These really are remarkable times in our nation, remarkable for their immaturity, insanity, incivility, and idiocy. The reports of continuing protests over the weekend include the perimeter of a courthouse being breached by violent protesters in Portland, courthouses in Oakland and Aurora being set on fire, and another courthouse in Los Angeles being vandalized with graffiti and broken windows. Protesters used an explosive to blow a hole in the wall of a Seattle police precinct. More than twenty cops in the same city were hit by bricks, rocks, and other projectiles. Across the country cars were smashed, fires were set, and businesses were vandalized in various ways. A Starbucks in Seattle was destroyed, though who knows if this was a protest against racial injustice and police brutality or against overcharging for cups of burned coffee? At least one person was killed. (It is unwise to approach an occupied parked car in Texas with a rifle in your hands. The occupant of the car may shoot you.) Spray paint, bricks, fires, and obscenities are the symbols of the resistance. America is branded as a fascist state by those too young, too illiterate, and too indoctrinated to know what real fascism is. (Read a book. There were many examples in the last hundred years. Most of them were socialists. They bathed the twentieth century in blood.)
When Kirstie and I counsel the parents of young children, we often advise them to cultivate indifference. We do not mean they should be indifferent to the welfare of their children or to their ungodly behavior that may endanger said welfare. On the contrary, parents must learn a particular form of indifference in order to rightly prioritize and pursue their children’s welfare. Unfortunately, parents get upset about the wrong things. They are hurt by how their child’s behavior impacts them, the parents. They view temper tantrums--which ought never to be tolerated--as a personal offense, disobedience as disrespect, and whining as an inconvenience and annoyance. Of course, such behavior is all of those things. Disobedience is disrespect, and a child’s whining demands are inconvenient and annoying. But that is not why parents must correct that behavior, and it certainly is not a proper or helpful frame of mind for correction. If you rebuke and punish your child’s disobedience because they have disrespected you, then you have simply taught them that it is appropriate to use force to compel others to respect them. If a parent becomes angry because he is annoyed by his child, he is not parenting properly. He is reacting selfishly. Parents should act, never react to provocation.
Therefore, a wise parent will cultivate indifference, not to their child’s behavior or welfare but to how that behavior affects them as his parent. Parents are not allowed to have hurt feelings, and if your feelings are hurt, your child should never know it. It will only get in the way of good parenting. A parent who disciplines a child when he is angry is unwise; a parent who disciplines a child because he is angry is acting like an abuser. Should a parent be angry because of a child’s sin? Of course he should, in a holy and righteous way. But that holy and righteous anger is dispassionate. Remember, God is “without body, parts, or passions.” He does not discipline his children because he lost his temper. He disciplines his children with perfect calm and wisdom, in keeping with his love and their best interests. If you are getting upset, your head is not in the right place. Take a step back or a step away. Take a breath. Refocus. What are your priorities? What is the goal? I am not trying to win my child’s submission to me. I am trying to train my child to submit to Christ. I am not seeking compliant behavior. I am seeking a submissive heart. If when the child is corrected and sent to his room he stomps down the hall and slams the door, you are not done. You have not won the child’s heart. You are only hardening a rebel. But why is he reacting that way? Might it be because he learned to huff and puff and stomp and slam from you? Too often both parties in the parenting process are way too thin skinned and emotionally invested. It is understandable when a two year old is offended that his demands are not being met. It is inexcusable when a thirty-two year old parent is similarly offended.
Get over yourself. You have a child to raise for God, and you will not have him for long. Stop taking everything so personally. Are you really so hurt by what a pre-kindergartener said to you? And if it is your teenager popping off, then they learned it was acceptable to do so long ago, but it is never too late to repent and start doing your job. You cannot fix them, but you can ask the Lord to help you work on you. Keep your eye on the ball. The goal is not in this room or this moment. The goal is glory, and as God’s parental minister, your job is to preach Christ to your offspring, “warning every [child] and teaching every [child] in all wisdom, that we may present every [child] perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:28). But you can only do this while you are “striving according to his working which works in [you] mightily” (Col. 1:29). You will not form your child in Christ while you are wearing your emotions on your sleeve, and you certainly will not succeed so long as you are primarily worried about what they think of you.
It may seem that we have gotten a bit off-track. After all, we started with the violent breakdown of civil society in cities across the country, and now we are talking about how to dispassionately parent. But there is a connection, at least, in my mind. It is easy to look at the headlines and to take away the wrong message. “The country is going to Hell in a handbasket!” That’s not entirely true. There are not any handbaskets to be seen. The country is simply going to Hell. “This nation will no longer be a safe place for us and our children to live!” That may be true, but that only means the insulated bubble inside which we have lived most of our lives is now disintegrating. If you remain in that cocoon you will be safe. You will also have the moral and spiritual constitution of a slug, and that’s probably unfair to slugs. Creatures in cocoons do not need skeletons, muscles, teeth, or claws. The good news is that once removed from the cocoon you will begin to grow a backbone, build muscles, and learn how to properly defend yourself--though the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (cf. 2Cor. 10:3-5; Eph. 6:10-18)--or you will die. “We are obviously living in the last days!” Of course we are, and I am glad you finally noticed. We might have already learned from the New Testament that these days began almost two thousands years ago (Acts 2:17-22; Heb. 1:1-4; Jas. 5:3; 2Tim 3:1-5; 2Pet. 3:1-7), but better to learn it late than never. “No, Pastor, I mean the last days, like the very last ones there will be!” Well, I suppose we might hope that is the case. But Christians in almost every generation since the time of the apostles thought the same thing. I suppose one of these days some generation will be right. Actually, whether any of these reactions to current events are true, none of them are the lesson we need to take away.
What we are witnessing in the violent breakdown of our society is the frantic, desperate, ultimately futile temper tantrum of spoiled children who have more than a little of the Devil in them. It is dangerous, yes, undeniably destructive, and has the potential to radically and permanently alter this nation as we know it. So what? Is maintaining the status quo our highest priority? Are we most concerned to keep America quiet, prosperous, complacent, and politely wicked for the sake of our comfort and convenience? Our nation has been slaughtering children in the womb with the government’s blessing since 1973, but at least we said “please” and “thank you.” We have sanctioned sodomy and renamed it marriage. We have opened women’s sports to men with mental illness and gave those same mentally ill perverts access to the women’s restroom. We have decided marijuana dispensaries are essential services for the community, but churches are not. We have a President who thinks it is presidential to be crass on Twitter, and an opposition party that openly plots to completely transform the United States. They may succeed. If they do, it will simply be the next stage of God’s judgment upon us. But what is our priority?
Believers must learn to cultivate indifference, not to the violence of the mob, not to the wicked schemes of ungodly persons, but to the immediate and inconvenient impact this behavior has on me. We know how to deal with temperamental two year olds, and it is not by having a temper tantrum ourselves. Cultivate indifference, not to their rage, but to the fear and offense and discomfort it creates in you. Think globally, not just locally. