normal is that it will cause friction.

It will amongst people around you.

It will cause you will be going against the peer pressure on you. And I think adults have especially today is much peer pressure is teenagers do in public school. Why? Maybe more today. Because isn’t it true when you scroll and look at things online or you’re out and about, you’re comparing and you could you can not even know somebody and it’s causing pressure on you.

It’s true.

I also think that there’s a parental peer pressure that comes through the kids, but also has nothing to do with the children where you are looking around you at what is potentially looked at as successful parenting, and if you’re looking at it on the surface, you’re going to run yourself ragged trying to keep up with the pack.

Most people, service is.

Not what’s real.

No. And so you have to know in your heart what is really what is God impressed upon our hearts as parents that are the strong character qualities? What has God impressed on us through His Word, which is the only truth that we should be focused on when we’re raising our kids? I’ll give you an example. So when you’re raising your kids biblically, if you had laissez faire non-involved parents before, that just kind of they never had curfews. They didn’t really ever talk to you much. Um, especially in the teenage years, um, or even when you were younger. Right. Like, they they dropped you off at school, picked you up at school, and they were like, how’s your day? You’re like, fine. And there’s no conversation after that, right? Like, okay, so not really knowing one another. And if you grew up in that, that might be your standard of what parenting is. And or maybe you go, I don’t want it to be like that, but I don’t know how it can be different. And I’ll just share with you that one way that it’s different is that you actually pursue the hard things. You’re willing to talk about the hard attitudes, the hard heart issues in your relationship. And you dig in, you grind in. You don’t just avoid to have, you know, tranquil, fake peace in your home, but instead you actually dig in and you go, it’s not okay for you to talk to me this way. That’s disrespectful. Or, you know, like being willing to say, are you being honoring to God? You know, especially with the child who they’re maybe they’re growing up and they’re not necessarily a child child anymore, but they’re like, they’re wanting to be walking with the Lord to be able to point those things out. That is sharpening them as iron sharpens iron.

But most people, they just don’t want friction in the relationship, so they just ignore it and they just take it. They take the offense, but they don’t actually overlook it. Like the Bible says, right to a man’s glory to overlook an offense or go to your brother. The Matthew 18 approach instead. It’s just like one thing after another. And parents do this to their kids, too. And so there’s this need for us in biblical relationships to be willing to do the hard work. And that should be normal, because that’s what we see in the Bible. Give the gift of music this holiday season with Wartburg Music Academy’s gift card Christmas Special. Instead of learning music in isolation, Wartburg Music Academy.com encourages families to learn together. In fact, with my Code Courageous, you can get 20% off all your children learning piano, guitar, mandolin, violin and ukulele for less than $30 a month. Say goodbye to budgeting hundreds of dollars a month for just one child to take lessons. On top of that, students are given accountability, performance opportunities, seasonal challenges like the December Jingle Jam challenge. Live feedback from their instructor and printables to help them stay on track. The Vote Berg method approaches music a little bit differently. Instead of teaching theory, note reading, and tedious technical skills. First, they skip straight to giving students a love for music so that they can’t wait to sit down and practice with by ear training and song based learning, students will see immediate results. They can earn visual reminders of their hard work with the vote Berg methods rank system that mails badges and rank pins right to your doorstep. Use my code courageous to get 20% off every month your family is enrolled. Go visit vote Berg music Academy.com.

Well, let’s go into our second point. So the first point was don’t be a pendulum swinging parent. Be on the biblical road. We’re going to take a look. Now, what is a biblical road look like and how do you know if you’re on it? And while this is a short episode, I want to encourage you to check out the Courageous Parenting Program because that will completely revolutionize your thinking on this and be able to do it with a husband and wife team. Get in alignment on all these things, but this will be helpful. We’re about to do so. First thing is grounded in the Bible, right? Are we deciding to go against what the Bible says to do in parenting because of some hurt that happened in our past, or seeing things happen wrong or whatever? Are we not following through on certain things, you know? Are we grounded in the Bible? And I think that is super, super important. The next one is making sure there’s not a bitter root, because a bitter root can be a very, very dangerous thing that happens inside you. And it’s not hurting other people necessarily at the moment. It’s hurting you. And then it ends up hurting other people because it’s changing you.

And if it changes you in this way, you’re not going to have joy. You’re not going to have happiness, you’re going to treat people poorly. And this person that it involves, wow, there’s probably a lack of forgiveness there. Most assuredly there would be. So in where is this Hebrews 12, verse 15. It says, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. And who’s the many? It’ll be the many in your home that become defiled. Just that little bit of root about somebody not in your home can defile many in your home, because you are a person of influence, and it’s tweaking and it’s messing with your state of being. And it’s even probably messing with your ability to even hear from the Holy Spirit that’s in you. And you’ve got to forgive. And the interesting thing about forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you’re back in strong relationship with somebody. It doesn’t mean you’re in proximity with somebody. It technically, it doesn’t even mean you spoke to somebody. Now it can. It’s beautiful. When we speak to people and we say we forgive them, but that’s not always possible. And sometimes.

People don’t even apologize.

Or ask for forgiveness or.

They’re or they’re gone. They’re not even around anymore.

Right? Maybe they’re so, so.

But to actually forgive them is a release on you. Mm.

And it helps you not.

To live in that bondage and to be free and not not give the devil a.

Foothold. Yeah.

Right. Because unforgiveness is that is that special foothold. It’s a it’s a it’s something that God over and over again, he is warning us to forgive because we’ve been forgiven, to forgive as Jesus forgave us and he forgave us, though we were wretched and in our sins, and we’re not repentant. Think of all the people who were spitting on Jesus while he was on his cross and and mocking him while he was carrying the cross. And and to understand the full gospel message leaves you in a posture of truly realizing your need for a Savior and how much you’ve been forgiven, and then that in turn changes your ability to forgive other people and to walk and operate in grace with them. But if you haven’t fully reconciled the weight of your sin and the need that you have for a Savior, then you haven’t fully experienced what it looks like to get the heaping grace of forgiveness just washing over you. And if you don’t have that, how can you give what you don’t have? Yeah, you cannot give what you don’t have.

And you’re probably not going to do this next thing if you haven’t done that right, which is to ask God to remove anything that is causing you to be in the ditch.

You know, I have a scripture I want to read with you guys. It’s in Ephesians chapter four. It’s verses 22 to 32, actually. It says to put off your old self, right? This is what we’re talking about, right? To ask God if there’s anything that we need to have removed. Put off the old self. Is there any sin, God, that you want me to put off? And it says which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So we’re literally putting off the old, putting on the new, which is not even us. The new is Christ’s righteousness and his holiness, therefore. Verse 25. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. I mean, is a family members of one another? Yep. Are we supposed to be speaking truth with our neighbor? Or is our our kids and our husband, our spouse? Our neighbor? They are our first neighbors. And then it says this I love this. Verse 26 says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity for the devil. This is such an important thing that we need to acknowledge that our former way of life gives the devil a foothold.

It’s our former way of life that gives the sin, gives the devil a foothold. So if there is something in us, something that we’re struggling with, something that we get triggered by, that sin we need to take responsibility for, and we need to repent and turn away from it and not sin. Not giving the devil an opportunity. And it says in verse 28, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And then it just. I want to skip down here to 31 and 32. It says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as in God. Christ forgave you. And then it just continues in verse. If you wanted to go and read chapter five yourself, it just talks about being imitators of God as beloved children walking in love, that we need to choose to walk in the spirit and that we have the power through him to do it. Because guys, this is stuff that we can’t do on our own.

Strength, right? Period.

If you are aware of your need for a Savior, then you are also aware of the very real reality that we still wrestle with the power of the flesh, the fleshly temptation to sin. And so we wrestle with that, but we wrestle it with the power of God. If we’re walking in him and walking in his love, or we’re walking in our flesh. So you have to ask yourself, are you asking God to remove something from you, but you’re still continuing to walk in your flesh and trying to do it in your own strength because you can’t. I don’t know how many times I’ve had this conversation with one of our littles where it’s like, no, I know it’s hard to forgive him. You can’t do that on your own. We have to pray and ask Jesus to help you to be able to forgive him. And you know, it’s interesting because this last Saturday we had a ladies tea at church.

And it was.

Such a fun event, and we talked about biblical friendships and going deeper. And one of the things we talked about was this concept of walking with one another in biblical relationship, and what that looks like, and being able to forgive, which I think is like really a key thing for anybody who’s listening. Right? If they’re reflecting on how they were raised, and if there’s ever anything that you are critical of with how you were raised or you’re struggling with, you have to be able to forgive that. And for for everyone listening, Understanding that we need to take the time to teach our children how to forgive. That is, choosing to recognize you have a wound of having a hard time forgiving. So you’re going to choose, by the power of the Holy Spirit to teach your kids and focus on that with them. Because one of the things that we as parents do is we oftentimes if our kids are fighting and you have to mediate, what do you do? You tend to go to the kid that like, was the mean kid, and you deal with their sin because it was this overt sin, right? And then they will apologize to the other child and they’ll say, Will you forgive me? I’m sorry I did this. And they go, I forgive you. And the other kid just runs off. But did they actually forgive? Was there any focus from the parent with the child who needed to practice forgiveness to make sure that they actually are not allowing a bitter root to spring up?

The other question is, maybe they were more at fault because they were stoking the fire on purpose, and the other one’s just more outgoing and was.

Yelling, right?

I mean, you as a parent, this is the thing. Like, but when I think about wounds, right. Like this inability to forgive that is actually a wound that can be passed down to your kids. And so we have to make sure that we’re teaching our children, just as it’s important to teach the kid who is the offender to apologize and to repent. They also have to teach the other to forgive.

Now you want to think about if your home is a legalistic home or not. One way to identify that actually is if your children, especially as they’re getting older and you can think about this as you’re younger too. Um, do they deep down absolutely know that you love them no matter what they do, no matter what mistakes they make, no matter what choices they make, do they know, at the end of the day that your love does not change for them? Or is there a little bit of feeling like your love is based on what they do? Because see, Jesus, God. God loves us not because of what we do, but it’s because of we believe in His Son Jesus, who died on the cross for us. And that wiped it away. And because of that, even though we still make mistakes and we’re sinful because of that, in his eyes were saints.

We’re reconciled.

To him. We’re reconciled. Jesus. Yeah.

And so we have to make sure, especially as they get older, that they know we love them no matter what. And if it’s a task master, master kind of home, if they’re going to view their God as a task master, they’re going to view their God as harsh. And so we want to be especially fathers. We want to be representing a balanced approach here. Yes, we want to follow through. Yes. Sometimes we need to be stern. Yes, there’s consequences. And they need experience reaping and sowing. Yes, discipline is important, all these things. But we need to do everything in love. They need to know that no matter what, you’re going to love them and you love them so much, you’re going to correct them.

Yeah. That’s right. Because the Bible does say that God disciplines those he loves, right? And so and it’s because he wants what’s best for them. He doesn’t want them to be in harm or in in dire situations.

But is it.

Coming across right how you intend to your children.

And how it comes across deciphers? It is the differentiator between if there is a fear based parenting happening, or if there’s a grace based parenting happening, right? And so we have to be careful to evaluate this might be a really good marriage conversation where people could sit and talk about like, even just how they are doing as parents. What do you see? What do you see? I struggle with, you know, being able to have that constructive time of communication, um, would be a really healthy thing. But understanding too, that, um, we need to be careful not to be weak in this world. There’s a lot of people who potentially were raised in homes. We’ve talked about this laissez faire. Where maybe they’re not very hands on. Right? Um, but weak parenting can oftentimes breed more weak parenting, actually. Um, and so, you know, no one wants to be the the mean parent that says no. There have been many times where I’m like, I feel like the bad cop, right? But, um, the reality is, is as parents, we have to be willing to stand up and say, I’m an adult here. I’m going to be I’m going to wear the big pants, I’m gonna pull up the pants, and I’m gonna be a big person, and and I’m going to be the more spiritually mature, and I’m going to explain with grace and and patience my why for the 25th time. And when you do that faithfully, then you start to see the blessings as parents, because not only do your kids reap and sow, but parents also do.

Yeah.

And so we have to be willing to sow good seeds with our kids.

By the way, I know there’s all kinds of unique situations out here. There’s single moms, there’s single dads, there’s, uh, people in marriages where one’s a Christian, one’s not. There’s challenges happening. There’s kids that may be in trouble right now. There’s maybe you have young kids, but there’s peer influences are difficult. There’s all kinds of challenges. Maybe you just, you know, saw that one of your kids was looking at porn or all kinds of challenges could be happening. Uh, now we’re going into Christmas right now and things like that. I just want to point out and we’re going to go into the seasons of parenting cycle in a second here. But next week we’re going to lay out some serious encouragements. It’s going to be maybe the most encouraging episode ever given by courageous parenting.

Woohoo! And so we’re.

Gonna we want to start right before the year, just encourage everybody and give you some really good scriptures and encourage you and give you some tools to encourage yourself and encourage each other next week. But let’s go into the seasons of parenting cycle.

So, you know, we’ve we go over this a lot more in depth in the courageous parenting program for sure. We have an entire session where we have a section on this and what it can look like in your home. But as far as structure and seasons of parenting, I think it’s really important that parents understand that as your kids are growing, your parenting also needs to grow, right? And as your kids are maturing, you’re also maturing and your relationship is maturing. And there should be things like trust having been developed, for example. Right. And a lot of parents. So there’s two ways that you can go about parenting. You can either be really hands off when they’re little and then when they’re older, you what we tend to see is parents clamp down, right. Because they’re like, oh no, they’re making bad choices. This is going to hurt them. So they start throwing all the rules and regulations and no, no, no, no, no. And they’re high control. And what.

Happens?

They backfires.

They rebel.

Rebel. And then there’s the opposite of that, which maybe is a little bit more countercultural, which is that you are more in control, more, um, purposeful with your kids when they’re younger, teaching them the whys, acknowledging that they’re smarter than you think they are. You’re giving them the why behind why we’re spending time with this family, or why we’re not spending time with these, this family. Right. And you’re teaching them. You’re reading Scripture about how important it is to choose wise friends, for example. Right. And then as they start getting older, you start letting them make those decisions and they get to experience and learn way before they’re older. And those lessons learned are more dangerous. Right? And so if you start out with your high directive, we call that high directive ages 0 to 5, right where Mom and dad are in charge of the entire day. They’re directing everything manage, manage, manage. But then what happens next? They get to be six, 6 to 9.

You’re directive, but you’re also equipping, right? And so they’re old enough now where they can become extremely helpful, and they need to see themselves as helpful to feel important. If they don’t feel important, then they just want to go play video games or they just want to, uh, you know.

They default to whatever the active thing is.

Whatever. You know, something they can do is but they need to feel helpful. So you can be directive. Yes. Still directive. Maybe not as highly directive because they’re starting to make their own good decisions and sometimes bad decisions. So you’re still directive but you’re also equipping them the ages 6 to 9. And then you get into this next season, which is really fun. And most people never switch. They go high directive, directive.

And then they stay.

Directive.

And that’s kind of it. And then they become friends with their kids.

Well, they.

Try to, but.

It’s they’re still directive directive friends. And that’s super.

Confusing, super wrong.

And and.

What it leads is if you stay directive, then you don’t ever fully launch independent adults.

Who can.

Think for themselves. They require because they’ve been micromanaged their whole life or managed. They still require someone to hold their hand and walk them along even when they’re 20, 22. Whatever. Right? And so you have to shift from being directive and equipping to coaching.

And coaching is so important. That’s where it’s far less directive. You might direct sometimes, but you don’t actually don’t have to because you did such a good job in those first two seasons that now you’re just navigating, you’re asking them questions. You’re they’re telling you, they’re asking you for advice and what they should do about things. And this is those ages of 14 to 18. You’re working.

You’re working a problem.

With them, and you’re going to put your direction in there sometimes, but they’re always going to feel like you’re their coach and helping them navigate the problem and work through it. They’re coming to you for advice and they won’t. It won’t be like that if you do these seasons Wrong. And then you go from coaching 14 to 18 and then you become a mentor. Um, hopefully. Right. Hopefully they still want wisdom from you at least once in a while. Now, if you do a really good job, they become really strong, independent. They’re doing great. And they may not be asking you wisdom all the time, right? Because they’re doing great, but they’re going to come back and you’re going to have a unique, awesome relationship of almost, in a way, running the race together, actually, um, because they’re going to continue growing in wisdom and you’re growing in wisdom, and actually your kids will sharpen you more and more as you get older. I see that.

Happening. I see it.

Happening, too.

I medical freedom is something we all desire, and I think we’d all agree that in the last four years, we’ve really realized just how important it is to have a trusted, like minded doctor.

You should be able to build your medical team and choose who you get care from. Knowing that where you spend your money is a matter of stewardship and a desire to support local Christian medical businesses.

Absolutely.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer to help support businesses that have a biblical worldview on life and health.

Here’s the problem more often than not, you have to choose your doctor off a preferred in-network list. And if I’m really honest, those clinics usually see such mass quantities of people that it’s incredibly impersonal and you walk away feeling like a number. In addition, in most cases, in order to be seen by specialists, you’re required to get a referral from a primary care physician, which costs more time and money.

We want to introduce you to a biblical approach to health care. Samaritan Ministries. You can find out more about it at Samaritan Ministries. Dot org. Forward slash. Be courageous.

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Samaritan ministries gives you the freedom you desire to choose your doctors and health care professionals, including. This is cool alternative care providers like chiropractors and naturopathic providers as well.

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When you sign up don’t forget to tell them that be courageous mystery or Angie and Isaac Tolpin referred you.

The links will also be in our weekly podcast show notes at Be Courageous ministries.org.

I think there’s a need for parents to start recognizing that their kids can think, and that it’s a good thing when they do think it’s a good thing when they’re making wise decisions and that they need to be encouraged in those wise decisions to continue moving forward with faith that they can do that in the future. Um, but they also need the they need the coaching of when they come to you. Here’s the here’s the warning that I have for you. When they do come to you, if they come to you, Lord willing, they come to you. Don’t just give them your answer, but go. That’s a really good question. And you know, what I’ve learned is that the Lord actually has a really good answer for this. And you give them the answer that you sought out in Scripture. So you actually have to seek God out in Scripture for your answers so that you can say this when they’re older. But if you’re able to point them to the word, then what is that doing that points them to the ultimate wisdom? Over and over and over and over again. And then when they are older and they’re wanting mentoring, that’s what you’re doing with them, is you’re pointing them more and more to the Lord. And then when you’re not around, they’re not codependent on you. There strong in the Lord.

Another very important thing to start transitioning when that six ages 6 to 9, from directive to equipping and then from, you know, 14 on to coaching, you know, basically 12 on it looks like or something like that. Um, then what happens is, is when they ask you a question, you say, I have a thought on that for sure. We could even look at the Bible says, but I’d love to hear what you think first. And this gives you a unique opportunity for you then to support their idea. And that’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking to work that muscle of helping them build confidence in their decision making. And then maybe you add something on to it, or if it is a bad or if it is a bad idea, you can gently steer them in a new direction, but at least you’re helping them work that muscle. And I learned that in business, actually. And then I applied it to my parenting when I was younger, because I had so many people working for me that I was like, there’s no way I can do this and raise a big family. So I started going, well, tell me what you think. And my phone started ringing less all of a sudden because they became highly independent, strong, making good decisions, because I validated and I helped them think better. And that’s a great way to do that.

And that’s what you want.

For your kids, right? You want them to think better.

Yeah. And you want.

Them to go to the Lord also. Um, but you guys, you know, we we want to give you an unprecedented times tip in regards to don’t let your wounds become their wounds. And I would say, you know, that concept of hurt people, hurt people is only true if we don’t have Jesus. Um, and so don’t be a person that hurts other people because you’re not dealing with your past hurt. Be the person that chooses to look at the hurt straight in the eye. Engage and embrace and turn around and say, Lord Jesus, what did you have me to learn from this situation? Would you redeem it in my life and help me to comfort other people with the comfort you’ve given me. Help me not to pass this on to my family. Lord, I repent of this or I repent of that. And then ask somebody for accountability and prayer. And if you do those steps, I guarantee you you will be walking with so much less pressure on your shoulders because the those generational sins, if you will, those wounds, those are bondage that the enemy wants you to be in, that are going to isolate you, that are going to make you feel less than, and they’re going to affect your parenting. But God doesn’t want that for you. He can help you to overcome them, but you have to be willing to look at it and to learn from it and to give it to God all the way. And don’t take it back. Don’t don’t borrow troubles and don’t give. Say I want it back. Nope. You give it to the Lord and you give it to him for good. And you walk away from it with the new freedom.

And that’s how you have a new legacy. Thanks for joining us. See you.

Next time. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible, self-paced program where we cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group in the Be Courageous app, live webcast, and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online Parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at Be Courageous Ministry. Org that’s Be Courageous ministry.org.