Today, I want to share with you eight specific ways that will build deep bonds with you and your child.
I mean, the kind of relationships that will last for a lifetime. And then I'm going to share what do you do as a parent when you're really blowing. Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. I'm Dave Drouin, and we're in the middle of Chip's third and newest volume in his ongoing series, Keeping Love Alive. Now, in just a minute, he'll continue unpacking what effective parenting looks like in this broken world and share practical ways to build strong, lasting bonds with your kids. As a quick reminder, if you miss a portion of this program, let me encourage you to catch up through the Chip Ingram app.
It's a great way to listen to Living on the Edge anytime. Well, as Chip begins the second half of his talk, he really emphasizes the important role parents have in a child's life. Let's get started. My job, your job, is to help our kids become like Jesus, but become like Jesus as they're fulfilling what only they can fulfill. There's no DNA like your children in anywhere in the world. He's made them uniquely, and your family's unique, and you live in a unique part of the country, in a unique time of history, and it's not about protecting our kids from this and that. It's equipping our kids. You want your kids going, we're taking the world on.
It's not about, am I going to do drugs, or am I going to do alcohol, or what if I do this, or if I get someone pregnant, or what about this? No, this is what we're doing. We're taking the message of God and the love of God. As a family, we're going on a missions trip. We're building an orphanage.
We're going to make a difference. Kids' self-esteem isn't because they get a little trophy and everyone tells them they're wonderful. Self-esteem was when you get confidence, and you build resistance, and you go through things.
How did you learn it? But what they need is tenderness and then an arm around them. Those three words, encouraging means you're, as a father, you're the number one cheerleader. Comforting is speaking a bit stronger because they didn't quite get it, and the word urging is very strong, like, young man, that behavior happens again. You really don't know what that's going to look like.
You may be grounded for life. No, but it's this progression of this tenderness and directness, the principle of relationship. Notice it says the parents' lifestyles, and what I mean is the values and the beliefs that you hold, not that you say. Or that you send them places. If we could redo church, this is Chip Ingram, personal opinion, even all our years, our kids sat with us in church. They went to the youth group too. They sat with us. I wanted my kids to see me and my wife worship. I wanted my kids from about third grade on, it was like, oh, are they a little bit bored?
Yeah, they'll get over it. But they pick up a lot, and then you have something to talk about. And it's like, hey, Dad, how come that lady over there, she's got her hands raised, and how come Mom saw tears, and what's with these little wafers passing around and everyone's getting real serious about? That's not a very big swimming pool.
I mean, how come it's so small, right? Instead, you know what we did? We segregated the family, and we stuck them in a youth group or a children's ministry, and then they get to be like ready to head off to trade school or college or something, and they've never felt a part of something, and it really became a social group that taught the Bible some and did some good things. But the social part was the major, so they go, wait, did they jump into a church? Did they jump into a ministry? 69% of them, five years after they leave high school from evangelical teaching churches, abandon the faith.
I don't know about you, but someone ought to say, what we're doing doesn't work. Success is not, does my kid go to the youth group or are they just going to a Christian church or school? What you need to understand is the moral responsibility for your child's spiritual development is yours. Hope the church can help.
If there's a school or some other way, great, but you're the teacher, and whether they get it or don't get it is not the church's responsibility or the pastor's responsibility or the youth group or the children's minister. All those people are just little helpers. Do you realize how many cultures have come and gone? How many people groups in the thousands of years of history that no one has ever heard of? And have you ever wondered why some guy named Abraham started a little family clan and they are still intact today? You know what? Jews own the education of their young.
They don't outsource it. Orthodox Jews, we teach our kids. The father, what?
Right? Deuteronomy 6, the great Shema, Bar Mitzvah. This is when you become a man. These are your responsibilities. You can agree, disagree, but those cultures that own the education of their kids, how do you transfer the values that you have that you actually live out into your child? And here's the axiom. The stronger your relationship, and I mean heart connection with your kids, the greater the possibility that your values and your faith get transferred over this relationship bridge to your children. By contrast, the weaker your relationship, your heart connection with your kids, the lower the possibility that they will embrace your faith and your values. Third axiom would be tension, tests, and difficulties are normal for your kids to grow and develop. They've got to test the limits. They've got to say, you know, I don't know if I buy into all this and all that, but here's the deal.
You're gonna have some troubled waters. Those parents that have built relationships that bond, when there's the difficulty and the pain and the challenges, it's that bond that can carry the weight of the difficulty. One of my sons was a very rebellious young man, and my prayer for him was, God, will you please not let him just end his whole life in the ditch? And we had about four and a half years where, I mean, his words to me were, Dad, you know, I kind of like you as a guy. I just don't like that you're a Christian. I want to do what I want, whenever I want, go wherever I want, come in wherever I want. I said, well, as long as you live in this house, that's not happening.
So here's the two guardrails, son. You can never get me to stop loving you, and you can never have your own selfish way. But it was hell on earth in our home at times, and he's really smart, and he knew how to push all of our buttons. So when he would have like wrestling practice, and it would go late, and he wouldn't be there for dinner, it was like, it was such a, I felt so guilty because it's so much better. It was so nice not to have, and he and I, you know, looking back now, both of us would say, I was way too hard on him.
I didn't understand, he's an artist, I'm not. I'm driven, clear, type A, he's melancholy, artistic, musical, and I remember him sitting in front of our house, and it got to where it was killing the rest of our family. And I remember tears streaming down, sitting right in the car, and I said, son, I've tried to help you as much as I can, and, you know, if you're ready to make all your own decisions, and I think he was a senior in high school or near the end, and I just said, this can't continue, you got 48 hours, and he's a tough kid, I mean, oh my gosh.
I watched him in a wrestling match, one guy had a broken hand, he just typed it and went ahead and won his division. That attitude, for good, is really good, but when it's in your face, it's really bad. I, we struggled with it, and I said, you got 48 hours, you can either, you don't have to believe in God, you don't have to have my values, but you're not going to wreck our home, you're going to come here, have a good attitude, and you're going to treat your mom with respect and your brothers, and you got 40 hours to pray about it, and you need to move out.
We're done. And I'm, you know, fearful of what the implications would be, and it's like, I'm sure we remember it different, but all I can remember is he like went to his bedroom for two days, and he told me later, this is the point of this, he told me later, he said, dad, I knew I was rebelling, and I knew, you know, you and I had our issues, so I, you know, I like getting at you, and I, and honestly, he's very astute, he goes, I wanted to see how far I could really push you. He found out, and then, and then he said, he said, you know, I went back to, do I really believe in God or not, or, and he said, I went back all the way those two days, and I just asked God, all I know is you weren't yelling at me. The tears were flowing down your face in the car, and he said, all I could think of was, you know, you, you're the same at home as at church, and this is so real to you and mom.
I asked God, would you make it that real to me? And something happened back in that bedroom, and he walked out, and because he was so manipulative, he said, I'm good, I'm ready to, you know, and I thought, sure. I mean, it was just like, I mean, I was just, I was just kind of waiting for, you know, the next round of jacking me around, and it was, the word is, the Bible word would be he repented.
He had a change of mind that led to a change of action. I mean, my prayer was, oh, God, do whatever you need to do in this velvet vise of discipline. Be as gentle as you can, but do whatever you need to do to preserve him, and he did, and, and when I look at that bridge, I think there were, I mean, even during that time, we would go out to breakfast, and he'd roll his eyes. I said, son, we're gonna spend time together.
We're gonna hang out. I mean, you don't have to love me. You don't have to even like it, but I love you, you know, and no, I didn't feel that inside.
You know, I'd come back, and she said, well, how'd it go? I got nothing, you know, just wasting my time, but love isn't emotions. It's behavior, and so it's, and so what you do is you do what's right when you feel like it, and you do what's right, especially when you don't feel like it. You've been brought up in a world that is just so, everything's been put into psychological terms instead of biblical and spiritual terms, and I mean, and I got degrees in this stuff, so I understand the value of, you know, psychology and learning stuff and all the jazz, but here's what I'm gonna tell you, is that God, God loves us, and you have to listen to your behavior, not just to words. You know what you believe? Whatever you genuinely believe, it's how you live. It's what you say. It's what you actually do, and we have lived in a psychological world that is all about emotion and experience, and you know what? That's, there's valid parts, but I never, remember the day I realized Jesus emotionally did not want to die for me, and he didn't want to die for you.
You ever think about that? You know, when we say Jesus loves me, this I know, we get this warm, ooey, gooey feeling. It wasn't a warm, ooey, gooey feeling. It was, he understood that there would be this break between him and God the Father, and he understood what was gonna happen physically, and he was gonna be humiliated, and he said, if there's a plan B, this is my translation, if there's any way around going to the cross, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. He emotionally did not want to go to the cross.
He chose to go to the cross when it felt excruciating and rejection by people and by the Father, and in that moment and window of time, your sin and my sin, when he says it was finished, your sin and my sin and the just wrath of God on all sin was poured on him, and he became a sin offering. Everything that you deserve and every human being ever deserved, it went on him, and he absorbed it, and so when I think about loving, I think our greatest acts of love are when I don't want to do it. I don't feel like doing it, and I choose to do it, because love is fundamentally volitional. I like it when the emotions are there, but love is choosing to do what needs to be done and giving another person what they need the most when they don't deserve it at great personal cost. Here's eight ways to build these bonds. Unconditional love. Even my older boys, they're in their 40s now, they still end conversations.
Of course, my daughter, she's, I love you, Dad. You need to verbalize that, and you need to love them when they do good, love them when they do bad. Scheduled time. Scheduled time. They have to be in your schedule.
It's regular. Having dinner together, having specific times, calendar them in. They matter. Focused attention.
Cornell University did a study on fathers. They put microphones on them, and then after they got used to it, they found that the average father had 37 seconds of meaningful conversation with their children. 37 seconds. I mean, other than, you know, do this or get that or, you know, help your mom with this or set the table, 37 seconds of eye contact, connection, you matter, how are we doing?
The TV's not on. It's focused. You're not doing something else. Eye contact. Looking your kids in the eye. All the research.
It matters. There's something about when our eyes connect with our kids. Consistent communication. Bedtime, dinner table, shared experiences.
Meaningful touching. Dad's, this is, I talk more to dads because I'm a dad, I get it, okay? Especially when your daughters are just hitting puberty, man, they need meaningful, non-sexual touching from dad. And by the way, when they start developing, it gets a little awkward or can't feel that way. And that's when they need it the most because if they don't feel secure and learn there's a powerful, loving male figure that's non-sexual, they will go out and look for love in all the places that you do not want to see happen. Girls learn to be feminine by how their dads treat them. How their dads talk to them.
And it's really important. When your kids are small, wrestle with them. Hug them, wrestle with them. When we were, I would be hugging your mom and Annie would come between us and she goes, oh, I want to do a sandwich and she wanted to be between us, right? Have fun together.
I mean, you hear me, all this intensity and seriousness. Your house needs to be where the fun is. I mean, have fun, play together. I mean, have fun, play together, do games together.
Monday through Friday or Monday through Thursday or Sunday through Thursday, whenever school was the next day, we didn't watch TV during the week and we didn't have a bunch of screens and stuff. And after you get really bored, you play the guitar, you lift weights in the garage, you play one on one, you play games together. Those kind of things are what happens. And what's easy is you're tired and go watch this or go do that.
And I'm not saying that you need to do this every night, but have fun together and then pray together. The last one is effective parents require consistent repair and ongoing maintenance. I don't know that there's anything in the entire world that I have felt more as a failure than as a parent. The hardest thing I've ever tried to be is a dad, a good parent.
But I think this one, constant repair and ongoing maintenance. I finally got to where the only perfect parent is the Father and the only perfect person is Jesus. And He lives in me and He lives in you, I pray. And this promise from 1 John 1-9, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
And this is the principle process. And for me these were five powerful words and that I said to my kids at all different ages and to this day, I'm sorry. And please forgive me. I think sometimes as a parent you feel like you have to be right or you can't admit it and you mess up. And so your soul gets all messed up. And it seems to me that when we mess up with our kids, just do for them what we want them to do for us. There's few things more precious than when one of our kids, you know, over time they kind of mature and they do something they know is wrong and before you catch them, they come to you and they say, dad, you know, you probably would find out about this sooner or later, but this is what I did. And, you know, tears streaming down, I'm sorry.
And what do you do? You hug them is what you do, right? And I think just sometimes rather than trying to be some perfect parent, I mean, this has to be such a high priority. But then love covers a multitude of sins.
And please forgive me. And kids are very resilient. Lord, just going over these things reminds me of how much pressure I know that we felt as parents. How uncertain, at times fearful, as things changed and as our kids went through looking back, pretty normal ups and downs. God, I would pray for these moms and these dads that, yes, they would take their parenting really seriously.
It'll be the hardest and most rewarding job ever. Give them a clear target in their mind and their heart and help them to, if they're not practicing what they preach, help them just to talk to you and start practicing what they preach. Would you help them in the midst of all this bombardment of technology and busyness and to take time to build relationships that bond. Storms are going to come. It's normal.
It's natural. Help them to build bridges where their heart and their kids' hearts are deeply, deeply connected. And then, God, would you give them the grace to not be so hard on themselves and not think that every little decision or if they've blown it here or blown it there or somehow think it's never too late. Our kids are so desirous of our approval.
