It’s more important than ever to be able to hear the Holy Spirits’ promptings to parent well in these changing times. Buckle your seat belt for a fast-paced episode with practical insights on going beyond our finite minds to make improved decisions for our family during uncertain times.

Main Points From This Episode:

• God is only good and wants you to make good decisions, so ask Him when it’s hard to see what to do.
• If you are walking strong with the Lord, trust those gut feelings
• You don’t always have to know why you are making your decision, you are the parent and God will guide you.
• The speed of change in the world makes hearing from God even more important as a provider and protector.
• Trusting others is hard, but we have to be careful not to be too guarded in our relationships.

Scripture From This Episode:

Ephesians 6:17-18 – “and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”

1 John 4:1 – “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

1 Corinthians 2:12-13 – “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

Habakkuk 1:1-5 – “The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. ‘Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.'”

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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 I’m Isaac from Resolute.

Man, we’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and following. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. Hey, guys, so glad you’re here. We have a very important topic when it comes to parenting that involves the Holy Spirit.

That’s right. I mean, have you ever had just a bad feeling maybe when you when you upon meeting someone or you have a bad feeling about saying yes to your child, going to a specific event, or you just have like these gut, a lot of times people call them gut instinct type of situations. And if you do, today’s podcast is going to speak to you because we’re going to actually encourage you on the biblical perspective of what those feelings, if you will, or insights or gut reactions are.

And I think it’s a tough one because sometimes we’re feeling that pressure a little bit from our kids, especially if they get older and they want to go do things or something like that. And when we don’t have a why we feel the way we do. It’s hard to stay the course with it, isn’t it? Yeah, but we need to sometimes.

And I would also say that there’s even this level of parental peer pressure, as I like to call it, where sometimes you feel pressure by other parents. Yeah. To say yes to certain things or to say no to certain things that you know are actually going to be really fruitful for your kids. And so we’re going to dive into that in just a moment. But we just wanted to say thank you, you guys. We have there’s been a lot happening in the ministry lately, right? We launched coffee. We launched a new website. Be courageous ministry dot org dot org is super important. And coffee you can also find there or it be courageous coffee dot com but there’s been so much going on and you guys have been so killer like amazing so supportive. We’re blown away right we’re.

Blown away that just a quick on the coffee launch if you’re part of that thank you so much. If not, it’s okay We appreciate you just listening to the podcast and praying for us and everything that’s going on. Yeah, but it’s it’s not just about coffee, but the reason it was this most important reason it was a success is because customers are loving the coffee. It’s been an upgrade to their experience. There’s so many positive reviews and it’s just been incredible. That’s really important to us as we’re part of the parallel economy that we are putting out products that are excellent, right? And that’s really important to us so that it means it was a success and people are loving the coffee. So we appreciate that. And every SIP supports the 10 million Legacies movement because we’re for profit and doing that. Go listen to the video A be courageous ministry dot org if you haven’t already. It’s about 3 minutes. It is super important to understand why we’re doing things a little differently than you might see other ministries doing things. And if it causes you to pause and go, why in the world they do in coffee, especially if you don’t drink coffee, you’re like, Why would they do coffee? Maybe you need to go listen to that. And I think you’ll not only understand, but you’ll be like, regardless of whether you like coffee or not, you’re going to be like, Go, let’s go, let’s do this together.

Yeah, it’s pretty cool. And for those of you who know our son, Austin is our podcast editor, he has been doing that since four years now, actually for four years. He helps us with all of our video expertise type of things and be courageous. Coffee is actually employed. Our daughter Megan, who graduated high school. And so this is this is an exciting thing that has helped them to be able to do certain things. I know that Megan is saving to do her DULA certificate. Some of you guys are curious, like, what’s next for Megan? Maybe we’ll do a podcast with her. One thing that she is doing is she’s going to start doing dual certification in a couple of months here, and so that’s super exciting. So she’s saving for that. And, you know, there’s all kinds of extra things that we’re hopeful to be able to do with our kids down the road as we’re teaching them entrepreneurship. And I think that for us, like our heart is that we would be leaving a legacy of our kids, not as they grow up and they become citizens and productive citizens in society. I’m sure that you would agree with us that they would be contributing to society. Things that are worth that are bring worth to the community. And this is just one way we do that. And we couldn’t do that without you. So thanks.

Well, hey, let’s dive into it, trusting the Holy Spirit’s promptings. And when is it the Holy Spirit and when is it just ourselves? And when do we trust it? Not in these kinds of things are important to know. You know, I was reading to the family this morning in a family meeting in the morning, Habakkuk and such a good relevant book for right now. He goes on in the first part, it’s a prophecy and he’s just talking about, you know, why do you make me see iniquity and why do you idly look at wrong? So this is a complaint to God, essentially. And I think sometimes we can have that camp. We were like, There’s so many awful things happening in the world and you know, what’s God doing? And of course we know when we go back to our word, we’re like, Well, God is all powerful, a loving, incredible. We trust him. Right. But sometimes we can have those moments that I.

Can relate to have a cook in this, because I have actually cried out to God that that same exact first two verses many times. Because I know I have the gift of spiritual discernment. There have been many times where I’ve even asked God to take that away because it’s not. You don’t like seeing sin, right?

And then negative and then it says verse one four. So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth. And for the wicked surround the righteous. So justice goes forth. Perverted, Right. So just a little complaint there. Sometimes you can look at the news and you can think what is going on. And so was Habakkuk. But then the Lord answered, The Lord answered, I’m going to give you the very first part of the answer. You can read the rest In verse five, it says, Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told so. We’re finite in our minds and what we can see and understand. We can understand spiritual things because this Holy Spirit is in us and we have the Bible and more we lean into that, the more we can get out of our finite ness and understand the infinite God and what He’s doing. But He reveals but what he’s saying right here is, even as Christians, we don’t fully comprehend all that God’s doing. And so we trust God is doing an amazing good work that we couldn’t even comprehend.

So good. It’s so good. It’s encouraging. I think that a lot of parents probably need this today because I know that for me it’s easy. Especially, you know, I’m married to a man that loves being informed about geopolitical things that are happening around the world. And so he’ll he’s always sharing every morning. I feel like there’s something that he shares either with us at the table or we talk about at night before we go to bed. And it’s interesting to both of us, but I see that as a I don’t know if it’s just how I’m wired or because I’m a woman. It definitely weighs heavier on my heart than it does to Isaac, you know, And so this is a very encouraging word. And I think that there there is. And the Bible also says those who advise me see and those who have ears may hear. And I think that there is an element for sure today that if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you’re going to see what’s happening in the world even differently than other people are seeing it happen. Do you know what I mean? And that can lead parents to want to like, Oh, bring all my chicks. I don’t know if you guys watch my insta stories, but last hour, chicken just hatched chicks in the middle of the night last night and they were still in eggs.

And there was a little crack and a little beak was sticking out of one of the eggs last night when we went down to check on them and Drew pulled it out from underneath the chicken to show it to me so I could do an insta story. And the hen took her little beak and pecked at him and like, tucked it back under her right away. Isn’t that how we as moms feel with our our babies, our our kids, especially when they’re littler? We just want to, like, tuck them back under where it’s warm and safe and protected, don’t we? And yes, if you listen to last week’s podcast that was really summing up, what the podcast was about, is that we as parents need to understand it’s our jurisdiction to rise up and to protect and shield from harm and aim to preserve our children’s sexual innocence. That was what last week’s podcast was on. This is not just about like sexual innocence. This is about trusting the Holy Spirit that is within us and the promptings that He gives us as parents when we do need to bring things back, when we do need to say no to certain events, or we need to literally say no, you can’t hang out with that child anymore or what have you. And those are hard things to do as a parent.

They are they.

Are saying no is hard.

