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Parenting doesn’t end when your child has left home physically. The Lord didn’t call us to parent our children until they turn eighteen. The Lord calls us to a commitment of a lifetime—our contribution to and influence over our children is lifelong. A little time spent in the Book of Proverbs will show you that the counsel of elders—especially elderly parents—is a distilled, priceless, and ongoing source of teaching for the next generation.
My seminary professor, Howard Hendricks, used to say, “You only know the quality of your parenting when you see what your grandchildren become.” Ultimately, the Bible threads together not only the parenting relationship between you and your children, but between you and your grandchildren.
You as a parent are a craftsman for God.
The past can’t be changed, but the present is God’s workshop for making masterpieces anyway. At our fingertips, we always hold the opportunity to set a new direction, to make changes, and to follow through. And He is ready to work through every moment.
That night I stumbled onto a breakthrough of my own. I discovered that a massive number of Christian family members are locked in chains of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred, and vengeance. The Lord showed me—showed all of us in the room that night—how this injury between a child and a parent keeps family relationships in the dungeon and puts a halt to spiritual maturity.
To understand how a soul wound might be affecting your child, consider what happens when you sustain a wound, let’s say a deep cut to your arm. You become very protective of that arm. Get bumped in an elevator on your new stitches, and you wince and back hastily towards the corner. Get intentionally struck, and you’re likely to get angry. And if another person, situation, or object is responsible for that wound, you’ll avoid that source at whatever cost.
The root of an apparent, highly resistant spiritual problem may be a hidden, deeply rooted emotional one.
The same responses apply to emotional and spiritual wounds. If your child has received a heart wound from you or his other parent (or both), he will intuitively put up dividing walls, remaining aloof regardless of what you say or do. Why? Because he’s seeking the safety of distance rather than the risk of intimacy. He may express sudden anger or overreact in a variety of ways. He may spiral into self-destructive behavior.
A common indication in a child of a hidden soul wound is that the child tries to salve his or her pain in wrong places and with destructive intensity.
Jacob?
Even if you think the answer might be a yes, I urge you to count on the fact that your child has a root of unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, hidden hatred, and even vengeance toward you. Your child loves you (God created him or her to love you and need you), but because of the injury, he or she also hates you. You’ll get nowhere until you face the wound and deal with it together. And a wonderful spiritual breakthrough is waiting for you when you do.
Remember as you go through this chapter that not only do you have children, but you also are a child. Hidden in your own heart may be a similar wound. If such a wound exists and you are willing to deal with it now, I guarantee that many confusing, frustrating, and hurtful things in your life will soon become clear.
Yet I believe that the occasions when a Christ-honoring parent wounds his child intentionally are infrequent. In my experience, most wounding is caused by a parent who is living apart from the Lord to some degree.
Conflict occurs between the need of the child for the parent and the need of the parent for personal peace, pleasure, and possessions.
Guilt feelings fade rapidly as familiarity with the problem grows, even with a determination to do something about the problem. But that’s before anything has actually changed. And once the unwanted feelings are gone, so is the motivation.
Both of these passages show us that the sin of fathers in turning away from the Lord and to disobedience is directly related to the fathers’ turning their hearts away from their children.
Sin toward God produces sin toward one’s children. Hardness of heart toward God produces hardness of heart toward one’s children. Turning away from God leads to turning away from one’s offspring. A broken relationship with the Lord may eventually lead to a broken relationship with your child. The relationship parents have with the Lord is always the root and controlling factor that determines the type of relationship they have with their child.
I sincerely believe that until Christians understand and fully embrace First Chair living, they will always struggle with their role as parent. Until they move into the First Chair, become committed to the Lord above self, and then embrace His goal of raising “godly offspring” as a parent’s most important goal, they will forever experience double-mindedness, frustration, and even depression.
There’s an ancient Chinese saying about facing your fears: “Always run toward the dragon.” That might sound like cocky advice to you, but every Chinese boy knows what it means. They think of Chinese New Year celebrations, when boys like to dash around trailing dragon kites tied to little sticks. The colorful paper kites stream out behind them, filled like a wind sock at an airport. In parades, teams of men run through the streets holding up giant, blocks-long versions of the same dragon kites. If they keep running, the dragon rides high and huge, filled with air. If they turn and run toward
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And in order to heal soul wounds with your own children, you too must find healing for any wounds with your own parents.
She paused as if to gather courage. “And, I knew that my mother would never apologize for what she’s done.” Tears welled up in her eyes.
In order to heal soul wounds with your own children, you too must find healing for any wounds with your own parents.
By God’s grace, the healing in this family was going to spread through three generations. You see, once the child in you, the parent, becomes a candidate for healing, the legacy of wounding which you dread can be exchanged for a legacy of love. Your children will inherit blessing from you instead of blight.
Remember the cleansing steps we took in chapter 5? Wounds are specific, so forgiveness must be specific. Proceed through your conversation with the assumption that you must treat numerous pockets of injury and unforgiveness one at a time.
It’s the rare family that doesn’t need at least one of these “heart-cleansings” from the years of parenting. Sometimes the wounds are known, but many times, they lay buried beneath layers of emotional scabbing that must ultimately be broken through for the infection to be released.
Pain buried alive never dies.
When the hurt is released, the heart can embrace.
The truth as they have lived it is stored away in their bones somewhere, even if it’s not on the tip of their tongue.
Take courage. On this path of speaking the truth in love and forgiveness, God has a spiritual breakthrough waiting for you of joy nearly unspeakable!
A choice that can change a life? Absolutely! What that reporter almost missed is that our lives, from one end to the other, are a sum of our commitments. If you could turn around and look back over your life right now, you would see it mapped out by turning points that got you where you are today. You went left instead of right. You said yes instead of no. You left behind dozens of decent options; one, you embraced.
