Friday, November 23, 2012

Image Bearers (Part 3)

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When I started writing my first "Image-Bearers" post, I really didn't see this coming.  I sat at the computer like any other day, intending to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the screen where I could see them and think about them more clearly.  I didn't realize it was about to become a series that would take months for me to actually process.  I don't know why it surprised me.  I'm still becoming a mom, after all.

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I also intended to be finished after Part 2, except that when I went back and read it I wondered to myself, "What on earth would someone do differently if they agreed with the point of this post?  What should I be doing differently?"

Because it's so subtle.

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The thing is, we think that to please others is to please God.  And vice-versa.  But God has never asked us to please others.

Even so, I am tempted all the time to try to please others with my parenting.  To parent in a way that would cause my children to please others--essentially, to be more winsome.  I can even be tempted--though I am grieved to admit it--to teach my children that they should make an effort to please others.  All of these are not only unworthy goals, they are impossible goals.  If I pursue them, I am setting my children up for failure.

God made my son and my daughter and all of the rest of us with different gifts, for different purposes, each with a unique way of expressing to the world what He is like.  While he made some people delightfully winsome to begin with (hello, Shirley Temple!), winsomeness is not his ultimate goal for any of us.  Jesus had a beautiful winsomeness about him that drew people to him, but it didn't appeal to everyone.  He didn't put his chameleon on in order to be whatever he perceived the unimpressed wanted him to be.

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So I ask myself, if I want to raise children whose goal is to please God, what would that look like?  Colossians 1:9-12 has a list of rather broad bullet points describing how to please him:

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, 
we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you 
with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord 
and may please him in every way:  
bearing fruit in every good work, 
growing in the knowledge of God, 
being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might 
so that you may have great endurance and patience, 
and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, 
who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."

When we please God, it is certainly good for others. These specific actions are listed in various places in scripture instructing us how to act toward others: love, serve, do as you would have them do to you, acknowledge God before them, seek their good, honor, build up with words, value, look to their interests, encourage, share, speak the truth in love.

The thing is, PLEASING people is not the goal.  They may or may not respond favorably.  What we give may or may not be what they are looking for.  We are not doing what we do to get the response we want or to get them to think about us in a certain way.  We are doing it to please God.  Not to get something from God.  To please him.  To enjoy working in partnership with him. To reflect him to those around us.  And honestly?  Sometimes he is not what they think they are looking for.

This makes the task a little messy.  Pleasing God can actually mean looking silly or inadequate to others, or even being offensive to them, not intentionally, but because we stand (carefully and thoughtfully) for the truth.  

In my experience, the kind of parenting that leads to people pleasing (i.e. "good" parenting) is Pavlovian conditioning.  If the child follows the rules (i.e. pleases Mom or Dad), he or she is rewarded.  If not, he or she is punished or not rewarded.  Everyone knows what to expect.  If the trainer is consistent, good behavior is reinforced, bad behavior is extinguished, and the child is rewarded and happy.  "Happy."  Because everybody got what they wanted.  Right?

Pleasing God isn't really about anybody getting what they want.  It's about following him, one step at a time.  It isn't always cut and dried.  What he wants from me today may not be what he wanted from me yesterday, and surely tomorrow he will ask something new.  God is perfectly consistent in his character,  but following him is filled with the unexpected.  What counts is knowing him, recognizing his voice, trusting him, and trusting his ability to get through to us.  After all, we are on a journey, each day leading us into a new territory of its own.

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God is pleased when we bear fruit in every good work--but he created us for such a variety of kinds of work, with different styles of approaching it.  He is pleased when we grow in knowledge of him--and we can learn so much from one another, because we each have such unique ways of knowing him.  He is pleased when we rely on his strength to find endurance and patience in whatever he calls us to do, because it turns our feeble efforts into something glorious.

So as parents, we can do the conditioning thing.  If this, then that.  It's so neat and clean, so simple.  (As long as we have inexhaustible self-discipline, that is.)  There are plenty of good things that can come of it.  But if we want to teach our kids to follow a heavenly Father, we have to get right down into the mess with them. The mess that is a maturity gap between the way they see the situation and the way we see it.  The mess that demands a choice between honesty and capitulation (when honestly, she is not sorry). The mess that speaks to a sense of injustice between siblings, between friends.  The mess that indicates something different is needed today, in this case.  The mess that reminds us of our child's frame, that he is dust, and that, though in the wrong, he too is hurting and needs to be heard.

That kind of parenting can make me feel woefully inconsistent.  I can't check a row of boxes and know that I'm a rip-roaring success.  But did I get the notion of needing to be a rip-roaring success from my desire to be a people pleaser or a God follower?

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My husband, the engineer/problem solver, gets this so much better than I do.  I could tell you story upon story where I thought the perfect solution was to slap on the consequences and shut that behavior down--BAM!--but where he has beautifully parented our kids through the situation with correction in mind, but their needs at heart.  Where I see something as a catalyst for poor behavior (the Wii, for example), he sees it as the perfect tool for teaching, and then practicing, new ways to respond.  I am so thankful for a husband who is not primarily interested in pleasing people, and who is not afraid of messes.

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This is my prayer for my children, and my prayer for us as we follow his Spirit, whatever he asks of us in this moment.  It bears repeating:

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, 
we have not stopped praying for you and asking God 
to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord 
and may please him in every way:  
bearing fruit in every good work, 
growing in the knowledge of God, 
being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might 
so that you may have great endurance and patience, 
and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, 
who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."

Colossians 1:9-12


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It always boils down to Matt 22:37-40
Cathy Benton

Tracy P. said...

It does, Cathy. In that order.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

StitchinByTheLake said...

Wow Tracy - there are a couple of things here that just slapped me in the face. The first was when you said Jesus didn't change himself to be what someone else wanted Him to be. Oh. My. Goodness. I never, ever thought about it that way. Let's just say I'll be processing that for a while. :) The other was that we each have a unique way of knowing Him. Well, I'll be darned...you mean, you don't know Him the same way I do? But of course you should so let me change you! :) Much to ponder here girlfriend - thank you. blessings, marlene

Tracy P. said...

I'm glad you are challenged by this as I am, Marlene. I think that for someone who naturally loves people, maybe is a little extroverted and delights to engage others, it is easy to be put off by those who not only don't welcome, but maybe try to avoid warm fuzzy encounters. My concern through all of this thought process is twofold: First, that we can unintentionally give kids the message that "winsome" people are more godly and of greater value, and second, that we can also miss the vast richness of the gifts God has given to the body of Christ through those who are perhaps more analytic or principled or determined (among many possibilities) than they are winsome.

Skeller said...

Tracy, you are a woman of wisdom. I have loved the deep truth you have presented in this, your image bearers, series. I can't help but think that this is the kind of wisdom God had in mind when he penned the words in Titus about "older" (put in quotes, of course!) women teaching what is good to encourage "younger" women ... In a Christian environment that often (sadly) emphasizes good outward appearance/behavior, I can't help but think your words would be a breath of fresh air, an "aha" moment for many.