Over the past year, the Lord has taught me a lot about myself. I pray He teaches me much more in all the situations He has ordained recently. But one of the big ones that He has shown me is that I love control. It’s a multifaceted problem for me because it affects every area of my life. I want control in any place I can get it. Control makes me feel safe. It makes me feel like I’m in charge of my life. I have always dealt with a ton of anxiety, since small childhood-and part of that is the factor of control. As a kiddo when things are scary you crave control to bring it back into order and away from chaos. And that’s “natural” to do, but it can bring such imprisonment. I’m nowhere near being free from the desire to control, but I praise God He has shown me that it’s there.
I was searching this morning online to read about that particular idol. I came across Ted Tripp’s website where he had an article about that very thing. But it had a link at the top to the idol of success, For whatever reason, I didn’t end up reading the article I went there for but went to this one, even though I didn’t feel like it “pertained” to me. He started talking about in parenting how we approach it with a sense of ownership, that these are our children and obedience in our right. I’d say to my own life, absolutely I feel that way. I feel obedience is my “right” from my kids. But he said that having that assumption paves the way for our identity to get wrapped up in our kids. We need them to be what they should be so that we can feel a sense of achievement and success. We look at our children as trophies. We want to display them as a testimony of a job well done. And then when they fail to live up to our expectations, we find ourselves not grieving for and fighting for them, but angry at them and fighting against them.
Oh how I struggle with this. The one thing as a girl growing up that I wanted to be was a wife and a mom. And because I didn’t have the best relationship with my mom, I determined to be everything my mama wasn’t for me. I was determined to be a good mom. I knew things I would never do to my kids and I had a plan. Fast forward to having 3 kids and I find myself doing the very things I said I wouldn’t do. I desire so badly to be the best mom I can be for my kids but that’s been my life and my identity instead of Christ alone being that. And I get it, how hard is it not to do this? I was thinking about our culture and I don’t know how you can see it another way. We judge how good a parent is by their kids all the time. When we see kids in the grocery store throwing tantrums, what do we do? We look at the mom and cast judgment.. “if that was my kid I would do ___” or “I can’t believe she is letting him act that way” or “she must not spank him” etc.. on and on we cast judgment. Rebellious teens, what do we do with them? We judge their parents yet again.. “there isn’t any discipline in the home” or “they let them watch Disney channel” or “they let them celebrate Halloween” . I mean we come up with any and every answer as to why those kids are that way, and it all comes back to the parent. And don’t get me wrong in what I’m saying, our choices as parents most certainly affect our children and we are held accountable to God for raising them the best way we can according to His word. But in the body of Christ, for the most party, we’re doing the best we can and tryin to honor God and His word and raise them the right way. I just mean that specifically we cast so much blame on the parents when we have to understand that these are little people, little humans with a flesh and will of their own. And those who are His will find their way to Him. He won’t let them go.
These kids don’t belong to us. Ted Tripp says, they’re not given to us to bring us glory, but Him. Our kids are from Him and they exist through Him. We’re agents to accomplish His plans. We’re instruments in His hands. And He uses such weak vessels to bring light to our children. Ted goes on to say in the article that whenever parenting is reduced to our hard work, the child’s performance, and the reputation of the family, it becomes very hard for us to respond with selfless faithfulness in the face of our child’s failure. Instead of leading our children to Christ once again when they fail, we’ll beat them with our words. Instead of loving them, we’ll reject them. Instead of speaking words of hope, we’ll condemn. Our feelings will be flooded much more with our own embarrassment, anger and hurt than with grief over our wayward child’s standing with God. I know for myself there have been so many times where when my babies were much littler that if I had to discipline them while we were out, I was looking around and so concerned and embarrassed because of what people thought of me. My child’s behavior anywhere embarrassed me at times because I felt it reflected me and whether or not I was a good mom. And for the most part, in honesty, our girls were really good kids, they didn’t (by His grace and mercy) throw tantrums in stores, they were respectful etc. but that was just as bad for my idol, because when I got so often that “they’re such good kids”, “they’re so well mannered and respectful”, “you have done such a good job”, that was confirming the need of “ok I’m a good mom.”
Ted ended his article by challenging us to examine our own hearts. Do we have an attitude of ownership and entitlement? Are we ruled by reputation? Are we oppressed by thoughts of what others think of us and our children? If so, these idols need to be confronted and confessed to God.
My answer to those questions is yes. I have that idol that I didn’t even know I had. I went looking knowing I had an idol of control in my heart and found more than I thought. But that will happen until He takes me home. He will continue to reveal the depths of His children’s hearts and refine them for His glory. Praise God.
Until next time, Lori
Sustained By His Grace 