Raising Amazing Kids - Part 2

Raising Amazing Kids - Part 2

Raising Amazing Kids - Part 2

Parenting with perseverance

Jim Burns

Rick, you do an amazing job. Thank you very much! I got the chills when the moms stood. I got the chills in “How Great Thou Art.” Happy Mother’s Day!

I was thinking backstage about church history. No one in here was probably thinking about church history during this service, but I was. I was thinking about the fact that in every generation God raises up men and women to lead worldwide movements – Billy Graham, et cetera. I was thinking about Rick Warren and thinking that here is America’s pastor, actually the world’s pastor. And you go to this church! That’s pretty phenomenal.

I’ve worked with Doug Fields. He left Saddleback staff, but he’s also part of this church still. But he’s now on my team at Home Word. In fact, just recently I said, how did Saddleback handle you for eighteen years? This is crazy. But he is the world’s leader when it comes to youth ministry. So out of this church, two people who in this generation are leading the world in movements. That’s actually pretty phenomenal.

You made a good decision to come to this church. Like I said, happy Mothers’ Day and congratulations to that beautiful woman who cannot be that old! I think she was lying. Women lie about their age. I think she’s about fifty-four.

My mom was a beautiful woman. Her name was Donna. She died. She died at seventy-four. She had been smoking all of her life – not a smart move. You can contract lung cancer… and she died.

One day I remember so well. She was in hospice care at my mom and dad’s home. My dad was watching a baseball game and my mom was lying on a hospice bed and I was sitting on mom and dad’s bed, kind of doing time. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience with a loved one. Your emotions are raw. During that time I cried like crazy because the most influential person in my life was my mom. And I laughed because we would laugh at things, because our emotions were raw. I prayed. I’m the pastor type in my home. First generation Christian, first Christian in my family, so they expected me to do that. That was hard to do with my mom.

But in this particular time my mom looked up at me. She’d been almost comatose. She said, “Jimmy where’s your dad?” I said, “He’s watching a baseball game. Do you need him?” My mom said, “No.” So she kind of sat back down. I looked at my clock, kind of getting ready to move on, go back to my work. She said it again. “Jimmy, where’s your dad?” almost agitated. I said, “Dad’s watching a baseball game. Do you need him?” She said “No.”

Then she said, “You know Jimmy, I never liked baseball.” “You never liked baseball? Did you ever miss a game of mine when I grew up?” “I don’t think so, Jim.” “Did you ever miss a junior high game or a high school game or an American Legion game? You went to my away games, mom. Sometimes that was even embarrassing for me. You were the only mom there!” She said, “I think I made all those games.”

My brother played for the Chicago White Sox. I said, “When Bill was playing even in the minor leagues you bought a short-wave radio so you could sit by the short wave radio in the kitchen and listen to the scratchy thing just so you could hear his name. What do you mean you don’t like baseball?”

My mom said, “Jimmy, I didn’t go there to watch baseball. I went there to be with you.”

At that moment tears welled up in my eyes. I get in my car and drive and I start bawling like a baby, because I realized the profound influence my mom had on me was not because she’d ever read a parenting book or a marriage book or had been to a seminar or had been to a series like this. But it was because she had the power of being there in my life. Children regard your very presence as a sign caring and connectedness.

So you moms who stood up, you’ve got a tough job. You have a most remarkable job. But it’s not easy. And a lot of moms have tough times because they don’t think they’re the mom of the century. Even today they may not think that they should deserve recognition, because we’re imperfect.

But I want to say that by far – and this is what I do, I study parenting and I study marriage issues and family issues – this is what I do every day; we now know that by far the greatest influence in a kid’s life spiritually is Mom. There’s not even a close second. The close second is Dad. We don’t do so well men; we need to buck it up a bit. Then there’s Grandma, so you get a double dose, Grandmas. Then there’s the rest.

So it’s this power of being there that makes the difference. I’m happy that Rick is doing this series on parenting. Some of you might say I’m single and not really at this point a parent. You might be a single parent, of course. And you are the heroes! He mentioned that in the introduction. Maybe you’re a student. But all of us relate to family. All of us have family.

Actually, it’s very important that we have series like this. For example this weekend in London, actually in all of Great Britain, about six or seven percent of the people there go to church. That’s not a very high percentage. In all of Western Europe it’s like that. But in 1945, seventy- four percent went to church. So what church historians say what happened? They all agree on this. They won’t all agree on everything, but they all agree on the fact that we’ve missed a generation of working with kids, we’ve missed a generation of working with marriages, and we’ve missed a generation of helping parents succeed in the church in Great Britain; and the church fell apart.

So we’re one generation away from the same thing here in America. That’s why it’s so critical that churches like Saddleback have such amazing children’s programs, amazing women’s programs, amazing youth programs, et cetera, et cetera!

I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. I came from a classic dysfunctional home. My dad was an alcoholic. And twenty years before he died, which was just recently, he became sober. So he was a recovering alcoholic. But I grew up in an alcoholic home.