It is. And sometimes it needs to be the full sentence. But it is hard because we don’t want to hurt relationships with other people and we don’t always know why we’re saying no even. And it’s important also not to make things up if the Spirit’s prompting us and just make up some other reasons. So so I think maybe we need to get good as Christians to Christians saying, you know what? Know this time. And, you know, I just feel like this the spirit is telling me that, you know, we’re going to do something else instead of going to this or something like that. And, you know, I think that we need to be spirit when we’re together with other Christians. It’s okay to talk in spiritual language. You know, we were just talking to our kids about this the other night. It’s like when we do hospitality, there should be spiritual components to hospitality, and that’s really important, right? So our first point for you guys is trust the gut feeling. I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already. Is the date night one sheet? It is a beautiful document. Download that well has some key questions on it for your date night to just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to parenting dot com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at courageous parenting dot com. And I also just want to share real quick about the parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it. You can find out more at courageous parenting dot com.

Steve and I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.

But Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications.

This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of the heart. We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children, and we have so many answers.

To the questions that have been in our.

Mind. It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

So we have a scripture for you guys in First Corinthians. And I really want to read a little bit more than what we were going to be teaching.

That’s usually the case.

I just love the word so relevant. So flip with me. If you can’t First Corinthians chapter two, we’re highlighting verse 12 and 13, but I really want to start at six says, Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom. I hope you’re spiritually mature, and if not, I hope you’re pursuing spiritual maturity because it says yet among the mature we do impart wisdom. Although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away, this is a good reminder. It goes along with Habakkuk, it goes right along with that. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understand this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. But as it is written, what No, I have seen, nor ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him. If you love him, God has some amazing things planned for you and for your family. You have to trust that these things that God has revealed to us, this is verse ten, these things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God, verse 11, for who knows a person’s thought except the spirit of that person, which is in him question mark. So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God, and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. That was verse 13 so powerful.

Sometimes we can have a more academic side to our faith, which is fine. Learning and knowledge is super awesome, but we also want that relational side with God too. Both are really important and you might be asking, some of your listening are like, Yeah, I hear from God all the time. Some of you like, Yeah, I’ve had some of those really awesome moments where I hear from God and some of you like, Hey folks, I love God and I don’t necessarily hear from God. I’m not talking about audible hearing, but it’s it’s.

Like, do you understand when you’re reading.

The words, speaking through our minds about something prompting us and something feeling a heart reaction to something, a gut feeling. And, you know, these things are prompted by God, but you might be feeling No, those are usually my promptings and I don’t really feel prompted by God. And so I think everybody’s on a journey with the Lord, and I would just encourage all of us to, wherever we’re at, is to lean in to God even more. And the reason is because these times we’re in parenting is harder.

It requires spiritual discernment.

Marriage is harder, providing is harder. All of these things. We’re not to have fear. We’re to have joy in our hearts and to walk strong and to share the gospel with people. But persecution is increased even in America, right? So what? So it is more important than ever as a parent that we’re leaning into God, that we’re hearing from God, because the problems you’re going to experience are not always problems we can solve with our head knowledge, because they’re they’re more vast, they’re more often and they’re more complex. These situational things with friendships and places our kids go for activities or school or influences in their lives and these kinds of things. Which decision do we make? We want them, well, socialized, but at the same time we want to protect them. We want to gradually help them understand and equip them for the world so we can’t just shield it from them all the time. But at the same time we don’t want them to go wayward. All these thoughts that can go in our head, but. You know what? There is no single person. Isaac and Angie are going to tell you every answer. You know, it is the spirit of God. We have an infinite God that can see way far ahead in all your situations, can see everything. And so the point is, we need to lean in to God. We need to be in the word and talking to God more and more sincerely than ever before so that we can hear the Holy Spirit’s promptings that may already be there. But you’re just totally unaware.

And I think, too, there’s an element of crowdedness that can happen at times. I’m just going to share real transparently with you. One of the things that I learned many years ago regarding the gift of spiritual discernment, because I have had it since I was very young and obviously because of growth and spiritual maturity, it’s definitely grown like that gift has grown. And I believe that God has. He trusts me more with more things in that sense. And we have to we have we are tested often not tempted by God. The devil tempts, but God does test us sometimes to see if he can trust us. And we should be all as believers, praying diligently for God to bestow all of His spiritual gifts. Is he going to give them to one person? Well, the Bible says he disperse them among the whole for the edification of the whole. So I have a personal belief based upon that scripture that he doesn’t give one person all of the spiritual gifts so that we rely on one another. But the gift of spiritual discernment is one of those that God chose to give to me. And yeah, I have prayed like Habakkuk, Lord, would you give this away? Because it can be burdensome at times, it can be heavy at times when you sense there’s no way to describe it with words. How how you sense something just off in a person or, you know, a lot of times it’s interesting because one of the ways that has been difficult for me is when like a man can’t make eye contact.

That’s oftentimes it’s something that I can just discern that there’s some kind of sin or something going on. And when I can tell when people are lying very easily. And that’s difficult, right? Because you you don’t want to just be like, oh, I know you’re lying. You don’t want to just say, oh, are you struggling with sexual assent? Like, you can’t just do that. Right? But I do believe now that I’ve been married for 23 years and have had nine children over and over again. Sadly, the the sins or the issues have become apparent years later. They were exposed. And I just look back and I thank God and I praise him because I know that God has actually protected my family because I had that that bad feeling. And I kind of put up boundaries and I did, if you will, as a mom again, to many young children, I did kind of tuck them in and preserve them and go, nope, we’re not going to be spending time with this person. Nope. And I’d bring things back, and I can’t tell you how many times I wish I would have encouraged other young moms to walk in the kind of confidence that we’re supposed to have in the Holy Spirit, walk in the confidence of who we are in Christ. That in those moments when you have a bad feeling, if you will, to to listen to that and to to bring your chicks.

Back, it’s so important. And as in marriage, it’s important to trust your spouse. If they have a feeling about something and even if they can’t explain it to not belittle them, make fun of it, and instead to trust it. To realize that God might be speaking to your spouse in a way that actually prevents something harmful, being exposed to your kids or happening to your kids and these kinds of things. We don’t want to be the worrier. That’s not what we’re talking about. But to to trust that there’s a prompting there I think is really important.

You know, it’s interesting. So what I was going to share with you, I think one of the most important things that goes along with this whole concept of like, you know, really being in the word right, trusting the gut, feeling, walking strongly relationally with God is the most important thing regarding this, because I’ll just confess, those times when it’s spiritual discernment is when I’m walking with God, when I’m not walking strong with him, meaning I’m not saturated in the Word and the Holy Spirit is not activated in my life. Maybe I’m going through a dry season because I have had those in my Christian walk. Those are the times where that spiritual gift actually manifests itself more as me having a critical spirit or being overly judgmental. Tol And I say that because I think that it’s important that we responsibly steward the gifts that God has given us and we’re honest about. Have I been in the Word today? Am I just worrying and anxious? Am I having a critical spirit because I’m in my flesh more, or have I been really in the word and I’m experiencing the joy of the Lord and all of a sudden I meet someone and I have a bad experience for a second. And I think that, you know, the next two verses in that scripture I was sharing are actually really important and speak to this. It’s it’s first Corinthians chapter two, still verse 14. It says, The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God. Yeah. Don’t we see that happening everywhere in society today? The person that’s natural does not accept the things from the Spirit of God, for they are folly to Him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So that’s huge. It is huge. And sometimes there’s people that say they’re Christians and you even experience this with them. And it’s never our job to judge somebody’s salvation, only God knows. But we are to discern, look at fruit in and to have different levels of trust for people based on their understanding of spiritual things.

Right. And verse 14, this is super important because you know that that lie that’s out there from the I believe that it’s started with a progressive movement that has seeped into the church, this this lie that all Christians are so judgmental and that’s not Christian, that that lie. Right. Because we’ve gone over this. It’s in it’s actually in first Corinthians where it says, aren’t you to judge inside the church? Who are you to judge outside the church? We went over that in the very last podcast. You can go listen to that. But verse 15 here, right? First Corinthians chapter two says, The spiritual person judges all things.

Mm hmm.

That verse alone, like standing alone, the spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. Why would he be judged by no one? Because he judges all things and he uses spiritual discernment, like it was talking about in verse 14. Right? The spiritual person judges things. Therefore he’s walking more up rightly because he’s listening to that, and then there’s less to be judged in him.

And sometimes really.

Amazing.

Something that can really block Walking strong in relationship with God and hearing from the Holy Spirit is on repented sin. So is there sin in your life as a parent that is preventing you from hearing from God? If you’re frustrated because you feel like you’re just not, you’re in that dry spell that Angie maybe talked about. That could be a reason. It could be over busyness to just not getting that quiet time. And hey, Angie certainly understands having babies and having a hard time finding time. But you know what? If it’s really important to you.

You make.

Time. You always find a way. And so finding a way to get some of that time and sometimes spouses, husbands certainly need to help with that around their provision activities and things like that. So it’s super, super important. We need to we need to trust our gut feeling, but we need to be walking strong with the Lord. And in fact, I would go against that first point and I would say you might question your gut feeling if you’re not walking strong with the Lord because it might just be anxiety, worry and unfair judgment.

That’s true. And it’s interesting, the very last verse in this chapter says, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. I say that because Romans 12 tells us that we can have our minds renewed by the washing of the word, by being in the word, which is the Bible, and that our minds are actually renewed as we read the Bible. And this is literally telling us that we have the mind of Christ. Guys, that’s so powerful. If you are having your mind renewed and you’re not walking in the flesh, but you’re walking in the spirit as Scripture tells us to, as it literally commands us to, we can have the mind of Christ. That means that we can trust the spiritual gift because it’s not of us, it’s of God. And so when we sense something and we hear the promptings, like like when I when I say hear the promptings, I’m not talking about like an audible voice like Isaac says. I’m literally like, are you able to recall scripture that would convict you or shine a judgment, a spiritual discernment, warning, warning sign in your head because of the scripture that you’ve read.

Like, for example, let’s say you’re at a soccer game and you hear someone who claims to be a Christian. Maybe it’s the coach of your team, maybe it’s just another parent that said, Oh yeah, we go to this church and you’re starting to like build up a friendship, and then you hear them during the soccer game, start cursing or saying things like that are that are using the Lord’s name in vain. You would judge that actually, because the spirit says and scripture that I just read says that you will judge all things actually, and what judgment would come in your mind would be, Oh, that person’s cussing. And scripture tells me not to cuss or to take part in crude, just jesting or crude joking, coarse jesting, right? So the scriptures are going to be recalled in your mind, and it’s the Scripture actually in your mind having the mind of Christ, because you have his words in your mind and on your heart that you get this icky feeling being around the person that’s cussing. Do you see do you see how that spiritual discernment, that’s actually what you want to encourage in your children?

Here’s a scripture right here in first, John, for one that I would even teach to your children. Super important, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many, false prophets have gone out into the world, and I think I’m just going to read more. It’s so important by this, you know, the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come into the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children. You are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. So the Holy Spirit in you is greater than the Antichrist. They are from the world. Therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So if people do not reason with sound doctrine and spiritual truths, then you start to understand.

Yeah, I love that scripture. I’m so surprised that you went beyond what we had discussed.

Well, you know, I look at the analytics and on the business side of the ministry, and once it goes over that 35 minute mark, the number of listeners decreases exponentially.

Oh, but you guys, I love that we’re digging into so much of the word because we really want to just point you more to him, not to.

Hey.

Man. So, you know, there is this need of understanding that, yes, we as humans are finite, like Isaac said at the very beginning, but God is a supernatural God and his spirit is supernatural and it can reside in us. It should be residing in us if we’re believers. Yeah. And to trust. It’s not that we’re trusting our gut. Actually. Can I just say that that’s not biblical, That meaning that that terminology is not in the Bible. So that would that terminology, that vocabulary would not be found in the Bible. Trust your gut. What is biblical is walk with Jesus and have confidence and trust that Jesus in you is going to lead you in a way that you can trust. Yeah, You know, Do you see what I’m saying? And so it’s God in you that we trust it’s not you, right? That that would be more biblical walk. Not in the flesh. Walk in the spirit. More of Jesus, less of us.

Hey, our next point is the speed of change. Things are accelerating. Change is happening faster. And here’s just a real practical reason. We want to be trusting the Holy Spirit’s promptings and be able to hear the Holy Spirit’s promptings, especially if you’re the husband. This is important for husbands and wives equally, of course. But I do want to speak to the husbands for a second. If you’re a provider in your family, you need to be listening to the Holy Spirit’s promptings because financial situations, how money comes to your family could be disrupted, could be upended, could be changing. There might be a need for a different source of income and these kinds of things. But it is way better if we understand those things before we have to understand these things. We can take action before our family is compromised financially and these kinds of things. So we have to be listening to the Holy Spirit, asking God for wisdom, walking strong in the Lord so we can hear, so we can pivot and make changes, adjustments in anticipation of a feeling we have of something that might happen. In fact, that is why we, for the ministry sake, did coffee, for example.

It is not needed at this very moment, but it is helpful right now and it will be required in the future. We just have this feeling, this conviction about it and other things that we need to do. So that is really important for provision. How about for protection? Are you listening to the spirit? This goes for both, obviously to protect your family, to protect your children, to to make sure we’re doing the best we can in protection. How about loving, well, loving our families? Well, well, if we’re listening to the Holy Spirit, it gives us the courage to have a tough. Conversation. It gives us the confidence in the the maybe the the extra oomph we needed to follow through and to have that conversation that in our flash we feel like might be too dangerous to have of somebody. But then the spirit prompts us, know this is real love. Do it in a loving way. But you need to talk about this because if it’s not spoken, you’re kind of through a mission allowing wrong things to happen with people you love. So we need to be in love by listening to the Holy Spirit super important.

I love that. Isaac I think that there’s also this element of understanding that the world is changing rapidly as well, like you were just talking about that. But because of that, we need to be willing to shift in our parenting. We need to be willing to make. To make such big changes that we’re literally having to sit at the table with our kids and go, We used to do this, but we’re no longer doing this. And this is why. And I cannot.

Stress.

To you enough how important the Y is if you’re able to bring it back to the Lord and how you want to live your life and how you want them to be raised and how you want them to be and how the influences and all the things you are literally impacting generations because you’re teaching your children leadership. And this this concept needs to be taught. Let me give you an example. When I was a little girl, I used to go over to my great grandma’s house during the summers because, of course, we were out of school. I was raised going public school and I was at a school in the summer and my great grandmother would take care of us. She was in her late seventies and eighties and early nineties as I was growing up. She died when she was 93 and she was raised during the Great Depression. And so she when she would take care of us, it was very different than how I was being raised in a lot of ways. But she took care of us most summers while my mom and dad were working. And I remember at one point when I was a teenager having this really sour attitude about the things that she was trying to have me do. She was having me contribute, but she was she was doing a Titus two jobs. She wanted me to be doing dishes, folding laundry, gardening, all of the cooking, all of these, like domestic things. And I was in my heart rebellious against doing those things because I didn’t have the right perspective. I wasn’t taught the right perspective. I wasn’t taught.

This is actually a Titus two thing Gramma is called to do, to teach you to know how to do these things, because you’ll need to know how to do them when you’re older. And I remember being like mad because my brother was learning things that I thought were cooler, like how to chop wood and different things like that. And and I remember complaining to my mom about this. I was probably 11 or 12 and thinking, she just doesn’t love me. And I’m sharing this brief story with you guys because sometimes kids have that perspective when you change things up, when you’re when you change things up and you start becoming more intentional because you’re like, okay, the world is changing. We need to start gardening now. We need to start chopping wood. We need to do all these changes. And maybe your kids are used to playing video games for 4 hours a day and they’re used to playing sports and and activity after activity in the world revolving around them. And it being a child centric home and you’re like, Whoa, we need to hold up the horses because we can’t do both. And the world is changing and we need to become more independent and self-sufficient and we need to grow our own food. And that means the whole family has to work. And maybe you’re getting some attitudes. I get that because I was that kid and I’m telling you, telling your child the why, why biblically and giving them perspective. And I am preparing you for your world that you’re launching into. You have to tell them the why.

Amen. Amen. And trusting people is hard as our last point. Yeah, it is. We just wanted to kind of level with you. It’s true. It is hard to trust people. And you know what?

It’s hard.

It’s getting a little harder. Actually. It feels like at least this is my own personal thing, is it’s. It’s feeling hard and I wrestle with that. And but I also know we need to trust people unless they give us a reason not to trust them. Like we need to put a good foot forward, but we need to be discerning and we need to build a circle of influence that is productive, loving and safe for our families, for our children and so forth. And let’s not be too guarded in our relationships because of past hurts and things like that. And but let’s be discerning at the same time. There’s a balance, isn’t there? And I think that Ephesians, the harm or God has so much to do with this whole thing. I’m just going to read it if you guys don’t mind. Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, but we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm, stand there for having fastened on the belt of truth, and have you put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the Gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplications for all the saints, and also for me that words may be given to me and opening my mouth. Boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. There’s Paul right at the end of that. A lot of times that gets cut off when we kind of quote the armor of God. But the end of that, Paul’s like asking. And also for me, don’t forget about me that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. So if you want to stand firm, if you want to be bold, if you want to understand the timing, to do that, and trusting the spirit and hearing from the spirit, we need to be walking strong with the Lord. We need to have the Sword of the Spirit open, which is the Bible.

And I think it’s interesting when you were reading this and you finished with what Paul is praying and asking God, he’s beseeching him, He’s saying, Lord, would you help me to be bold? I think that what that lays a strong impression upon my heart is that we don’t just put on the armor of God so that we’re protected, so that we don’t suffer harm, so that we don’t so we can deviate our schedule and our plan away from things that are going to be harmful. That’s not the purpose of the armor of God. The purpose of the armor of God is so that we can confidently be boldly standing firm like Paul saying, that’s actually what he’s saying, like help me to have these things so that I can help me to be bold. And that should be our prayer for us, for our children, for our parents. Yeah, the grandparents. You need to be praying for great grandparents if they’re alive, like pray for their influence that they they would know Jesus on such a firm, strong foundation level that they’re speaking truth to your kids and praying for them. I think also that there are times when it comes to trusting other people. Isaac This last point, when we’re talking about the armor of God, the thing that is so hard is that, one, when you’re passionate about the Great Commission and you’re passionate about evangelism and we’re talking about like protecting our kids from harm, and we’re talking about having spiritual discernment in the people that we trust and we’re bringing all these things in.

There’s also this part of us as Christians, we are called to the Great Commission. We’re called to make disciples. We’re called to open up our lives, to be hospitable. We’ve talked about this so many times, and we don’t want to isolate from the world. We don’t want to shut the world out, because letting people in is how they know who Jesus is and how transformation that’s God can use our families to bring transformation into people’s lives. Right. But there is this element of like, you don’t ever do that to the level of sacrificing your family. And I see that happening at ministry levels. I see that happening in so many people’s homes because they put other people and and the thought of being used by God and them coming to Christ, they put that before doing diligent work in their furniture, which is their family. And there is a way that you can do both well, but you have to use discernment. You have to be willing to say no at times and to have boundaries in within being in ministry. And so it’s going to look different for every family. It’s not cookie cutter, but you cannot sacrifice your first ministry, otherwise you’re disqualified from the race, right? Yeah. So I just want to bring that up. Like there’s this element of like as we’re going through this, yes, we want to be people who are expendable, but protect your kids.

Amen. Thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom dot com for free online workshops, blog posts, and best selling courses. 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 with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

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