As I sat alongside a mom, I was concerned for many things. I knew she needed my comfort, my compassion, and my care. And out of my own compassionate response to her story, I also knew I would have to help her to understand her daughter’s choices based on what God says about the inner man.
This mom went on to say, “Gail is a follower. She always has been. She just needed the right friends. She needed the right school and environment to help her do what was right. If she were a leader, I know she would have said, “No” to that jerk. He used her to get his immoral desired fulfilled. If she had had godly friends or Christian teachers, she would have been fine. We couldn’t afford Christian school or home schooling. She would not have done this if we could have placed her in the right school setting. She also needed a Christian dad. That would have made the difference. She would have known not to follow a “foolish young man.”
You have heard these kinds of words from some of your friends whether their loved one has made an immoral choice or a foolish choice. Let’s ask some surface questions about what happened: What was the situation? What did the daughter do? What details surrounded the story? Now for the key questions that go deeper: What was the daughter thinking at that moment? What did she want? What was the result of her desires? These are more helpful questions. Why? The answers to these questions show what is going on in a child’s heart. The key questions show what the daughter wanted and what she hoped to avoid. You will get a picture of more than just the circumstances and surrounding influences by asking the right questions. Why is this process so important? It is because Jesus says the target is important: the heart. He says that what is in the heart is the basis for our wise or foolish choices. If a person changes at the heart level, we will see the actions, reactions, choices, and results change as well. And more importantly, we will move our children and teens in the direction of choices that please God. (He is wisdom and the antithesis of God is folly).
How do we see this heart-centered view of life with Jesus? In Matthew 15, Jesus responds to the attitude of the Pharisees. They are so concerned about the environment, the situation, the outside influences. “Clean that up so you can feel good about living for God,” according to them. Jesus looks at their way of living life and cuts right to the core of it all. He says, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” Wow. These words were a major shock to their ears. And I think for many of us, although we believe Jesus is Savior and Lord, we don’t think what He says in the Bible is really relevant to our issues and struggles like rearing kids and dating and the bully from across the street. To put it another way, Jesus says that the reason the daughter wanted the immoral advances of the guy at school is that she wanted that relationship more than something else, and “that something else” would have been a choice that pleased God. Why? Jesus knows the heart of people. He does not see the heart as a neutral territory. The heart is the place in which a war of the worlds of spiritual proportions is going on. At the heart level is where the war must be won. Don’t fight the battle against exterior influences while ignoring the most influential battle ground which is the heart. So although we lament the evil of our society and surrounding environment, they are not the source of our problem.
Notice that I used the word influence here. That word shows us that when it comes to our environment, our past, our family, our housing, or schooling situations, these all influence us but do not make us or cause us to do or to be what we are or what we will become. Who I am comes out of my heart desires and my heart thoughts. “Wait,” you may say. “If we want to talk about what’s going on inside my child, let’s talk about personality.” You may argue that it is clear that your kid’s personality is more quiet, so he/she allows the more outgoing kids, the ones we call leaders, to run the show. You say, “My teen is influenced by peers because of his/her personality.” Is this true biblically? Or does the Bible ignore this problem? Or does psychology and its understanding of personality prove to be more powerful? The Bible does not discuss personality; it does present us with choices based on the heart. The disposition of my heart will prove to be the basis for my character. My choices will come from my heart, influence or not, personality or not. See our longer discussion of personality here.
My response at this point is to switch my discussion to another key passage: Galatians 5:16-24. The context is Paul’s explanation of how we live by freedom in Christ. Do we tend to give our flesh its way (desires and longings and choices) or do we tend to allow the Spirit to rule in our life (desires and longings and choices). Can we excuse a child that makes certain choices based on personality? God does not. And He holds us responsible for our choices regardless of our personality. Yes, I realize that each child needs to be taught and to be trained about foolishness and wisdom as they grow up. But the expectation is the same across the board. So for Gail, the teen girl who chose to do an immoral act, God says (with love and sadness) that she is responsible. She could have said no. She could have hated the sin and desired holiness. But her heart should have desired to please God more than pleasing that young man or gaining more of his approval.
I believe our problem (especially as parents) is that we see personality as definitive, rather than becoming like the person of Christ as being definitive. Jesus is neither shy nor extrovert. He is simply God. Perfect in person and relationships with people. When he needed to be (in front of Pilate and Herod), Jesus was quiet, reserved, and under control. When he needed to be, Jesus called out the Pharisees in public, with necessary language and emphasis, but always under control. Do you see how personality fades and godliness becomes paramount, based on the individual situations? If as a parent you put the emphasis on the personality of your child, you give him/her an excuse that will become the norm. And their choices won’t be their fault – ever – into adulthood.
It is interesting how we can read our Bibles with a view that the environment or influences around us are the most powerful factors. If those factors changed, the story would change, we may think. We could blame God for not flexing with Cain. After all, it was his personality to work with crops. So it was God’s fault that he ended up being a murderer. We could blame the pressures on Noah of building the ark, being inside the ark for a year with a bunch of animals. This is why he got drunk, resulting in sin with his son. We could say that the home life of Jacob’s sons was a bad environment. Look at the mess of having 12 kids by 4 different women. And you see all the competition and jealousy that takes place in this family. What a mess. But does Jacob’s home situation mean that they will all turn out bad? Can we blame their home environment? No. God holds each one responsible for his and her choices (interesting discussion would be Genesis 49 and what Jacob says from God about each boy and his future). The sons reap and sow according to their own heart desires and willful choices. And then Joseph comes along. His environment is the same as the rest. He grows up being a favorite of his dad. That favoritism was not good. Joseph ends up being sold into slavery by his own family. He is with hardened slaves and people who worship the sun, moon, and wild animals as their gods for the next couple of decades in Egypt. He is alone. He has no church. He has no loving, godly mom or dad. He has no accountability group. But somewhere along the way he decided that the God of his family was the most important person to Him. His heart desired to please God above all else. According to the personality and influence theory, Joseph should have ended up in bed with Potiphar’s wife. He had no help. But he did know God and had a heart that thought of pleasing God as his priority (Genesis 39:9). His beliefs and desires were what moved him to say no to Potiphar’s wife’s advances.
Help your children/teens to begin to take responsibility for their actions by taking responsibility for the sinful and self-centered desires, dreams, fears, and longings of the heart. Do you want to help your child? I encourage you to regularly ask these questions:
- What was the situation? (Who, what, when. . .explore the surrounding events and people with them)
- What were you thinking? (About yourself and others, outcomes, possible choices)
- What did you want? (Why. . .help them see that what was going on in their heart and desires is the most important part of that event)
- What were you feeling? (What emotions were a part of or accompanying their desires and fears)
- What was the result? (Choices have consequences. They need to put the two together with their heart desires at center stage)
After a thorough discussion, guide your children/teens to the choices of the heart rather than the negative influences as an excuse or the personality deficits as an excuse. Remember, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” What will this approach drive me to do? I will pray for my child’s heart rather than defending him/her because of environment or personality. I will pray about what is inside my child rather than trying to remove outside influence. I will begin to point out their heart idols to them now rather than waiting till it is much later in life.