I met Cathy the very first day at Azusa Pacific University. One week after she graduated we got married. She was a first generation Christian. We thought it was going to be easy because we were Christians and we were going into the ministry. It was hard! In fact, her family was also classic dysfunctional. So basically, a sinner marries another sinner, then you begin to have sinner-lings. And you sort of bump into each other.

We came along quickly with a term that we kind of made up. We called it the transitional generation. What that means is the Bible says – and really catch this, some of you needed to hear this today. The Bible says you inherit the sins of a previous generation to the third and fourth generation. So you are like your mom or you are like your dad, or you are like your family of origin. Both good and bad. There’s a sin bent that kind of comes from the family and we inherit this. And Cathy and I definitely inherited this, so in our marriage it wasn’t going so easy. Our marriage wasn’t going so strong.

So what we realized that if we were going to break the chain of dysfunction and become the transitional generation for our family, we were going to have to recover instead of repeat. Really almost all of us in this room recover or repeat the sins of a previous generation. To do that you’ve got to be the transitional generation. It’s not easy.

Fast forward to the time my daughter Christy, who is now in her twenties, but when she was seventeen she was – I don’t know what this even means but we called her a spitfire. I think that means you’re the strongest willed child known to humankind. But that’s another story. She was having a disagreement with Cathy. I’d actually call it an argument. I know from the stage we’re supposed to say we never have arguments, but our family does. Three daughters, so we have no hormones and drama in our life, of course!

So Christy is really pushing on Cathy. She’s very articulate. She was saying some things to Cathy that were strong and tough. I was being the passive aggressive father and husband. I was in the other room listening. I’m not proud to say that. But all of a sudden I hear her saying things to Cathy that I went, boy that’s true, but I wouldn’t say that to my wife!

When she escalated I finally did what I should have done earlier and I walked in and I said, “Christy! Go to your room.” To be honest with you, I actually thought Christy was going to say to me, “Dad, I’m sorry. My bad. I apologize to mom. I apologize to you. I really escalated, Dad. I’m really in touch with my feelings.’

Instead she turned on me. Now it’s personal! So now I’m mad. I just did the dad look and said, “Get up to your room.” So she knew she was to get up to her room. She slammed the kitchen door. We have a sign that says “Bless this house,” and it went crooked! We’ve actually kept it crooked to remind us that that’s kind of how most homes are. I walked up. I got to the door. It was closed. I prayed and I counted to ten. Needing both – prayer and counting to ten.

I walked in and she wanted to talk and I said, “No, it’s my turn. Let me talk about mom. First of all, let me tell you that some of the things you were saying in there were right about Mom.” At this point she’s like, “Good, Dad’s on my side,” kind of a thing. Then I said, “But also that’s not just your mom. That’s my wife. And I never want you to talk to her like that again.” I did it kind of calmly. I was proud of myself.

I then said, “Let’s talk about Mom. Your mom is the woman in my life, the actual person, human being, who has grown the most in her life and her faith.” I’ve never met another person who has grown as much as Cathy. I mean that with all of my heart today. Today, when we celebrate Mother’s Day, after the California Angel’s game… I have a wife that wanted to go to a baseball game! I think I just heard an Amen, at Saddleback. I think that’s kind of scary. It was from a male voice though; that was the problem.

But I said to her, “Your mom has grown the most. Your mom started in deficit land. You don’t even know the dysfunction of her family. So your mom started here and now she’s gone to here. And sure, she has some faults just like I do.” But then I introduced to her what I said to you, that she was a part of the transitional generation. You inherit the sins of the previous generations. “Mom is in the process, for the rest of her life, of recovering rather than repeating.”

I said “Christy, she starts here and gets to here, so you get to start in the middle some place and you get to move on.”

At that point my seventeen year old began to cry. Because she understood. She got it that Mom was bearing the weight of the past family that she had no choice of. It’s not a horrible family. It’s just not a real good family at times.

I want to say to you that some of you are transitional generation people. You’re doing a good job. You’re not going to get beat up on Mother’s Day and you’re not going to get beat up about parenting because you’re probably doing a much better job than you think.

There’s a Scripture that I want to share with you today. The Scripture is found in the book of Hebrews. . It’s one of the great Scriptures. In fact, it’s almost a near perfect summary of the Christian faith, but it relates to parenting and family issues all the way. So again if you’re not a parent, that’s ok. This Scripture is going to relate to you in a big way, anyway I hope. It sure does to me.

So . It starts with the word “therefore.” You’ll oftentimes here pastors say this: That therefore is ‘there for’ a reason. It’s actually chapter 11, although we’re not going to spend a whole lot of time on chapter 11. Just let me remind you what chapter 11 is. It’s the story of the mother’s and the fathers and the leaders of our faith. So it goes from Moses through all these different names.

