We won’t be the instruments for change in our kids’ lives that God intends for us to be until we realize that we are incapable of changing their hearts.
Intro
The “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast is a family discipleship resource from Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, that aims to equip you and your family to be on mission with God to the end of the street and the ends of the earth.
Andy Owens
Welcome back to another episode of “Gospel Shaped Home.” We’re here to talk about chapter four, “Inability,” from Paul Tripp’s book, “Parenting.” And once again, I’m joined by Bryan and Ellie Nelson. Welcome guys.
Bryan Nelson
Thanks. Thanks for having us.
Andy
Yeah, glad you’re here. So a few months back, shortly before the quarantine, we had, as a family, we went to a birthday party for one of our kids’ classmates and walked around the back yard. As soon as we got there, unexpected, my child froze up. A classmate came and said, “Hey,” to him, was kind, and my child just stood there and was silent. And I thought to myself, “No, no, no, this is not okay. This is rude, this is hurtful. We don’t need to let shyness make us be hurtful to other people.” And so I unwittingly made the mistake that Paul Tripp was talking about here and assumed I had the ability to change my child’s heart specifically by sternness and escalating the severity of the situation and my tone. I got down in my little one’s face and was very stern with, “You will speak to your classmate. You will not be rude like this.” And as you may be able to guess, it did not work very well. Ended up in tears. This little one was trying to hold them back, wasn’t able to, ended up crying. I ended up embarrassed and ashamed, standing up, introducing myself to the parents who were standing there watching this as the family pastor for Providence Baptist Church. So epic fail right there. But the problem was I wasn’t acting according to the reality that I can’t change my kid’s heart.
Ellie Nelson
Right.
Bryan
Yeah.
Andy
That’s what we’re talking about. So inability, how would you sum this up?
Bryan
So there’s a quote on page 60 in the last paragraph on there, and this is what he says, and I think this really sums the chapter up. “It’s vital that you believe and admit that you have no power whatsoever to change your child.” That’s it in a nutshell.
Andy
It doesn’t mean they don’t need to change, right?
Bryan
Right.
Andy
They need desperately to be changed, but God is the one who does it, not us.
Bryan
Yes.
Ellie
Well, and then he tells us on page 61 that he has given parents the authority for the work of change. So he’s not removed us from the equation. We’re just not in control. He’s in control. So he has granted us power to make change is really where our inability comes in because we just didn’t have that control over anyone, much less our children.
Andy
That’s right. That’s right. We can’t change their hearts, but he can, and he calls us to humbly be instruments in his hands, to be tools in his hands for this good work. So we do have tools at our disposal as parents. He talks about parental power tools. What are the ones he mentions? What do they look like?
Bryan
Yeah, when we aren’t at the place of confessing our inability to change, we will revert, I think, to tools that have some pragmatic value in parenting. And we use them because they do.
Andy
They work.
Bryan
Right, and he outlines three. He talks about fear. He talks about reward, using a reward system to manipulate and get what we want, and then he talks about shame. And then I would throw guilt in with shame. And they are tools at our disposal that we wield to try and exercise power to change. I think the reality of the brokenness of our world is they do produce temporary change a lot of times. We wouldn’t use them if they didn’t, right?
Andy
Right.
Bryan
And yet, when we apply them, the real challenge is the legacy that they leave is not what we’re wanting because they don’t change the heart.
Andy
That’s actually a really good point is that when you constantly use these things, fear, reward, guilt, and shame, it leads to a coldness, a distance, a lack of communication. And so though there may be short term gain, there’s terrible long term loss. I mean, the legacy is often just marred with lots of brokenness.
Bryan
Yeah, and I had a friend that said that the tools like this, that we wield in parenting, they’re only as effective as our reach. In other words, they only produce effect when our children are young enough that we can control them, they’re physically in our proximity. Like, literally our physical reach.
Andy
Right. You’ve got to be able to reach them. They’ve got to be with you.
Bryan
Right, and we know that the heart does it change in those moments, because when they’re out of that reach, they revert back.
Ellie
They revert.
Bryan
Right, to whatever action it was that we thought we were trying to change to begin with.
Ellie
And Paul Tripp even says that about the idea of fear. His daughter got to be 6’1″, and he’s shorter than that. And if she’s the shortest kid, what kind of fear can you really impose?
Andy
Right. There’s going to be a day where these tools just are no longer effective at all. They don’t even give an appearance of working because your kids are bigger than you or they are emotionally mature enough that they can just turn you off, shut you out, walk away. And ultimately, these sorts of things, they short term may change behavior, but real change, Paul Tripp says on the bottom of page 66, is about learning what is right, acknowledging that it’s right, confessing that you’ve been wrong, committing to a new way of living, and seeking the help you need to do it, the help that God gives through faith in Jesus. And the natural tools that we rely on just can’t produce that. So that’s what he means by inability. And so the application is that we have to be willing to let go of these sort of human power parenting habits, he says on page 62. The loud voices, the escalating threats, the subtle name-calling, words of condemnation, or maybe it’s promises of more and more things. If you’ll just behave, if the kids will just do what you need them to do. So this isn’t easy, right?
Bryan
No.
Ellie
This is the hardest job.
Andy
He talks about how exhausting and how hard and even discouraging this can be. Why? Why is it so hard, so discouraging?
Ellie
Well, change is just not automatic and it doesn’t happen quickly in my heart or in my kid’s heart. But seeing it unchanged over and over is exhausting. And then feeling like you’re trying to do the same thing over and over without change is often exhausting.
Bryan
Well, yeah.
Andy
Is this really doing any good? Is this bearing any fruit?
Bryan
Exactly. And I think what is exhausting about that is we have a timeline. We have an idea. And when we grab hold of that and hold tightly to it, and we don’t recognize that we are not the one with the power that rests firmly in the Lord’s hands, when we don’t submit to him and trust him and his sovereignty, his timing, his ways, then when we don’t see the result that we want in the immediate, we become frustrated and we grab for things. That’s why I think that he says there are two things that we have to remember. One that he’s called us to a work, but it’s his work.
Andy
That’s right. That’s good.
Bryan
He’s called us to a work, but it’s his work. He’s given us the joy of being a part of the way that he will bring about change in the hearts of our children, but the power to do it is not in ours. And so that’s really the second thing. We have no ability to do the work on our own. We are utterly dependent upon him.
Ellie
But isn’t it so sweet to think about number two, that we do not have the ability to exact change in our children. So praise the Lord, when we see change in our children, it’s not from us. We can dedicate it to the work of the Lord.
Bryan
What?
Ellie
Because we didn’t change them, because we really can’t change them.
Andy
It’s like he gets all the glory.
Bryan
He does.
Ellie
Praise the Lord, he does, yeah.
Andy
Amen, amen. And I think it really drives us to prayer as well. We parent first through prayer. When we recognize there’s real change that needs to happen and I can’t do it, but I know the one who can, and he invites me to come and to acknowledge that over and over and over and to ask him for help. And he’s so faithful to give it. He’s an ever present help in time of need, and I think that’s always, in a sense, our first kind of line of defense and offense, is going to the throne of grace and parenting through prayer.
Bryan
Yeah, man, you say that, and I think all the time about prayer. Prayer is by its very design an admittance of our inability.
Andy
That’s right.
Bryan
And prayer, the focus of prayer, the one to who we pray by design, it is an admittance that he is the one in control.
Andy
He is able.
Bryan
There’s no better place to be, I don’t think, than to be dependent.
Andy
And going back to the idea of the difficulty and the discouragement of it, I think it’s also, there’s wisdom in even just recognizing this is hard. This change is slow. It’s not going to happen in a moment. I mean, one, like you said, Ellie, none of us changed that way. We didn’t just hear some word from the Bible and instantly we were changed and fully sanctified and we never struggled with…
Ellie
I’m pretty slow.
Andy
Yeah, I’m really slow. I’m hardheaded. I’m stubborn hearted in lots of ways. And God has had to tell me lots of things over and over and over, and so we should expect that when we go to our kids. We should anticipate this is going to be hard, and that’s why God calls us to not lose heart, to persevere. So do good to all, especially those of the household of faith, knowing that in due time we will reap a harvest if we don’t lose heart, if we don’t grow weary.
Ellie
Right.
Andy
And so take the long view. Parent through prayer. Any other final encouragements coming out of this chapter on inability?
Bryan
I don’t think so.
Andy
Okay. Well, I appreciate you guys joining again and just really, really good news that we’re unable, but God is able, and the same power with which he raised Jesus Christ from the dead is at work in us who believe. For everything he’s called us to do, but specifically for this glorious task of parenting and of being instruments in his hands to affect change in our kids’ lives, to represent him to them. So hope that your hearts are encouraged. Bryan and Ellie, thanks again for joining.
Ellie
Thanks, Andy.
Andy
And we’ll see you next time on “Gospel Shaped Home.”
Outro
Thanks for listening to this episode of the “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast, produced by Providence Baptist Church of Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information and resources from Providence, visit us online at pray.org. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcast.