The four-year-old walked into the room. He saw that this two-year-old had the audacity to touch a possession that was his because he is in the center of the universe, of course, and he walked over, grabbed the truck and hit his brother over the head with it. His brother, obviously, screamed. I came in the room and I knelt down on my knees so that we were sort of at eye-level and I said, "Well, what's going on here?" He says, "He had my truck." I said, "Well, what were you thinking and feeling?" Great conversation. He said, "Mad." That's actually a good insight. I said, "Well, what did you do?" "Hit him." Now, what's the connection? The connection is not between the situation and his behavior, but his madness and his behavior. That's brilliant theology. He's four. He doesn't understand how eloquent his talking is. And I'm thinking this is the stuff that it gets propelled by the Spirit of God to begin to work grace into the heart of this little boy. I'm moved as we're having this conversation. I said, "Why did you do it?" This is great. I said, "Why did you do it?" He looked at me said, "My truck." You get it? "It was mine. Don't you touch what is mine." You're dealing with any of that stuff and your family? You don't want to be dealing with that when it's a 16- and a 17-year old. I said, "Well, what was the result?" "Trouble?" Now he didn't say, "Dad, behold, I was shapen in iniquity." No, he didn't, but he's taken a step and we've had those conversations again and again and again and again. And by 10 years old, you walk into the room and you say, "What was going on here?" And a child says, "Dad, I know what you're going to ask me next." And I'll say, "Well, tell me." He said, "I am so angry that that kid always has to be the center of attention. I just wanted to get him." Wow. So how do you handle that stuff? My 16-year-old son was a great kid. He was just fairly easy to raise. He was sort of self-starter and pretty responsive, wasn't a perfect kid by any means, but fairly easy teenager. Sometime during that 16th year, he said that he was going to go to spend the weekend with a friend, did we mind if he went? Well, we knew the family and we had no problem with him being there. It was a family from our church. Well, he didn't actually go there. He had asked his friend to lie for him, so he could go someplace where he knew we wouldn't want him to go. His friend got feeling guilty and got thinking, "If something happens to Justin, I am in big trouble." And he went to his mom. He said, "Mom, Mr. and Mrs. Tripp think that Justin's here because I agreed to lie for Justin and I don't know what to do." And she said, "I think we need to call Mr. And Mrs. Tripp. Now, that was a hard call for her to make because I happened to be her pastor, but she made the call. I got off the phone and I was so thankful for this opportunity. I was ripping. I couldn't believe that after all these years of building trust, this kid would do such a thing. And so I walked upstairs and I said to my wife, "You want to know where are trustworthy 16-year-old is? Well he isn’t at Josh's." She said, "I think you need to pray." I said, "I can't pray for him right now." She said, "No, not him. You. You need to pray for you." She was right and as I began to pray, it hit me that God loves my child – get this – that God had already begun a work of rescue. God pressed in on the conscience of his friend, God caused his friend to go to his mom, God gave his mom the courage to call me because God loves my child and wants to rescue him. All of a sudden, my heart was filled with something else. Now, if that hadn't happened, you know what it's like. Your child has messed up and he's out of the house, and you're pacing waiting for him to come. And the door opens and you pounce, and you let him have it. He came home. I just greeted him. I let him get settled. He was home for a couple of hours and I walked down to his room.
And I said, "Justin, can we talk for a moment?"
He said, "Sure, Dad."
Transcript: Session 4
GETTING TO THE HEART OF PARENTING
5 1
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