You might say, “Fine! But I don’t relate to them.” Yes you do. Because you’re probably a liar and many of these people were liars. There are times when they were prostitutes in that group. There are people who were murderers in that group. Some of the main people of our fathers and mothers of faith did not have it together until they met Christ. And even then they were not perfect. So if you are a part of that feeling, that you sometimes struggle so much, join the club.

Hebrews says this “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [that was the liars and the prostitutes and the murderers] let us throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance [underline that because we’re talking about Parenting with Perseverance today] the race marked out for us. [So throw it off, get focused it says.] Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him [Jesus] who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Frankly, a lot of us grow weary with our family situations and we lose heart. Even on a wonderful day like Mother’s Day that is a great celebration of you moms. Sometimes it’s not easy because there’s some hurt and some misunderstanding.

What’s fascinating about it, and some of you younger people may not get this, but the truth is that the goal in life and the goal from that Scripture – like I said it’s a very famous Scripture – is to finish well. To make decisions today that will affect you the rest of your life.

I say to my kids all the time “Play the movie forward. The decisions you’re making right now, is that going to help you? Is that going to work for you? If it is, great. But if it’s not, then probably some change needs to take place.”

Let me ask you a question: Is it working? Is life working for you right now? Is your marriage working, if you’re married? Is it working with your kids? Again, I’m not asking for perfection. My feeling is that for a lot of people in here, you think your family’s messed up. But you think the people next to you whom you don’t know, that their family’s not messed up. Let me just say their family is messed up too – in terms of looking for perfection.

You know what’s crazy? It’s supposed to work. This is not a parenting book. I’m sorry but it’s not. I write books on parenting, I write books on marriage. But I can take great things out of this, but it’s not a book. It’s a manual. It shows us how to do life; it shows us how to parent. But it’s not just a word-for-word parenting book. However, if we get the words right and we understand and put the right stuff in our minds, we will become more effective in our family life, period. It takes focus.

In fact, I have a friend who lives in South Africa. He’s in ministry there. His dad takes tours from South Africa to Mount Kilimanjaro. They fly to the base. And people hike for six days to get to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. I actually want to do that one day. It’s not a sophisticated hike like Mount Everest or something, like a lot of people couldn’t do. It’s just one long hike.

He was telling me, not too long ago, that his dad said if there’s a cloud on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, even people who are really good hikers don’t make it. They give up. There’s backbiting, fighting. They get discouraged. That happens in families. So they don’t make it. They just turn around. “We give up.”

But if they can see the peak, if they keep their eyes on the peak and the clouds are kind of blowing or the clouds are kind of off, or even if they just periodically get a peek of the peak, then they make it. Even people who aren’t in good shape make it. Because their eyes are fixed on the peak.

Really, this Scripture and this message today is about the foundation of parenting that goes right along with what Rick said last time, and what is going to happen in the next couple weeks. Really, this Scripture that I just mentioned is about steadfast endurance. That’s the word for the day. We need perseverance and steadfast endurance to make families work. Somebody once said, and it wasn’t me, that the safest place to be is the center of God’s will. We find the center of God’s will when we persevere. That’s the story.

So my point out of this Scripture is simply stay focused. And stay focused with your family priorities.

Everybody in here would agree, there’s God, if you’re married then your marriage in terms of where your priorities go, children, then our vocation and all the rest.

But we get it all mixed up. Here in Orange County, a lot of us have marriages that are really child-focused marriages. So we now have a business relationship with our spouse because we’re only focused on our kids.

Or guys like me sometimes have made the mistake of thinking that my vocation is actually more important than my relationship with God. Yet this Scripture reminds us first things first – don’t get distracted.

I live in Dana Point. It wasn’t a long drive for me today. I walk my dog at the harbor a lot – Dana Point Harbor. Many of you would know where that is. My dog, Hogie, a Golden Retriever, and I spend quite a bit of time there in the morning. Actually, my wife goes to boot camp and works out and goes, go have fun with the old people walking the harbor. I think I’m there!

One morning, about 6:30 in the morning, I had just completed a book I called Creating an Intimate Marriage. So I was thinking about marriage and I spend a lot of time thinking about how do you help marriages succeed. Actually I wake up like Doug Fields would, how do you help kids? I figure one of the most effective ways to help kids is to help you with your marriages and your parenting; so that’s what I do.

I see a couple skipping – remember I said it was 6:30 in the morning. Cathy and I celebrate our anniversary on May 11 – I don’t know if we’ve ever skipped together, period! Let alone at 6:30 in the morning. Then I would see them stealing kisses. Unbelievable. Just me and my dog and they’re skipping and kissing! So they come straight for my dog. They don’t even say hello to me and start talking doggie talk to the dog.

Finally, I just interrupt them and say, “Can I ask you a personal question?” They kind of look at me like, who are you? I said, “I work on marriages and you look like you have the greatest marriage.” (I noticed they had wedding rings, so I was safe.) I said, “What’s your secret to marital success like this?”

They looked at each other and kind of laughed. They kissed. Then she said, “Actually, we’re not married.” I am never speechless but I was totally speechless. I had no idea what to say to these people next. They were kind of waiting for me to say something. Then finally she said, “Let me tell you our story.” The guy looks like, you’re going to tell him our story?

“The story is that I live in Nashville, Tennessee [she said] and he lives in northern Virginia and we are soul mates. We work together. We’ve worked together for many, many years. We go to our business meetings four to six times a year and we meet in these nice hotels [and she points to the Marriott which is up above the Dana Point Harbor] so we’re staying here. We are soul mates.”

I said, “I’m sorry for prying!” She said, “Oh no. That’s ok. We’re proud; we are soul mates.” And then they left.

I thought to myself, Wow! There are probably some people in Nashville, Tennessee, at least one family, that’s not real happy right now. And they may not even know this takes place; but there can’t be a lot of good intimacy. And then there’s a family in northern Virginia probably going through the same thing, because they had told me they were still married to these other families.

These weren’t evil people. When I looked in their eyes I didn’t see evil and all this bad stuff. They were just really misdirected. I thought, they’re a little bit like you and me. What happens is, my guess is they got married and they said they were best friends and they were committed for life, and before a pastor or a priest or somebody they said, Till death do us part, and we’re going to do this. And they did. I think they had pure motives at that moment.

But then what took place was they sort of neglected the basics for them; the basics of marriage. Sometimes we neglect the basics of parenting or the basics of our faith. We know what they are but we just neglect them. I do that all the time. So they neglected the basics of their marriage. And once they neglected the basics of their marriage, they sort of drifted away from each other. Maybe it was because they got married young and he or she was very involved in business and they were making money and they had rent to pay or they had mortgages to pay. Then kids came along and they got all involved with the kids. Now they’ve got a business relationship with their spouse that’s not romantic, it’s not intimate. It’s just literally, they’re working through insurance issues or whatever.

So they neglected the basics. It was that great theologian Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers who said, when you’ve strayed away from the basics you’ve gone a long ways toward defeat. And they had strayed away from the basics. Neglect. Then drift. They drifted and they looked up one day and they were lost. And they found their false intimacy in the arms of somebody else.

It’s normal. It’s here.

My point is that they lost their focus. We have pure motives when it comes to parenting. But sometimes we lose our focus. First things first.

I love what Oswald Chambers said “Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ.” Beware of anything – even good stuff – that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ.

I was speaking at something called the Promise Keepers Pastors’ Conference. It was at the Diamond Back stadium over in Arizona. I was getting ready to go on and there was music going on – phenomenal. I’m with a man named Pastor Jack Hayford. He was the master of ceremonies, a phenomenal leader. Rick would know him well. Jack’s a little older than Rick.

I said “Jack, what’s your secret to leadership success? You’ve been so faithful. Such a man of integrity.” He said, “It’s not what I’ve chosen to do.” That was the oddest sentence I could hear. “It’s what I’ve chosen not to do. I had to stay focused to make sure I was being faithful to my wife, faithful to my children, and faithful to my calling, instead of being so distracted.” Then he used a word I’ll never forget. He said, “I had too many attractive distractions. So I realized I had to just kind of unpack those and focus.”

I think what God is calling us to today, if we’re going to persevere with our parenting and persevere with our family is, we’ve got to stay focused.

Somebody needed to hear this message today. This was not the message that was going to be spoken today. But somebody needs to hear this. Don’t bail out. I know it’s not easy. Nobody said it was going to be easy. But don’t bail out. Persevere. Keep your focus on the right thing. You know what to do. I don’t have to tell you what to do.

Let me ask you a question: What will it take for you to sustain your life, to sustain your faith, to sustain your family, to sustain your parenting? What will it take? You probably know the answer. You probably don’t need somebody like me to tell you what it is. But again, sometimes we don’t do it. At least I don’t. There’s pain in life.

So I always say there’s either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. I’m going to have pain either way. When I walked on stage none of you went, that guy is in amazing shape. But what you didn’t know is I’ve been working out, and I’m pretty proud of myself. And I’m sore! I was in the weight room yesterday, and it’s the pain of discipline. But the pain of regret is going to be another thing.

There’s the pain of discipline or the pain of regret in life. We understand that physically. We sometimes understand that medically. Sometimes you even understand it financially. But why don’t we understand it when it comes to spiritual issues. The pain of discipline, the pain of regret.

So stay focused especially with your family issues.

Then secondly, we see this in verse 3, where it says “Don’t grow weary and lose heart.” Too many families grow weary and lose heart. It’s really tough to be a parent, especially if you’re a parent of a teenager. Or even a twenty something. I’ve just finished a book called Teenology. It opens by saying these words “Parenting is part joy, part guerilla warfare.” And it is. Nobody said it was going to be easy. But we’ve got to be able to have the courage to change and develop the courage to change.

I would say you first and then your kids. A lot of times we want our kids to change. But what I’m saying to you is no, you change first. If you point your finger at your kids and nag them all the time and even if it’s justified, it’s not going to work. But if you point your finger at your kids, there are three fingers pointing back at you. If you point your finger at your spouse, there are three fingers pointing back at you. So start with you. And have the courage to change. Then you won’t grow weary and lose heart.

Sometimes we don’t take care of ourselves. I love what Paul said to Timothy. He said in , “Pay attention to yourself.” Then he said, “Pay attention to your teachings.”

Sometimes, because we’re Christ followers, we hear that we should never take care of ourselves. But that’s not right. One of my mentors is a man named Gary Smalley. Gary Smalley says self care. He says take care of yourself.

That doesn’t mean that you’re being selfish. Actually we have a lot of emotionally messed up parents, because they are so giving of everything else that they have nothing, because they don’t have anything inside of them. Bill Hybels calls it self-leadership, and says fifty percent of your leadership strengths should come from working on your own leadership, on your own self.

I got a call from this woman. She said, can you speak to eight thousand students in Honolulu, Hawaii. I said let me pray about it. “Yes! I can go there!” What it was, it was called the Purity Code Event. I wrote a book called The Purity Code. It’s wonderful. It’s for kids. Looking for a million kids to make this decision in honor of God, my family and my future spouse, I commit to sexual purity. You do it by renewing your mind for good, by honoring God with your body. These were all scriptural – by turning your eyes from worthless things [look at what pornography is doing to kids today] then also by guarding your heart. The Bible says in Proverbs, “Guard your heart above all else, because it determines the course of your life.” Only if some of us would have guarded our hearts better! We know how to do it; we just didn’t do it.

So what happens is I get to this event and it’s in a big arena. I stand up there and speak after Miss Hawaii. So you’ve got her telling her story – beauty. And then you have the beast coming on. And you’ve got this great band who had played so the kids are all hyped out. Then I invited the kids to come sign these cards that say “In honor of God, my family and my future spouse, I commit to sexual purity.” It’s cool. It’s an amazing event.

So I’m kind of done when I see a woman in the first row absolutely out of it. She’s crying, sitting there, weeping. And I know her. Her husband had had an affair, and he is a leader in the Christian church. Rick Warren would know him well. It has been about two years. It was kind of silent. They were trying to make it work. She was going to speak at an event the next day so that’s why she was at this. I didn’t know why she was sitting there. I go right up to her. I thought my job, other people would take care of the kids right now. I went to this woman.

I said, “How are you?” She said, “Oh, you probably think these tears are tears because of what’s happened in my life. But they’re not. These kids are making great decisions. I’m crying because they’re making such great decisions right now.” She said “But also, I felt in the middle of your talk that God spoke to me and that he wants me to tell you something.”

That freaks me out. If you come up to me afterwards, I’m going to go hang out in the back, and you say, “God has a word.” I’m thinking, is my zipper down? What is it? Sometimes people say great things and other times they are so weird you can’t believe what people say. I hope that really wasn’t of God. But this one, I trust this woman.

I appreciate that she said, “Would you like me to tell you?” I said yes, please. So the band’s playing, kids are all around and she says “Untended fires soon become nothing but a pile of ashes.” I said, say that again! She said “untended fires soon become nothing but a pile of ashes.”

I said “I receive that. That was from God.” What I realized was that my own life, if I don’t tend the fire in my own life, I will be a lousy husband to Cathy and I will be a lousy father to my kids and I’ll be a lousy worker. I’ll just be lousy because I’m not tending the fire in my own soul.

So the way to have the courage to change whether it’s parenting with perseverance or not is actually make sure that we tend our own soul in many ways.

The model is actually in Jesus. We won’t take the time to look at the Scripture. But in , Jesus goes away and prays. It starts where Jesus goes away and prays. Then he comes back and spends several hours with his disciples, which I would call replenishing relationships. Then he goes to his ministry.

What we do is we do the opposite. We give everything we have to our work, to our kids, to our wife. And we put nothing within our own nurture of soul. So we don’t have solitude enough and we definitely don’t have enough replenishing relationships.

So Jesus’ model was – like a wagon wheel – three parts to it. The center is solitude. And that’s where we find our strength. Then the spokes would be replenishing relationships or community. Here at Saddleback – it’s a big church. It’s amazing how much community you can have at this place. But if you only sit in the back and you don’t have the community of people who support you... We weren’t meant to parent alone. But sometimes we do that. And then the wheel part is the ministry or the life or your relationship. By far the most important thing you can do is raise kids. So if you’re doing that, the legacy is amazing.

Yet we need the courage to change. It hasn’t happened because we’re in what I call crisis-mode living. Crisis-mode living is when you spend most of your waking moments going from meeting to meeting or carpool, laundry, whatever it is. But here we’re exhausted most of the time, just because we’re always in crisis. When you’re in crisis-mode living, what I’m finding is that doesn’t work for kids.

So we’re spinning the plate of God. We’re spinning the plate of our marriage, if we’re married. We’re spinning the plate of our children. We’re spinning the plate of our work. Some are paper plates and some are china plates. But we get confused because there’s other responsibilities; and we’re kind of just run ragged.

When we’re in crisis-mode living, our relationship with God that was once really strong is now not as strong. It’s now more a be kind to God because we don’t have enough energy. It takes time to have a nurturing relationship with the Lord. What was once a burning relationship with our spouse is now a business relationship that really doesn’t do much for us. We almost have some low level bitterness or anger or resentment at the fact that we’re living with this person but we hardly connect with them.

Even for Christians, we stuff our emotions. What happens is we’re stuffing our emotions because we don’t want to look angry or we don’t want to really deal with our issues because we’re in crisis mode. If somebody cuts us off on the freeway, we freak out.

My kids used to go to Capistrano Valley Christian School. Some of you may know of that school because we live in the area. It’s a Christian school, a great school, horrible parking, maybe the worst parking in the universe. I think it’s better now that my kids are out. They’ve improved the parking.

What would happen is I would drive my kids to school and Cathy would pick them up. I’d drive my kids to school, drop them off. If there were no cars to the left, I could make a quick U-turn and get out of that parking lot. If not, I had to drive what felt like a half a mile down the road and then make a U-turn and come back. It took too long. I dropped my kids off one day. I made a quick turn. I ran into a SUV Escalade – brand new, black, beautiful. And I’m driving the Burns’ car which is the looser cruiser. That’s what my kids called it so nobody could tell if it gets hit. But it’s a big deal if they do.

Has this ever happened to you? I actually thought I hit them, but then I realized I didn’t. I put on the brakes really quick. There’s a jolt but I’m looking and I realize I didn’t hit them. I was very pleased and I thought the people would be happy with me. I look at the lady in the passenger seat. She’s not happy. She’s giving me a scowl, a hateful look. She thinks I’ve hit her car. So I’m saying “I’m sorry. Totally my fault. I should have gone straight.” She’s just scowling at me. Then the driver, I’m assuming her husband, and he is going crazy! I thought he’s going to hit me. I thought he was going to get out of the car and beat me up. I was thinking how do I run because this guy was bigger than me. I’m trying to say I’m sorry. But at the same time say I didn’t hit your car. Give me some grace here. It’s a Christian school parking lot, ok?

All of a sudden I recognize them. My church had been without a pastor and many weekends I was speaking at my church, so they were starting to call me Pastor Jim. That was getting scary for me. But I recognized them. They sat in like the third row. So I kind of smiled thinking I know these people. The guy all of a sudden in some kind of fit of anger gives me the international sign of displeasure! For those of you who don’t know it, the international sign of displeasure is, he flipped me off. At the exact moment he did that, giving me the bird, he recognizes me. I read his lips: “Oh, my God. It’s Pastor Jim. How are you?”

So I waved to him that I was sorry and I back up and I go on. Sunday, I happened to be speaking and they’re in the third row. Pastor Rick would not do this. Doug Fields would do what I’m about to tell you what I did. I said, I’m not going to go out to talk to people. I want to go see some friends over in the third row over there. So when it was over I walk right over to them and just kind of stood there. I said, I’m so sorry for cutting you off. He said, “I’m so sorry for …” He didn’t want to say “flipping you off” because he thought maybe I didn’t see him. It was a pretty quick wrist thing. So I helped him… “for flipping me off.” He said, “Yeah. I didn’t know you saw that. Sorry.”

He said, “You shouldn’t turn left there.” I said, “I know. It really was my fault. I was just coming to apologize.” Then all of a sudden he said, “Actually the reason I did that to you, it’s actually her fault.” And he points to his wife. The funny thing is that his wife had been on his side until now she’s going, Me? “She was grumpy!” So now because she was grumpy he was flipping off the pastor. That makes a lot of sense.

So I just stood back and let them have a conversation. Finally he said, “The story is I was in her car. My car was in the shop. Everybody was grumpy, probably including me, if I flipped you off; and I’m sorry.” I said “No problem. Happens to me all the time.”

We do that when we’re in crisis mode. Hopefully it’s not flipping your spouse off or your kids. But we do that in terms of the way we react. Why? Because we’re in crisis mode. If I’m doing solitude and I have replenishing relationships, I’m not going to do that in terms of treating somebody unkindly.

There are four questions I ask myself oftentimes. These are my questions, but you can look in on them if you want. The questions go like this:

Do I like the person I’m becoming? I can only ask this question when I have some solitude and I’m not living in crisis mode. Because if I’m in crisis mode, I don’t like the person I’m becoming or I don’t like the parent I’m becoming.

Is my heart for God growing or shrinking?

Is my pace of life sustainable? Some of your paces, your pace of life isn’t sustainable and you keep going. It’s not going to work. It’s going to affect your kids. A book that I wrote called Confident Parenting, I quote a study that’s out of Harvard that says this generation of young people has twelve less free hours a week. That’s not good.

Then the big question for me, and I have it in my journal: Am I giving my family only my emotional scraps? There are times for me when I have fried my emotions, when I have abused my spiritual gifts, when I have definitely damaged my body, neglected my family, neglected my friends. I’ve neglected God only to hear God whisper to me, Jim, you are more than a ministry machine. Slow it down!

Your kids don’t have to be at every event known to humankind just because you weren’t at the event growing up. You can say no to your kids. Actually good parenting says, we’re not trying to raise obedient kids. We’re trying to raise responsible adults who love God. And for them to be responsible adults, some of us have to take the monkey off of our back and place it on their back; and we’re going to actually watch them fail at times. But that’s what we must do. We can’t do it when we’re in crisis mode.

So again, I ask you one more question; what are the areas of your life that you need to have the courage to change?

What’s holding you back? That’s a good question. Pain of discipline or the pain of regret? The word for discipleship, the root word, is discipline. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Frankly, when the pain of remaining the same in your life and in your family is greater than the pain of changing, you’ll change. But don’t wait for that.

One of the other areas I see in this Scripture is that in , where it says “don’t grow weary or lose heart,” – we can’t do it alone. We need to establish replenishing relationships. The Bible says quite clearly in , “Bear each others’ burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

I want to say to you, my friends, to be a good parent means you don’t do it by yourself. We are isolated islands sometimes. All these people in this room, and yet we’re isolated islands. We’re not meant to do marriage alone. We’re not meant to do parenting alone. We’re not meant to do heartbreak alone. We’re meant to do it in community, establishing relationships. Do you have replenishing relationships? A question I would ask you is do you invest each week in establishing healthy, replenishing relationships? Do you? Some of you do, some of you don’t.

I was talking with Rick Warren Friday night about five o’clock. He was talking about his couples’ group. I thought, how incredible that your pastor is involved with a couples’ group where they have replenishing relationships. It doesn’t mean everything is going easy in that group.

Every Tuesday, down at Newport Beach, I meet with four other men. There are five of us. We do life together. We’ve done it for twelve years. We used to just talk about sports and stuff like that – politics. All of a sudden one time, a guy opened up his life and started talking about something more real, about his family; now we’ve all jumped in. Today I’m a better husband and a better father because I’m in that group.

You either have Very Draining People – I call them VDPs, or you have Very Inspiring People around you. That’s an oversimplification. You’ve got people in the middle too. VDP – do you have them? You may be sitting by one – you may be one. I find that what I need to do, I need to say to myself: I’m going to have VDP’s – no doubt about it. But I need to have VIPs around me, and I need to be one to lead in that.

So an illustration for many of you: Doug Fields for me is a vip. I was his youth pastor. He was just a bratty little eighth grader when I met him. But today he’s my vip. So on Tuesday when we spend the entire day together, there’s some viping going on. Very Inspiring People going on. What I’m trying to say is find people around you who inspire you. And hang out with them.

You say they’re too busy. They’re probably not too busy. Don’t say, would you spend the rest of your life, hours and hours with me. But, can we go have lunch? Can we go get coffee? Young people, hang out with people like that. Don’t just spend time with VDPs. Establish replenishing relationships. Jesus did it. He had people who were draining him at all times but he also was around replenishing relationships.

Then lastly keep the eternal perspective. . Keep the eternal perspective. Don’t parent for the day. A lot of us are just trying to get through Thursday in our families. No. Parent for eternity. In doing that we’ll make better decisions.

In fact, it’s amazing to me that Paul said this in the midst of a guy who had been beaten, a guy who had been placed in jail. He said, for these light and momentary afflictions. This is found in . For these light and momentary afflictions, you’ve been beaten almost to death. You’re in a jail that’s raunchy. No bathrooms. No water. Stuff like that. Think how sick that is. Most people died because they were in jail. He says “For these light and momentary afflictions that we bear are producing in us eternal weight of glory far beyond comparison.” Paul had eternal perspective. That’s why he could do what he did.

We need to have an eternal perspective.

My dad died not too long ago. I mentioned earlier that my dad was an alcoholic. He was a functioning alcoholic. Then he quit drinking when it got worse. Pretty courageous decision actually. Not easy. He became incredibly inspiring in my life.

Another hospice story: Dad was one day from going into hospice. What happened was he was very frail. He was eighty-nine. He was on his walker and slipped and fell. He broke his hip and got a hip replacement. They said if he doesn’t stand up he’s going to die of pneumonia. About three weeks later he had not stood back up. They couldn’t get him moving.

I was sitting there with Dad. It was just me and dad at that moment. A woman walks in, a cute Filipino lady – about four foot eleven by four foot eleven. She was bubblely. She walks in and says “Bob!” looking around. There’s one guy in the bed, Bob, my dad. “Bob! It’s time for physical therapy.” I thought to myself, “No it’s not. He can’t stand. She has the wrong Bob or something, because there’s no way he’s going to do physical therapy.” But being kind of a youth pastor at heart, I thought this ought to be interesting. I’ll watch this. So she said, “Bob, it’s time to get up.”

My dad kind of smiled. He’s so weak, one day away from hospice. He tries to get up and at this point, it’s not going to work. So I go over to kind of help him. She stops and she says, “Bob, how did you break your hip?” My dad looked at her straight in the eye... “It was a motorcycle accident.” She looks at me. I just went like “this”. I didn’t want to say, actually he was in his walker and he fell.

He proceeded to tell a story that was a true story. The only problem was it was forty-seven years prior. He said “His brother Bill [I have a brother Bill] has a motorcycle [he had a motorcycle] and it was in our backyard and I always wanted to see if I could ride one of those things. So I got the key when his brother Bill was gone and I took the motorcycle out of the back yard, across the street to a Christian Science Church [from where I grew up in Anaheim]. I rode around it and then I came back. But I didn’t know how to stop the motorcycle so I went through the patio door. And that’s how I got here.”

It was so right that the woman looks at me again. That happened a long time ago!

She said, “Do you have other children?” She could see by the same hair cut my dad had and mine, we were related. Do you have other children? He said to her, “Yes, I have four boys: Jim, Bill, Bob, and Ron. And I’m proud of all of my boys.”

At that point tears welled up in my eyes, because I heard my dad say at the end of his life, “I’m proud of you.” And also tears welled up in her eyes. I don’t know what was going on with her, but she’s kind of got the tear thing going. I’m thinking, I understand him being proud of me, but my other brothers? Give me a break!

Then he said, “I’m looking forward to being with God in heaven.” That really got me and got her. He said, “I was married to his mom, Donna, for fifty-three years and she’s waiting for me.” At that point chills are coming – I’m a mess emotionally on the inside anyway. He said, “I have no regrets. I’ve lived a great life and I’m ready to go and be with God.”

I was thinking, Wow! Have no regrets? He was an alcoholic. I was so amazed that he was looking forward to being with God.

The lady kind of lost it. She said, “Ok Bob! Thanks! We’ll see you.” She’s trying to get out of there. I felt tall. I feel tall around no one. She put her hand on me and she said “You are a blessed man.” At this point it was messing with my head; because I knew it was that I had a dad who was ready to be with God.

Then she walks out. I didn’t want to go back in there so I walked around the convalescent hospital, which is not the most pleasant place to walk around, and then I came back into his room. I just kind of got real close to my dad’s face. I said, “That was a special moment. You’re proud of all of the boys.” He looked at me and said, “Jimmy, I’m so proud of you and I’m proud of Bob, Ron and Bill.” I thought to myself, how like God. My dad was proud of us and we blew it.

A lot of you moms and a lot of you dads as parents, you say I’ve blown this. I’m not the best parent. I want to tell you right now that God is proud of you, just like my dad is proud of me. Because you’re his child. And he’s not going to come to you one day when that time comes and say, You dirty, rotten person. He’s going to welcome you. You’re his child!

Then I said to my dad, “You said you had no regrets.” He said “That’s more your business than mine. I’ve been forgiven by God. And I’m looking forward to being with him and I’m looking forward to being with your mom. And I’m looking forward to being with my brother.” And again I thought, how like God. He helped me to understand the eternal perspectives, whatever is going on.

And you have some tough stuff going on. You might have tough stuff going on in your family and I truly, truly am sorry; and I can’t help you with it maybe. Maybe I can. But the fact of the matter is, when you have eternal perspective it puts life into perspective. It puts our family life into perspective from a different angle. It’s a great reminder today – a great reminder that God loves you now and he loves you for eternity and he wants to be part of your parenting process. And he wants you to relinquish your life to his life and let him do the heavy lifting.

Moms, thank you. Thank you so much for the sacrifice. Dads, thank you. This generation is much better than previous generations. If you’re not a parent, you’ve got some; and if they’re not dead, you tell them today how grateful you are. And even if they didn’t do it perfectly, join the club. But we can persevere. Not because of all of our strength. But because of the strength that God gives us.

Prayer:

Almighty God, thank you for these men and women. What a pleasure it is to be a part of one of America’s great churches who cares deeply for kids and moms and families, cares deeply for singles, for people who are in recovery. And Lord, when we talk about family it pierces our heart sometimes. Yet we are reminded that it’s really not about us. But it’s about you and it’s not just the fact that you let us do life alone but that you’re willing to come alongside of us. Lord, I would pray for the men and the women here, who feel the burden, feel challenged that they could relinquish their will to your will. Lord, thank you so much for the constant reminder that we are loved immeasurably by you. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.