Fifth thing, your teens tend to lack eschatological perspective. Just a fun way of saying they don't tend to look at the long view of things. Teens tend to live in a bubble and it is now. And so there's two mentalities that you want to impart to your teenager. First is a harvest mentality. The Bible says God is not mocked, whatever you plant, you will harvest. And so the teenagers need to know everyday I'm planting seeds that I will someday harvest and everyday I'm harvesting seeds that I previously planted. It's your job to make that seed-plant connection for them. Now the reason that's important is teenagers are very good at denying their own harvest. You got to hear this story. My daughter comes home one day and she says, "Dad, I got to talk to you about my report card." You know right away that's bad news. If it needs a preamble, it's bad news. So I said, "We'll talk." She says, "I got a D in English [happens to be the language that she speaks] but I want you to know I got the highest D in class." Don't you love it? And she says, "I know why. It's this teacher. He's learning to teach on us. The smart kids barely got B's and C's." I'm thinking, "Isn't this wonderful? Under the weight of this man's teaching and ability, my daughter got the highest D in class." We had to post it on the refrigerator. We had to call grandma. We had to go out to eat in celebration. As she's standing there talking to me, I realize she's not just pulling the wool over my eyes, she believes it. Somewhere between when that report card was given and she got it home, she was able to convince herself that it had nothing to do with her. Your job is to make those seed-plant connections for your teenager. You do that patiently. You do that lovingly. You do that with grace, but you must do that. Second mentality is a treasure mentality. My teenager needs to know that everywhere he goes, everything he does, somehow, someway is related to the treasures of his heart. You're always naming something as your treasure. You're always naming things as important. That means you have values. Let me say it this way. Your teenager's behavior in any situation is his attempt to get what's important to him out of it and so you need to have treasure conversations. You that you need to ask the question, "What are you investing in and what is the return going to be? What are you investing in? What is the return going to be?" The purpose of those conversations is not an accusation The purpose of those conversations is insight. Harvest and treasure, two very, very important mentalities for a teenager. And the last one is really the summary of everything I've said to you. Teenagers tend to lack heart awareness. They not only tend to be blind, they tend to be blind to their blindness and so you are still doing what we talked about in the beginning. You're working any way you can to be an instrument of seeing. You're asking the question again and again, let me give it to you. What is it that God wants this teenager to see right now and how can I help him see it? What is it that God wants this teenager to see right now and how can I help him see it? Now, I want you to do something with me because I want to talk to you personally. I want you to close your notes, put down your pencils. I want to say a couple of things to you here at the end. Maybe some of you right now are just overwhelmed. You're just thinking, "There's no way I'm ever going to remember all this stuff. I'm going to be hurting my children." Well, hear this. God is not so unkind as to ever give you a task without giving you the wherewithal to do it. If God puts a Red Sea in front of you and He means for you to cross it, He's going to build a bridge, He's going to send a boat, He's going to give you ability to swim, or He's going to part the waters. Don't give into fear. Step forward and faith, believing God will give you what you need to do what He's called for you to do. Some of you are now filled with regret. You've thought, "If I'd only heard this five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago." Well, there's a couple of things I can say. Always trust God's timing. God's timing is always right. You're here this weekend because He knows it's the right time for you to hear and to understand.
Transcript: Session 10
GETTING TO THE HEART OF PARENTING
78
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs