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30 Days to Enjoying Your Children More: Discipline {Day 6}

New here? Click on the photo to begin at Day 1.

When we purchased our first home four years ago, we inherited a renegade grapevine that sprawled across an insufficient arbor in the backyard. It had become wild, consuming the trees along our property line and devouring at least three different fences in neighboring yards.

The grape clusters were sparse and grew so high up in the trees, my husband had to borrow an extension ladder from a neighbor just to reach them. Worse, the vine was in danger of killing itself. The roots couldn’t produce enough energy to support the out-of-control branches. Without drastic intervention, it would slowly die.

This was a shame because the grapes on this vine are particularly tasty. The person who planted the vine and built the arbor probably knew that. He had great intentions of harvesting bountiful fruit. But that’s where his interest in the plant ended. He did not care to prune or fertilize it, and he never trained its willful vines to grow where they could be strongest.

Whoever planted the vine did not love it enough to help it reach its potential. As a result, the undisciplined vine was not healthy, productive, or even enjoyable. In fact, it was downright annoying. It was growing all over the neighborhood in a tangled mess, and I didn’t know how to begin to bring it under control.

So I did the only reasonable thing: I ignored it and planted two new grape vines. The first year, the little whips needed little attention. But the second year, things started to happen and I had to do something. It had not occurred to me before that I knew nothing about growing grapes. I searched the Internet, read books, and consulted diagrams. My shoots don’t look like the diagrams. So I evaluated each one, looking for strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I had to clip things that might or might not grow back and tried to compensate with an extra layer of compost.

I began to understand why the first grapevine was left to nature. Discipline is tricky business.

It is true of grapes, and it is true of children, only more so. You cannot have truly healthy, productive, and enjoyable children if you do not practice discipline. Notice, I didn’t say “if you do not practice punishment.” Discipline and punishment are two different things. Punishment is one aspect of discipline, but so is praise and encouragement! Proper discipline includes both.

We are accustomed in our society to interchange the terms discipline and punishment, which is unfortunate. Because of this, “discipline” often has a negative connotation. You may even have felt angry, defensive, or anxious when you read the word.

But discipline is anything but negative. It means to teach or train with the intention of developing or improving a desired character or skill. Discipline is the process of weeding out weaknesses and encouraging strengths. It always keeps the best interests of the object in mind. The result of discipline is that a child is able to become more fully himself. That’s something you don’t always see in the books on discipline, but it is a vital truth.

Imagine how different our homes would be if every child was considered a unique and special member of God’s creation. What would happen if each mother and father looked at each child and thought, “I wonder what treasures God has given you that I can help to polish and cut? I wonder what kind of light you can shine if I help you?”

And instead of corralling behaviors and doling out punishments and rewards, as necessary as those things are, each parent made it his or her first intention to seek out the gifts and calling of that child so that the child could pursue it, become equipped to do it, and then delight in it for the glory of God?

What a rich and beautiful world it would be! Instead of rows and rows of perfectly cultivated apple trees growing along perfectly tidy streets, ours would be a world of winding paths through glorious orchards bursting with every kind of exotic specimen ever created. Each and every plant would be grown and trained to reach its fullest potential, each one disciplined to achieve its best, each one trained to be beautiful and productive. Not a single tree would be made to fulfill a purpose for which it was not intended.

How delightful it would be to live in a world like that! How delightful it would be to raise children like that!

If the cultivator of my overgrown grapevine had loved the vine enough to discipline in that way, it would have been pruned so the best vines could strengthen and grow. Instead of wasting energy on unproductive greenery, the roots could have produced and sustained glorious fruit. It would have been trained to grow over the arbor where the beauty of the plant and the abundance of the fruit could be enjoyed. A vine like that would be more fully itself than the one that was left to die in my backyard.

Isn’t the same true of our children? When we seek to cultivate our children in the way they were created, they are healthier, happier, and more enjoyable for it. They get to be the best them they can be.

Our world was formed by an infinitely creative God to be rich and varied, and so were our families. Disciplining our children allows the spectacular individualism of their God-given natures to shine through. If we fail to train them in the way God intended them to grow, or attempt to train them to be something they are not, they will suffer, and we will miss out on the joy of God’s workmanship.

My grandparents raised eight children. Four became missionaries or dedicated themselves to full-time ministry. One became a chiropractor, another a fireman, and another a businessman. And one became a race car driver.

The last one is not like the others, and that is the fun of it. If you ever watch my uncle race, you will see that he is most fully himself when he is out on the track or under the hood of a car. His passions, which have been disciplined into a life-long pursuit, are the part of him that most clearly communicates who he is and what he was made to do. They are the part that shouts out to God’s infinite creativity.

When we discipline our children to pursue the passions put in their hearts by God, they become more fully who they were intended to be. They get to be themselves, only better. And we get to enjoy them as they were meant to be.

Discipline produces good fruit!

Join us tomorrow for Day 7: Constancy

For further thought

1) How is discipline a loving act toward your children?

2) The Bible says God disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6). How is God’s discipline of you a loving act? How does it show His father-heart toward you?

3) Think about each of your children. Write down the good and godly qualities you see in them. How can you discipline those things to bear more fruit in their lives?

To the Woman Who Loved Him First

To the woman who loved him first:

an open letter to my mother-in-law on my anniversary

You loved him first, of course. I think you loved him better, too. Now that I am a mother, I know this. There is a way a mother loves better than anyone else ever can.

Because you loved him before, before he was anything but yours. You loved him when the only thing you knew about him was that he was a gift from God, and that was enough.

You loved him knowing you wouldn’t be able to keep him. Knowing he would never love you as much as you loved him. Knowing that one day, you wouldn’t even be the most important woman in his life anymore.

You loved him for me.

Long before I came along, you were there, growing that boy of yours into the man who would be mine. You shaped his character with godly virtues and hard corrections, discovered his gifts, delighted in his talents, and ceaselessly encouraged his calling.

Not that it was easy. I am a mother too, now, and I know this. There were scary nights and temper tantrums and habits that had to be broken. There were times you looked at that boy and wondered if you’d ever see the man.

You had to love him enough to discipline him, to make him do the things he didn’t want to do, and let him learn the hard lessons. You had to sit up with him night after night after night, helping him do his homework so one day, I could sit by his side at his graduation. All of them.

You loved him when it was hard.

And that has made loving him all the easier for me.

By your example, you taught that little boy what love is, how it is sacrifice and time and commitment. How it is sincere and good and kind. How it has to be given away.

He did give it away—to someone else. On our wedding day, fifteen years ago, he promised me the same kind of unconditional love you had shown to him.

He could make that promise to me because you had loved him well.

You didn’t do it perfectly. I am a mother now, and I know that too.

But somehow, in loving him first, you loved me best.

All these years, your son has poured out on me the love you poured into him. On this, the anniversary of your boy becoming my man, I am grateful. I can think of no other woman I would rather share my husband with. Thank you for being the woman who loved him first.

It has made all the difference.

Because she loved him first

When Is Your Child Old Enough to Read the Real Bible?

Micah reading his first real Bible

(Spoiler: he might be ready for the Bible sooner than you think)

Last year, the kids and I embarked on a journey to read through the Bible in a year. It was a daunting undertaking, especially on January first, when we were staring down the entire Pentateuch, a handful of minor prophets, and the oddities of the book of Revelation.

Prior to this, our family devotions consisted of a much shorter Bible reading, especially when Jeff wasn’t home. I tended to play to the lowest common denominator: my youngest kids. We read Bible story books, memorized verses put to children’s music, and went over the same “big stories” over and over and over again.

David killed Goliath every couple of months at our house.

At some point, I realized we were making a critical error. My kids knew the Bible stories, but they were not reading THE Bible. They knew the tales publishers thought were interesting enough to include in a children’s Bible-the ones that could be easily illustrated or colorfully told. But when the only thing my children knew of Kind David is that he nailed a giant, and all of Revelation was boiled down to, “I’ll be back,” something had to change.

I wanted my children to fall in love with the Word of God, not a stylized, dumbed-down version of the Word of God. As good and useful as children’s story book Bibles are for littles (and they are, don’t get me wrong), there comes a point when it’s time to take away the pop gun and give those kids the Sword.

The trouble was, my kids were used to the pretty-picture Bibles, and they liked them. Their biblical attention span was exactly what the Bible story books gave them: five minutes or less. Their vocabulary was similarly challenged. And really, all they wanted to do was look at the pictures.

The real Bible has tough competition against our favorite story Bible–look at those illustrations!

When it came time to read an actual chapter from the actual Bible, my kids got squirmy. They didn’t know where to find Romans and there weren’t any pictures and the sound of it was all so…plain.

In my home, where we value the Word of God, my kids had learned that the real Bible was boring, difficult, and only to be used in church. Without even realizing it, I was teaching them the idea every night when I hauled out the color-saturated children’s story Bible instead of the real thing when they were old enough to see and hear and touch the real thing.

Now, I know they were old enough because when I was their age, I began reading the Bible on my own. At that time in my life, I spent weekdays at a boarding school, only coming home on the weekends or for school holidays. As part of our daily routine, my dorm parents set aside time for personal devotions. Each of us kids was expected to sit quietly and read our Bibles for a short amount of time each day. No one looked over our shoulders and explained the big words. No one told us to skip over the parts about “begetting” or circumcision or any of the racy stuff about adultery. We just read it, our little brains dismissing the stuff that was too mature for us and absorbing everything else.

And do you know what? There was a lot my seven-year-old brain could absorb. I did not get bored or frustrated by the big words. Quite the opposite: I fell in love with the Bible when I was given the chance.

I was in second grade—the very same age my twins are now.

The well-worn story Bible…and the others

That discipline I developed in second grade became a life-long habit.

But six or seven seems so young when the six or seven-year-old is your child, and not yourself. I wasn’t sure my kids could handle reading the real Bible every day, especially the entire real Bible (because whoa, there are some parts I’d rather skip. Having Sex Ed right in the middle of family devotions is…awkward).

We did it anyway. My mother-in-law told me about a one-year audio Bible, so every night after dinner, we got out our Bibles and read along to the day’s audio reading. (Because mamas, you all know that the last thing you want to do at the end of the day is read three chapters of anything out loud to your children).

When Jeff deployed at the end of January, he was able to follow along with our Bible reading way over on the other side of the world, and we could all talk about what we were learning, just as if he was right here with us.

We didn’t do it perfectly. Some days, we missed. Some days, we chewed the Word a little more slowly. But mostly, we did it.

Still, I was worried I was pushing the kids too hard. Maybe we were reading too much each day? Was anything sinking in?

A boy and his Bible embarking on a life-long journey together (by the grace of God)

Then amazing things began to happen. My kids began to beg for our Bible reading each day. If we missed, they were genuinely disappointed and wouldn’t let me miss twice. Their questions became more insightful as their love of the Word grew. They began to connect the dots.

Then, a genuine miracle occurred: I bought the twins their first real Bibles for Christmas this year because their reading was finally up to the level where they could try to read it on their own. We began a new year of Bible reading as a family.

But the boys aren’t content to stop with the day’s reading. They snuggle on the couches with their Bibles, reading through Genesis on their own. “Did you read about Cain and Able yet, Paul?” Micah calls from his couch. “Oh, yeah! I’m waaaaay past that. Where are you at?” Paul responds.

Yesterday, they proudly told me they have read up to chapter 13 (although Micah insists Paul skipped chapters 9-11, an accusation Paul adamantly denies).

Let the reader understand: reading is agonizing for these boys. But the Bible has so captivated them, they cannot put it down. My sweet, dyslexic twins are reading their way through Genesis—the real Genesis—one slow word at a time, because they have fallen in love with it.

Can we all just stop and praise Jesus right now? Because my heart is full to bursting.

I can’t take the credit—God’s Word is living and active, and it is living and active even in the hearts of the very young. In my own home, God is giving me the privilege to see the power in the inspired Word of God, a power that cannot be replicated, no matter how charming the storybook version might be.

It. is. awe-full.

If you have been wondering what age would be appropriate to begin reading the real Bible with your child, let me encourage you: it might be earlier than you think. It might be now.