Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 255 | Observing Families That Have Raised Godly Kids

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Ep. 255 | Observing Families That Have Raised Godly Kids · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  There are ways in which you can design your family, the ways in which you can parent that will really bless some of your kids, but not all of your kids.
• 0:14
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. So I think it's actually really important that you guys have in your life families that you know who have raised multiple godly children, and you look at their life and you're like, wow, I'd like to learn more about that. And one of the reasons that I think it's important for you guys to notice families
• 0:33
  that are upstream from you, and that are really experiencing the fruit of their years of parenting, is because of something that Jesus said. He said in the Gospels, when he was talking about John the Baptist, his disciples were talking to him, he said, John the Baptist came neither drinking wine or eating bread, and you said he is a demon demon,
• 0:57
  He has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking. You say, here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He said this to the Pharisees. But he says, but wisdom is proved right by all her children. It's a really interesting proverb, probably a popular proverb of that day. Wisdom is proved right by all her children. What this proverb means, you guys, is that there's a lot of people with theories, right? A lot of people who claim to have wisdom.
• 1:25
  And what sort of first century wisdom or ancient wisdom said is that the way that you know if something is truly wise is you wait until the children grow up, and then the wisdom is proved right by all of her children. So you see what is reproduced or what the fruit is, the ultimate fruit of the theories. So we live in a day and age where there are all kinds of theories. I think it was Rousseau who was famous for—he crafted a lot of the ideas that undergirded the French Revolution—
• 1:55
  And he was also famous for being one of the worst fathers in human history. He refused to father his children. They were—it was just—their wisdom was not there. And so I don't have a lot of interest in his philosophy because it wasn't proved right by all of his children. Now, one of the things that I find really interesting about this is that—
• 2:16
  the phrase all. And because, you know, a lot of people listen to this to say, well, I've seen, you know, really rough families and an amazing kid come out of that family. And then I saw some amazingly godly families. And then, you know, there have been some kids who were just really...
• 2:33
  fall off the deep end. So how is this true? So there's a lot of tension, I think, in this, and it's not meant to judge any particular family. It's really meant to say that, you guys, there are ways in which you can design your family, the ways in which you can parent, that will really bless some of your kids, but not all of your kids. And so one of the things you want to do, if you really pay attention to the wisdom of this proverb, is to, you know,
• 3:00
  is you want to pay attention, especially to the kids that are struggling the most. Because what you're doing may be wise in the way in which it's really influencing or impacting some of your kids, but it may not be wise for all of your kids. And so that's something that I think is just important to watch out for. It's really important to really look at the kids who are struggling the most in your family and then to gain the most wisdom from your parenting struggles with that child.
• 3:29
  That's where you're going to grow the most. That's where you're going to discover the things that are lacking in your character. That's where you're going to discover things about your theories that are breaking down. Instead of ignoring the most struggling kid and say, well, they're the exception and my other couple kids or whatever, they're doing great. Pay really close attention to the ones who are struggling the most.
• 3:48
  and figure out, is there something about our lifestyle, something about what I'm teaching, something about the way I'm modeling? And again, you guys, I'm not saying there's no exceptions to this. I'm just saying that this is a very general principle that I think is really wise and something that Jesus was promoting and was quoting and was really describing as something that's generally true. It's a proverb. Wisdom is really proved right by all of our children. But yeah, Jeff, what are your thoughts on that?
• 4:11
  Yeah, no, I wouldn't add much to that, actually, except just one little point, even agreeing with you on that exception to the rule thing of like, yeah, this is people get really sensitive because it's our own children and own people and families. But we're not saying that, like, you know, your children have to turn out perfect or whatever to be a witness. We're just saying, like, there's patterns. Patterns are true. Patterns are real.
• 4:31
  And there's a ton of exceptions to patterns and we're in a real war and you can be the best parent ever and your kid can go off the deep end and be a prodigal. Like there's so many truths, but just like look for patterns because patterns speak and then you can trace those back to particular truth and teaching that then we can learn from. So that's all I'd say.
• 4:49
  Yeah. And you guys, during all this, the crisis that we're all going through, we want to help you guys figure out what are the biggest opportunities for families in the midst of all of this? How can a family thrive in the midst of chaos? And it's not easy. But what we're doing is we're putting together a five day challenge, a five day challenge to help.
• 5:09
  uh, to use this crisis to transform your family into a team. There's actually an opportunity kind of hidden in the midst of, of all of the silver lining kind of in, in the challenges that we're facing. And so we want you guys to check that out, Jeff, you know, tell them any details about how to do that. Yeah, guys, just follow us on social, get us anywhere, see us at Instagram, Facebook, or if you're on our email list, you'll probably see it as well, but we will be posting it out, blasting it because we want to come alongside, want to serve you. So just make sure you're in our communication channels and we will see you there.