WHEN THE KIDS WON’T LISTEN
My young kids also have sin issues that don’t seem to be going anywhere. Like me, they have good days and bad days. But unlike me, they don’t have the Holy Spirit sanctifying and convicting them. Though Christians may disagree about the spiritual condition of our children, I believe all my kids have is common grace, and more often than not their own sinful hearts prevail.
This besetting sin in my own life, and the besetting sins in the life of my kids, often lead me to despair. What do you do when training and discipline is hard and seemingly unfruitful? How do you keep going when it seems nothing is working?
At the end of the day, discipline is often hard for me because I fail to see my children through humble eyes, and instead expect behavior that even I don’t exhibit. Discipline is hard because they’re stiff-necked sinners who need new hearts; they’re simply responding according to their nature. They disobey because it’s all sinful people know how to do (Rom. 8:5). They’re unkind because they don’t have new hearts (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26). They keep going back to their sin because it’s the only impulse anyone has apart from Christ (Rom. 1; Rom. 3:23).
Only when I see them in that light am I able to respond with compassion—not frustration. They need Jesus again and again and again.
Discipline is hard because sin is serious. Sin demands consequences. But it also requires we take the log out of our own eye first (Matt. 7:5). We’re stiff-necked parents dealing with stiff-necked progeny.