And we just confess, we need your help. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, challenge number three, children, from his series Keeping Love Alive, volume three. It's been said that marriage is like a journey. And while every relationship has its ups and downs, there seem to be particular struggles that affect every couple in this series Keeping Love Alive, volume three. Chip addresses the four challenges every great marriage has in common. He exposes how busyness, temptation, kids, and stagnation can ruin relationships.
Discover from God's word how you and your mate can handle these trials together and become a stronger couple, more effective parents, and create a happier home. Now, if you missed any part of this series Keeping Love Alive, volume three, or want to learn more about our helpful resources, the Chip Ingram app is a great way to get plugged in. Well, before we go any further, here's Chip with a quick word. You know, I get letters, emails, and Facebook messages from people every day who tell me how Living on the Edge has impacted their life. People of all ages from, I mean, every walk of life, many of those letters also share painful events, deep wounds, or hard times that people are wrestling with. Like many of us, they're pressing in, they're seeking God, and I'm deeply moved when they've taken the time to write and say thank you. Thanks for a message they've heard, or a resource they've been using, or, you know, seeing God work through his word, and they understand him, and the Holy Spirit is beginning to work in their life like never before. They aren't only thanking me or Living on the Edge, they're thanking you. All of you that invest in this ministry and walk alongside us by praying for us daily, giving every month to keep the doors open, or giving to our matches once or twice a year to develop new resources and reach more people, these folks, they're thanking you too. And so I just want to pause and thank you for your financial investment in all that we do right here at Living on the Edge. And if you're listening and you've never given or didn't realize that we rely on contributions until just now, would you prayerfully consider giving financially to the ministry that we could keep creating new resources, keep helping people to be the kind of Christians that live like Christians? And let me say just thank you in advance for whatever God leads you to do.
You don't need to do more or less. We're just asking everyone, do your part and we'll see God work. If Living on the Edge is ministering to you and you've not yet partnered with us financially, would you consider sending a gift today? It takes a team to do the ministry that God has called us to do.
So we'd love to have you join us. You can give a gift online at livingontheedge.org or if you prefer, just call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org.
App listeners, tap donate. For Chip and all of us here, thank you for your prayers and financial support. Chip, as we wrap up this message on effectively parenting our kids, I thought it might be helpful to revisit the eight ways moms and dads can build lasting bonds with their kids. Can you walk through those again for us?
I'd be glad to, Dave. These are so important. Number one, unconditional love. Verbalize it. You have to tell your kids, I love you. And when they're good and when they're bad, it doesn't mean there's not consequences, but you have to verbalize that unconditionally, I love you. Number two is scheduled time.
Put them in your calendar. This is when we meet. This is when I tuck you into bed. This is when we eat. This is when it's just you and mom or you and dad. Number three, focused attention without distraction.
I mean, no media, no TV, no papers, no magazines. I mean, it's just them and you're really focused. Number four, eye contact. There's just something powerful researchers tell us when you're looking at your kids' eyes.
And so when they're really small, you know, get down on your knees and get with them and look them in the eye. Number five, consistent communication. Just shared experiences where you're talking, sharing, listening.
Structure that into every single day. Number six, meaningful touch. Kids feel secure when they're hugged and even when they get older, hugging in non-sexual ways if you're a dad with your daughters and wrestling when they're small and, you know, the tap on the shoulder and, you know, the bro hugs to your growing boys. And then number seven is fun together. I just, I think fun is probably as important as some of the deep spiritual things. It's an atmosphere of games and trips and workouts and laughter and events. And then finally, pray together often.
And not just at spiritual times, you know, pray in the car, pray after you work out, pray when you hear something on the news and there's a tragedy in the world, just stop where your kids begin to grasp. This is a lifestyle and you're connected from the heart. And so those eight things are very hard to remember but if you can build them in as habits, I will tell you, it cultivates these deep, deep bonds with your children because as they get older and some of those teen years and beyond, they need to break away and they need to break away and find themselves.
Not necessarily in immoral ways at all, but they have to distance themselves from you and the truth that you share with them during those seasons are going to be built on this bridge of relationship where they know they're loved and you care about them and you're investing in them all these years and it's never too late. That's an encouraging word Chip, thanks. In case you missed some of the points Chip just reviewed, they're pulled straight from his message notes, which is a tool available for every program. So let me encourage you to get this resource before you listen to us again. Chip's notes include his outline, all of the scripture references, and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning. They'll really help you get the most out of every program. Chip's message notes are a quick download at livingontheedge.org under the broadcasts tab. App listeners just tap fill in notes. Well until next time, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.
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