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Full Transcript:

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

Hey, a real quick note before you dive into the podcast. Such a special episode, especially for these times.

We are talking about how to cultivate stronger loyalty and relationships, stronger family bonds in this podcast.

And later on in the second half, especially towards the end, we talk about practical insights with sibling relationships and making sure those relationships are intact and growing stronger. 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 of 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

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

Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast we’re talking about. Division is coming and how to instill loyalty within your family.

Specifically, what we’re talking about is brothers, sisters, sibling relationships, parent relationships with their children. This is something that, as Isaac and I were talking about, this is something that has been occurring all over the world, in other cultures, more prevalently for many, many years, this concept of division and families. Right? Yeah. We were just recently thinking and talking about how in Muslim families, for example, if someone is to become a believer, they will at the least be excommunicated. A believer.

In Jesus?

Yes, a believer in Jesus. Yes, they will at the least become excommunicated, but likely in certain countries, even killed or banished, if you will. And so this concept of like division at the most extreme level does exist in other parts of the world. But here in Western society and even other countries in Europe, there is that that is far from existent.

At that extreme level. But you’re seeing it all over the place. Some of you might be feeling that in some levels in your family and so forth. But, you know, this podcast really is about practical insights based on biblical truth that you can implement today with your children for today. But it’s also, we feel, a responsibility that this podcast is also about doing the right things today to reap fruit way down the line, to be thinking about today and way down the line so that we’re doing the right actions, investing in our families and parenting in intentional ways that reaps a greater fruit on some of these issues that we know are coming.

That’s right. So how do we know this is coming? That’s probably what people are thinking. Angie and Isaac, why are you talking about this? Well, with everything that’s been happening in the world, we have been spending more time, I would say, than we used to reading scripture on End Times. I’m just going to label End Times. We’ve been reading in the Gospels, in Mark chapter 13, reading in Matthew 2122, 23, 24, Ezekiel revelations. That’s right. And Daniel, Jude first John, I mean it literally. It’s interesting as you start reading and becoming aware of things, you really do see the relevancy of it all throughout Scripture. Little warnings Jesus saying, do not be alarmed. Be aware. False teachers will rise among you. And then seeing where he heavily talks about that in these end time scriptures. Right. And so and seeing that happening in the world, like obviously there have been many world religions, we believe that Jesus is the only way, the only truth and the only light, and that he came from the father, and that it is only through Jesus Christ as our Savior that we get to have reconciliation with God and be with him forever in eternity. And so when we believe that, and then we also operate in this reality of there being many world religions for many, many years, what you even see now is truly a holy war between the seeds of Abraham, Ishmael, and his lineage, and then Isaac and his lineage. There has been false prophets and false teachers for thousands of years.

So but we’re going to bring this back to your family and how to do practical things today to instill a loyalty amongst your the siblings, amongst your children, a loyalty back to you, a loyalty from you to them. Bond United Family unit. Now, that being said, you could do everything you possibly can and it’s up to each human to choose Jesus. It’s up to each human to not be divisive and choose that path. And they could choose a different path. So that is possible no matter what we talk about. But there are things. We have such an awesome responsibility. We have so much influence. I know we say that a lot, but one of the challenges of leaders is they forget how much influence they have. This is in the business world or anywhere, any organization, the family unit as well. Because once you’re leading for a while, you start to see that maybe your words don’t have as much effect as you’d like them to, and you get discouraged and these kinds of things. But regardless of those instances, you just have to be reminded and realize that you absolutely have the most influence. It’s God authorized influence, and you actually have it. And could you have more? Yes, you can cultivate a greater influence by having a greater relationship with your siblings. So with your.

Children. So in. Podcast. This is definitely like, we don’t want this to be like a doom and gloom kind of topic, and it’s not going to be. We actually have some recommendations and encouragement for you guys into how to practically cultivate a culture within your family of strong, Christ centered bonds and loyalty to one another. And that’s really what the foundational topic is. But the why behind why we chose that topic was because of what we are seeing in the world, but also because of scriptures like Matthew chapter ten, verses 21 through 23, which we’re just going to start out here with, which says, brother will deliver brother over to death, and father, his child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And then it just continues on. And of course, there was a whole lot before that. And, you know, this is one of those portions of Scripture where in previous podcasts, like when we were talking about what was happening with Israel, we read a whole passage of Scripture in Matthew chapter 24 that also talked about this, and we weren’t focusing on this.

And so when you think about this particular scripture, it highlights a disloyalty that will be coming in families, but also if we have our eyes wide open and we become aware of what’s happening in other cultures, other religions, other parts of the world, we do recognize that this has been a problem for a long time with many other things, other places, and we are seeing the stirring of that. We see we get messages all the time from parents who talk about their wayward child, their prodigal son, their, you know, struggling. How do I parent through this when they’re a young adult or a teenager and our heart goes out to you? So we wanted to do an episode on this, but also equipping parents in how to be like, proactively parenting so that, Lord willing, because this is all about him and his relationship with each of your own children, because you can’t save your children like Isaac said, right? But there are things that you can do to try to sow those good seeds of loyalty and good Christian living or godly character in your kids. To where, Lord willing, this won’t be your story. And that’s the encouragement, is that it doesn’t have to be your family.

And unfortunately, even if everybody’s believing in Jesus, unfortunately there still can be great division amongst families. So it is it is really important. Just take a moment and just share a little bit. Obviously this is a free resource. We do it every single week. We pour into it. There’s a lot of behind the scenes that goes into just the podcast, but then the whole be courageous ministry, so much work going on. And so we just encourage you go to courageous Parenting.com if you want the show notes and all those things for the episode. There’s also we’re on YouTube, but those YouTube videos are embedded in the blog post for the episode. You also have the audio file there. You also have show notes, scriptures used, any resources. We talk about just a rich source of resource there, which is awesome. But I also want to just help you realize that there’s a community to the Be Courageous app, and it’s free for the first week, and you can take full advantage of exclusive content on marriage, on birth, and postpartum, on all kinds of different things homeschooling and Q and A’s that are in a library that you can find out so many topics, all these things. So in the community and so forth. So you can check it. I encourage you to check it out. It is a fast growing, strong community. But I think most importantly, there’s valuable resources there. And it’s just the freedom of a sense of freedom there that we’re not on big tech and there’s only Christians there. And that’s pretty cool. So check that out. Also, the parenting mentor program coming up, we do. We decided to do one more for the year. And so we would love to have you in that. The best way to impact next year is not wait for next year. It takes momentum going into next year that what I’ve noticed in people, that is when real change in 2024 happens, when people are serious and intentional about it and they start it before the next year. So yeah, that’s.

Really exciting for us to be thinking about the lives that we do in the Parenting Mentor program. I don’t know if you knew this, but the first one that we do is pretty much the same content each time we teach on biblical vocabulary, and we go over marriage alignment and some really important aspects to walking the Christian walk as a married couple, as a team. But then the other two lives, both of them are 90 minutes. You guys like 60 minute teaching, 30 minute Q&A, and all the people that have ever gone through the Parenting Mentor program are invited to engage in those Q and A’s and the lives, and we love it. We love seeing people come back, but we do relevant topics that we don’t cover in the podcast. We don’t cover them in the podcast. And so depending on what is happening in the world at that time or the season, right, like it’s going to be holidays, New Year’s is going to be coming. We can do extra equipping of parents based upon those things. That can be really helpful for starting the new year.

And if you want to see inside it first, take the Biblical Parenting in a Changed World workshop that we’re doing. It’s free. The content in there stands alone. But at the very end, we also show Inside the Parenting Mentor program. Also use 30% at checkout if you want 30% off the program. So hey, let’s dive in to this important episode. It’s so important to have vision. If we don’t have vision for our family, we won’t break out of our comfort to do what’s a little bit harder today. In a dress like sibling rivalry, you know, children getting at each other or we won’t do the proactive things and have meetings about, you know, talking about how important they are to each other and how they’re they’re the most important friends they have. And instilling these things that we’ll talk about in a little bit. But you have to have vision for your family, being bonded, being close to each other. And then it takes cultivating that. And so it’s so it’s so important.

Well, and I think that the first so as we were kind of talking and contemplating, the first thing that hit me was the word sacrifice, right? We love Jesus because of who he is, not what he did. We love our kids because of who they are, not what they do. But Jesus showed his love for us by laying his life down for us. That’s what he did for us and we need to praise him for that. We need to glorify his name. We need to worship him for who he is, but also acknowledging with great gratitude and thankfulness what he did do for us. But this word sacrifice is something that we’re all called to as Christians. Actually, when we accept Jesus into our life, there is going to be things that the Holy Spirit convicts us to confess of and repent of. And repentance means to turn away from and not do again. And sometimes that’s even walking away from being in deep fellowship or relationship with other people who have turned their back on God, who are false in their their thinking and in their philosophy, who are potentially tempting us to continue into sin. Sometimes relationally. We are called to sacrifice some things because of our commitment to Christ. And many of you guys and I know this for a fact, many of you guys are leaving a new legacy. Many of you have had to make a strong, hard decisions regarding how you’re going to raise your kids, where you’re going to live, all kinds of parenting decisions, to do things differently, to leave that new legacy. We understand that, and I just want to encourage you that for those of you who have made that choice to follow Jesus, we are all called to lay down our cross and take up the cross of Christ.

That’s what Christianity is. And it’s when people hate us. It’s not that they hate us, it’s that they hate what we’re picking up. It’s that they’re hating Jesus. That’s what this scripture that we were reading about was talking about. And it’s interesting because this particular scripture, I remember the first time I read it going, well, I don’t want that to happen between my kids. I hope that doesn’t happen between me and my siblings. I hope that, like you just think, right? Like when you think relationships between brothers and brothers, parents and child, father and child like it stirs a deep emotion in you and I don’t know what the future holds. I really hope this doesn’t happen since if I’m honest, right? But it also should trigger us to go, okay, does this have to happen to my family and to bank on the promises of God, to focus on Christ, to do what he has called you to do? As parents, we only have. We have. We have limited control. Control is really an illusion. Jesus is really the only one with control. But we do have responsibility in our relationships and we do have to exercise self control in our relationships as well, right? I’m sure you guys would all agree. And when it comes to Christian living, character discipleship, and teaching our kids godly things like being kind to one another, forgiving one another, asking for forgiveness, being loyal, which we’re talking about today.

All of those things are things that we as parents are called to teach our children. We are commanded to teach our children because God’s Word says we are in Deuteronomy six. You can go read that, but it’s all throughout Scripture. And so if we’re doing the due diligence there is I’m not saying control, but there is influence that we have over our immediate relationships with our kids, our kids with one another as we are building them up and encouraging them in the way they should go and in the way they should operate. In relationships, we can sow good seeds that we. Won’t reap a disaster. They’ll reap good fruit. That’s a biblical spiritual law and promise of God. Does that mean that if you do everything right, your kids are going to be saved? No, that’s not what I’m saying. But what I’m saying is, do not grow weary in doing good. When you read scriptures like this and go, oh, that’s that could happen in my family. Well, what’s the point? Instead, we need to stay faithful to what God has called us to, and we need to trust him and we need to pray hard. So I just want to encourage you guys with that, because while you may be experiencing some of that, if you’ve come from something where you’ve had great sacrifice relationally to follow Jesus. You know, there may be attack on you from your family, right? From extended family. Someday, I don’t know. That is in God’s hands. And he will fight for you. And he will give you what you need to say. That’s what the Scripture says.

Well, you know, I just was thinking during the heat of Covid, there were places that there was mechanisms set up to snitch on your neighbors. If you weren’t, you know, obeying the the masking or shelter in place or these kinds of things. And so you could see just real quick how, you know, things can turn into pressure to create division amongst people based on what they believe. And so that was just so that’s that’s just a little example, a little not not too far back of how crazy people got.

And and they did, I mean, very offensive, very offensive, saying very hateful things like, you don’t love people. You’re so selfish if you don’t get the the jab. I’m just going to say it.

Closing churches down, all this stuff. So we don’t want to bring all that back up necessarily. But it is a point in history that’s not too far away in the past that proves this could happen at any time, these kinds of things. And so discipleship, you mentioned discipleship. I just want to hang on that word for a second, because I think that is really the crux of this most important thing. Obviously, relationships with amongst the family is vital, but where the biggest division is going to come down the road is, I think, hatred towards Christians probably, and even within the church. For people that don’t believe in what the Bible says, true Christianity and so what? It becomes even more important as we think about moving forward in end times. You know, we don’t know exactly. You know, nobody knows exactly where we’re at and so forth. Although, you know, we see Ezekiel 38 possibly starting to transpire out there. I don’t know that the countries that line up with the Bible are are getting involved. They’re aligning in the ways the Bible talks about against Israel, these kinds of things. But who knows, right? It could just be what is it? Pregnancy pains?

Yes.

Birth pains, birth pains. The Bible talks about birth pains leading up to that. But what’s interesting is it’s for sure leading up to that at some point, right? Because it’s all the same things the Bible talks about. So, so don’t know exactly where we’re at. But discipleship is vital. Like at any.

Point on the timeline.

It is it is vital. We’re talking about pointing our children to Jesus. And you might have heard this before, but we do have some new people too. Sometimes I just want to remind everybody. But discipleship isn’t a program. Discipleship isn’t an event that someone else is doing for your kids. Although that could be helpful. Discipleship has got to be a way of life, and it’s got to be a almost daily, if not daily event of some sort of pointing our children to Jesus. I mean, even correction is an opportunity to help them understand the gospel in a very intimate way and understand the power of Jesus having grace for us and for an understanding that we’re sinful and these kinds of things, like there’s so much opportunity in the daily parenting to actually disciple our children. That’s true. Train them up in the way they should go to teach them about the love of God.

About sacrifice, about loyalty, about treating other people the way you would want to be treated, about forgiveness. Right? Like, you know, there there’s so much out there that in Scripture and in the world, and there’s so many voices all the time. But when we hang on Jesus’s words, when we hang on what the Bible actually says more than what the clever, eloquent preacher is saying on the short little soundbite that you see come through Instagram. Yes, I’m mocking that for a second. Just because it’s easy for us to misunderstand things. And so we always need to take everything back to the Word of God. Filter it, pray about it. Go, Lord, is this true? Wow. Okay, that could be powerful, but but can I just encourage you guys for a second that discipleship can seem very daunting, especially if you were never discipled, right, Isaac. And you know, the truth is, is that Jesus gave us the very best example of what discipleship looks like as he walked around with the 12 disciples. And this this kind of, you know, one of the things that has been heavy for us, because that’s actually how we learned how to do what we do with our kids. And and we share that process with you guys and the parenting mentor program.

Actually, there’s an entire session just on discipleship where we take a very close look at what Jesus did in his example. But we were just reading from Matthew 1021 through 22. And I want to share with you verse 24. It says, A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. Listen, the reason why I’m bringing this up is because when we’re parenting and. We are discipling our children and we have little disciples. We have to remember that we’re not better than them, and they’re not better than us. They’re not above us. We’re not above them. We’re actually all on the same equal playing field. And if we parent with authority, the authority that God gave us, but with a heart sensitivity that shows equal value, just like we do in marriage, there is an element of compassion, understanding and kindness that comes through. And that is something that we need to teach our kids to be able to walk in, in their relationships with other people. Because when you don’t walk that way, you can be offensive to people.

Well, frustrated parents can can sometimes not treat children well, and that can happen. And it’s really important that we remember that they are God’s little people. You know, he he created them. Amen. And he’s trusting us to train them up and point them to him. And there’s folly bound up in the heart of a child. But at the same time, Jesus said, let the children come to me. Have faith like a unbelievably valuable lessons. And we would all say that, of course. Yeah, my children, I love them so much. They’re so valuable. But in the heat of the moment, sometimes we could be chipping away at good relationship. And as they get older, if you chip away enough, then when they really when you really need to have influence, their peers have more influence than you. And then that becomes challenging and it becomes challenging for continuing the discipleship in their older years where they’re still in your home, to launch them as confident Christian children in an uncertain world. And, you know, we see 70 to 80%. The stats are of Christian children. Children raised in Christian homes leave the church by age 18, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Right? So we have to do the discipleship work, which is using resources, most importantly the Bible and and in moments of opportunity, giving them a biblical perspective on things, working on their character and talking about the Bible says about the right way to respond to people and to love and walk in love. I love that scripture, you know, how did we walk in love today? Hey, can someone share an example of somebody walking in love today at the dinner table? A dad doing that and sharing that one? I think it’s a proverb. Then you’re like, whoa, what did all the things? I just used the Bible. And then I asked a question, and then someone’s going to respond and give positive feedback about somebody else in the family, which is affirmation, which is affirmation. Knitting hearts together. Yeah. And trust. And then whoa, I wonder if dad’s going to ask that tomorrow. So now how does that influence the next day? So I just use that one little example. That’s just one tiny thing. I’ve done many things that I’ve done and do that has a big impact. Look at the influence of that and knitting those relationships.

I think another thing to do for knitting relationships, this is a really good this is the practical stuff, right? This is the meat, if you will, of like, okay, Isaac and Angie, how do I cultivate if I’ve got kids that are really struggling in relationship with one another? Or maybe they’re not struggling, but you want to really. So those good seeds of strong relationship, you know, teaching your kids how to be encouragers and to not be all focused on themselves is really, really crucial. Okay. I still think we need to do a podcast on how not to raise a self-righteous child. But the truth is, is when you’re raising your kids in Christianity and you are teaching them spiritual discernment, a challenge can be that your kid can start thinking too highly of themselves. A challenge that all humans have is pride. A challenge all humans have is self-preservation. A challenge all humans have is to desire more and want more for themselves. So how do we turn our children’s hearts and minds to be focused more on treating other people as they would want to be treated, versus trying to get that treatment themselves? So having a selfless mindset versus a self-focused mindset is one of the most incredibly important things in relationships. And so for your kids to stop thinking about themselves, talking about themselves, talking about what they want, he did this. He did that to me. It’s blame game. It’s blame shifting, not ever taking ownership because I’m perfect. It’s not sharing because I want that. It’s also not being a good loser when they play a board game or a sport, but instead teaching them how to be an encourager of the person and invest in relationships and go out to the sport and invest and watch and cheer them on like it’s it’s all of those kinds of things.

So it’s really important. So how do you encourage? Encourage your children to be encouragers. Yes, teach them what the Bible says, not just in a planned setting, but in real time. When you’re dealing with an issue, pull it out. If you can’t remember a verse, you could Google it, right? It’s just really easy to find verses and you can share it with your children and then you can talk to them. Hey, how do you think that makes them feel? Put yourself in their shoes. I think a big thing that we need to do as adults in everybody is we need to learn how to love people well, when we’re in disagreement, that is the most important thing society needs right now. But it’s you can’t control society, but you know, you can influence, you can’t control it, but you can influence it highly is your family and in your family. You’ve got to be like, we are going to learn how to love each other well, even when we disagree, and we are going to fight fairly and we’re going to reconcile afterwards, and we’re going to hug it out, and we’re not going to let the sun go down in our anger. That goes for you and your marriage, too. So it’s so important that we’re instilling that in our children, and we’re doing the long, hard work, sometimes 20 minutes out of your schedule to stop and work on a situation. And I see Angie do that all the time, which is so great. Of course I do too. But she’s just more.

Yeah, no, it’s true. I also think about this concept of loyalty and what are what is it that we’re trying to get our kids to be loyal to? If you came from a family that is not believing, I’m just going to do a quick contrast here. If you came from a family that’s not believing and you chose to walk in faith and you have found a segregate spiritual family in your church because that’s majority of people, okay? The truth is, is that you I don’t want this message here to be like, oh, how can I go and be loyal back to my family? Who’s walking wayward? They’re they’re the truth is, is that what we’re loyal to and what we need to teach our kids to be loyal to is truly Christ. He’s the foundation. He’s got to be the cornerstone of our families. He’s what brings us together. He’s what helps us to forgive each other when things seem like they’re unforgivable. Right. He’s what helps us to keep trying and be faithful in those relationships. It’s because of him, not because of what’s easy. Not because of what is what, what we want or what feels good, but because it’s what Christ calls us to. And so if you have family members that are not walking in the way and are not loyal to Christ, but they are loyal to their idols, then there is going to be difficult to be committed and loyal to them if they’re committed to other idols. And so within your family you cannot allow idols, even idol of self. Instead, we have to cleanse our homes. There needs to be a spiritual housecleaning that happens, and then we need to dedicate it over and over and over again to Christ.

And when it’s founded on that and when it’s founded on loyalty, your conversations are going to be completely surrounded and founded on what Scripture says. It’s not going to be your opinion. It’s not going to be your feelings. Oh, I’m sad when you two fight. So it’s not about your feelings. Although it’s okay for you as a mom to say when they’re in conflict, you’re fighting breaks my heart. But we need to take it back to God. You’re fighting grieves the father’s heart. Let’s go to the word. Let’s read verses such as Proverbs 1717 that says, A friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for adversity. You guys are always going to be in each other’s lives. Do you love Jesus? Yes. Do you love Jesus? Yes. Did he forgive you of your sins? Yes. So now we forgive one another. Like bringing it back to the basic gospel when your kids are four, when they’re two, when they’re seven, when they’re 14. Over and over again, our foundation needs to be a loyalty to what did Jesus do? Let’s try to be like Jesus. And if we’re all trying to be like Jesus within a family, I guarantee you, if your kids are saved and they want to be like Jesus, then there isn’t going to be any. Leaving the church at age 18. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like when I think about that, I go, why does it not need to happen? Because if your kids love Jesus, they aren’t going to leave the church.

So I think family bonds are so important. Other things that that you can do is if we don’t get the home right, we’re not going to go do X, Y, and Z. So canceling things they want to do, canceling, going to hang out with other friends if we don’t have it right in our home. The most important relationships are here. And if we don’t have them right here, we’re not going to nurture them out there. It is that important. We’re going to cancel. We’re going to turn around. They’re fighting in the car on the way to friends house, and you really want to hang out with the mom, or you really want to hang out with the dad? Yeah, you sacrifice, you turn around and you go, you know what? We’re going to cancel that and we’re going to read the Bible at home, and we’re going to have some quiet time, and we’re going to pray, and we’re.

Going to get our relationships.

We’re going to get our. And then we’re going to spend time together, and we’re going to get our relationships, and we’re going to spend time together doing dishes. You know, I wouldn’t make it fun. I would make them work together. You know, it reminds me of another time little children were fighting, and I grabbed one of my t shirts and I made them both wear it. And I think I put I think I wrote, you know, I put a big heart on it or something. You wrote.

Best Friends or something like that.

On the t shirt. And they had to they had to wear the t shirt. They each had.

One arm out.

T shirt, and they had to walk around the house until it didn’t take very long until they were giggling and hey.

But those kids, they’re like best friends today and they’re teenagers, you know? And so I tell you, you guys get creative. You don’t have to do prescriptively the things that we have done. But sometimes it’s helpful to have a conversation with some other parents and hear the different things that they’ve dealt with and the things that they’ve done to try to help cultivate strong relationships. I would say, too, that we need to have a realistic perspective and expectations of our family. We all are sinners. We all struggle with sin at times. So if you see a family, can I just share this? If you see a family on Facebook or on social media somewhere and you’re like, man, they just seem to have it all together, why can I not? Why do my kids fight? Stop it right there. You need to get off social media. Because the truth is, is what you’re seeing is highlights. And there is no such thing as a perfect family. I know, I know for a fact that no family is perfect. Everybody fights at times. There is division in families at times, but when you’re centered on Christ, you work it out. You forgive. You stay committed to one another because you’re committed to Christ. And so is that other person. Yeah. So it’s it’s a matter of obeying the the epistles. Right? It’s a matter of obeying Jesus’s words, forgive lest you be forgiven. That’s huge. If we don’t forgive, we won’t be forgiven. That should be massively convicting to everybody.

Another issue that I see happens that’s so divisive in families is the ageism is because society is set up. There’s things for certain ages everywhere that that then becomes something where kids are only friends with people their age, and anybody below their siblings are not included. And we just don’t do that. We do things in a way. First of all, we’re not putting them in tons of things that are age segregated. They have been at times and things like that, unavoidable. And it’s okay sometimes, as long as it’s not creeping into the culture of your family. And it’s really important that your older children grow up when they’re teenage, like our teenagers, they include their younger siblings not in everything, but they include them enough to where when they go do something on their own, there’s not tears over here. There’s understanding there.

Buckets have been full, so to speak.

Buckets have been full and they understand and they desire to fill those buckets. They desire to spend time with each other. And how do you cultivate that is you don’t allow the normal rhythms. You know, when we talk about normal Christian rhythms, one of the normal Christian rhythms is constantly putting your kids in separated things everywhere. They’re all segregated and then allowing them to only play with people their age and disclude the siblings. And we just we just never have allowed that. Like we it’s just not a practice.

It’s just not a practice that we’ve ever participated in. But instead we’ve cultivated and encouraged putting family relationships first and getting it right first, like Isaac was saying, and and have disciplined ourselves and our family members. If we seem to be giving our best to other people and then giving the family the rest and treating other people poorly, that’s just not accepted. And it’s not being honest. About who we are with other people either. Right. And so families tend to the more you’re with somebody, the more of a chance there is to offend somebody. That’s just the reality of life, because we’re all human. And so getting really good at overlooking sin and not being nitpicky about everything, but also like picking your battles well because you love the relationship. If you can’t overlook something, then you need to do. Matthew 18, which is a whole nother aspect to this conflict, is going to happen within families, even families where everybody loves Jesus. And God gave us a really great instruction list, a guideline of how to deal with conflict. Go read Matthew chapter 18. And it’s important that we raise our kids with that, and that we teach them how to deal with conflict, because it’s not going to end when they leave your home life. When you’re dealing with people and humans, it’s something you have to become versed in. That’s something I’m realizing more and more.

And as children get older, there’s going to be times where they disagree with you or they disagree with something you’re doing. And I think that it’s the parents that spend the time to talk about the whys and talk about things, and also the parents that act in humility when they make a mistake, they sometimes move in a different direction. They actually change their direction because they realize they didn’t understand the whole situation. They were wrong and they apologize to the child. And I think that kind of relationship, a real relationship that’s not just authoritarian. I made a decision. It’s done regardless if I was wrong. That can be harmful. So it’s really important to cultivate strong relationships, especially as they get older. And there’s this thing that Angie and I learned is as they get older, we still stay in parent mode, but it needs to shift into also a coach mode where it’s it’s more talking through things with them, guiding them, being a sounding board and wisdom, while at the same time you’re still the parent and you’re still going to have your lines that you don’t allow to be crossed for their safety and things like that. But you’re shifting a little bit to where they feel respected as humans, as.

They make their own decisions growing.

Older, and you want them to have experience making their own decisions in your home before they launch. So they’re confident in their decision making. And so when they air a little bit, you can have discussions about it and how to do that better in the future. And you know what? You’re becoming that strong wisdom and confidant that is vital.

Yeah. No, it’s so important. You know, one of the things I was just having a conversation with a friend and I hear this all the time, is that people are really struggling with if they should have more kids during these unprecedented times. And we’ve done a podcast all about that. So you got to go find it. Should we be having kids during these times? Right. I think is what we titled it. And I just want to share with you that this verse that we just read about how a brother is born for adversity, and we’re talking about building a support team here, a support system for our kids. The truth is, is that in End Days and that started when Jesus left, it’s going to continually, gradually get worse. Actually, that’s what the Bible says. It’s called birth pains. It does. And then what is birthed is beautiful in the end. But truthfully, it’s going to get worse. That’s just the truth. Contractions get harder, they get tougher, they get stronger. And the truth is, is that when you have children, you need to realize that you’re really giving them a gift. When you welcome a baby into your home and into your family, you are giving them a gift. But you are also giving all of your children a gift because they have another member of their family to love and be loved by, but also supported in hard times. And I think that people aren’t sharing that perspective. That is something that we need to recognize that a brother is born for adversity. There is when there is loyalty, when there is a foundation on Christ and a common ground there, and all the other things in life that potentially happen can come, like they don’t affect you because you have Christ and they have Christ. When you have that kind of a family culture going on, when hard things happen, when people lose jobs, when they lose a child, when they experience sickness, when earthquakes happen, when there is fallout happening in other places, you have a built in support system that you can trust that you know loves Christ.

That’s so key. And I even think this could be a whole nother topic, so I’ll just touch on it. But I even think living in proximity with each other is a value and instilling that it’s okay if people move. They might have careers and jobs and totally fine, but creating a desire to live near each other, I think is important today. Whereas it might not have been so much five years ago or so. I think that is important. That is something I do instill a little bit. No pressure at all. But in instilling the importance of like a vision of helping each other, potentially even doing businesses together and cooperating and helping in different ways and just the proximity. So the question then is, are you living in a place where your adult children would want to live because there’s freedom and things like that? That’s something to think about. But on the child thing, you know, let me ask you a question. Do you believe God is the creator of life? You’re going to say yes. Do you believe that God creates children? Yes. Okay. So are we deciding to have children? No. The only thing we decide is to not have children, actually. Because if we believe God is the creator of children, then God’s creating children. So now there might be a reason, a good reason to not have children. We got to pay attention to the health of our brides and things like that. But I just, you know, so then if God is the creator of life and children and we decide not to not have children and he creates a child, then was that his plan? Mhm. Then that was his plan. So then it would be his plan for that child to live during these times.

No. This is exactly what we all need to be hearing right. Like this encouragement that even if things do get to the place where we’re experiencing this in our home towns, in our villages, in our society, right where brothers turning against brother and father is turning in child and vice versa. The truth is, is if it gets to be that point, like we need to recognize that God did choose us to live in this generation for a reason, for his glory, not for ours. And the same goes for our kids. And he chose you to be the parents raising your child for this time because he trusts you. It doesn’t mean that you have to do it in your own strength. Oh no no no, we need to do everything through Christ strength, which means we need to be even more in the word. We need to be aware of what’s happening in reality in the world, so that we can make wise decisions on what to prioritize time in. Right? For us, we homeschool because we want to be raising our kids to be resilient in the world, and we recognize that we need more time with them. Like, I literally am going, I don’t have enough time to teach you the things I want to teach you.

But I’m also prioritizing discipleship because truthfully, the most resilient, most irreplaceable people for the future are going to be people who have godly integrity. Because the truth be told, those are the people that are going to be desired. They’re going to be the people that are the hardest workers. They have integrity. They’re trustworthy. Like if you’re a business owner, those are the things that you’re going to look for the most in a worker, right? And that stuff does not happen overnight. It doesn’t happen by having them go work on a neighbor’s property for one month in their entire lifetime. Work ethic is taught over the span of their life. It becomes part of who they are, right? Same with being having ingenuity, having this ability to be innovative and and look for solutions. We have to give space and time for our kids to have to deal with problems in order to actually exercise that muscle. Right. And so while we want all of these things foundationally, we have to understand God put our families together, and he equipped every single person differently to be a part of a member of a body. And that is practice for the body of Christ.

Wow, you just said something powerful and we’re about out of time. But I do want to say it, this might be a whole nother episode, which is everybody’s wired differently, and we’ve actually trained our children specifically on how they are wired differently. We’ve used an assessment and it’s just it’s just so important to understand, know people really are different. They perceive things differently in communication. They receive words differently than you do, and it means different things. And so understanding the differences, our children really have a pretty keen awareness of the beautiful differences and how God made them. One is more practical, one is more intuitive, one more is a doer and doesn’t really like to look at the instructions first. And these kinds of things, there’s just different basic concepts. One is way more relational, has way more words to get out. The other one, you know, we’ll never get words out unless the relational one understands. They need to pause and ask questions and wait and not fill the silence. Right? These kinds of concepts as your children get older is really, really important. So there’s so much I feel like we just hit the tip of the iceberg on actually cultivating loyalty and in these things, but it is so important because we really see things accelerating and there’s going to be greater division on the horizon, and we just don’t want to be in your family.

We hope that we can impact 10 million families with your help. And so we also need your help. So be courageous. Ministry.org. If you feel in your heart to give, we need that. The ministry needs more support and we’re excited about that. And we’re pouring out and we’re finding new ways to do that. But if you would contemplate that, maybe you’re in giving and whatever you’re thinking about doing, this is a ministry where we’re staying the course, we’re 100% committed, and we will lead unapologetically, speak unapologetically about biblical truth and how that’s relevant to the parenting with the times and the issues of today. And we’re so committed to that. And so I hope you would think about that. Also, another way you can just spend the same money is just switch where you buy coffee. Be courageous. Coffee is amazing. It’s the only coffee we drink. We absolutely love it. I’m trying to drink a little less because I love it too much, but you know it’s a good time. So hey, thanks for listening and being part of the ministry.

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.

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. 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 and the Be Courageous app, live webcasts, 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.