And as I began thinking, something hit me. If a father has to repeat something over and over again to his son, what has that father identified? He's identified a struggle, right? That's why it keeps coming up. And I realized all of a sudden, that in these passages, we have God's definition of the typical struggles of a teenager, the typical struggles of someone who's in his youth. And those struggles give me a definition of what's hot and happening during that period of time, and give me a definition of how I should interact with it. And so I want to look with you at the typical struggles of a teenager. Six things that must be a goal-oriented focus for you must form your job description. Now, here's what I love about these. Although these were written in a day when a father would say to his son, "Have you bedded down the camel [animal, not cigarette]," they map right on to a culture where a father would say, "Have you gassed up the SUV?" They have this trans-generational, trans-cultural application to them. Although they were written thousands of years ago, if you have a teenager anywhere near you, you'll recognize these things. Now, here's your heart stuff. You have to view these as opportunities. God will work very hard to stick the heart of your teenager in your face because He wants you to be active and He wants your teenager to be prepared. I could say it this way. The opportunity is in the trouble. If you have a toxic relationship to trouble, if you don't want any trouble whatsoever in your life, you're not going to do well with a teenager. But in that exposure of the heart and the trouble that surrounds it are wonderful opportunities to take this final step in preparing this child for his emancipation from the home. Here's the first one. Teens don't tend to hunger for wisdom and correction. I have never had one of my kids say to me, "Dad, I was riding the bus home from school today and I was thinking of what a stunningly wise man you are. And I would just love to sit under the feet of your wisdom one more time tonight and have you drop a few of those gorgeous pearls down on me." Never heard that. Oh, what about correction? I've never had one of my children say, "You know, Dad, I put something together the other day. One of the ways you love me the most is by correcting me and I just want to say to you bring on that love." Didn't hear that. Now here's the job description then. Your job is to sell to your teenager wisdom and correction that which he is not seeking. Your job is to sell to your teenager that which he is not seeking. You don't wait for him to seek it. You sell it to him when he's not seeking it. If you're a salesman, you know the first step of sales is to create a sense of need, right? And so that's what you're doing. Now the way you do that – this is the second point, sell what they're not seeking – the way you do that is by making wisdom and correction beautiful. Now here's the rub. Most of your wisdom and correction moments won't be on your schedule. It's 10:30 at night on a Thursday night and one of your teenagers comes to you and says, "I have a science project due tomorrow." You know that project was assigned six years ago and so going where you don't want to go, you say, "What do you need?" Teenagers are good at these conversations, so they start easy. They say, "Well, I need some poster board." You got enough cardboard and duct tape in the house, you can approximate poster board. You're not too upset yet. You say, "What else do you need?" They say, "Well, I need some markers." We learned very early in our parenting to always buy water based markers. You know why? Because when they get dry, you can cut the blunt end off, you can pour water down them. There's more ink in there. I'm a Christian, I believe in the principle of resurrection. And then you say, "What else do you need," and this child mumbles very quickly, "Twelve baby chickens." You can't believe it. The emotional temperature immediately changes and you say, "Then go upstairs and lay them." And then you go off into glory over wisdom. "In my day, I would have never thought of coming to my parents at 10:30 at night on a Thursday night when I had a science project due on Friday. Why in my day, we didn't even have science projects. I made up my own, I was such a good student and I sat on those eggs myself."
Transcript: Session 9
GETTING TO THE HEART OF PARENTING
7 3
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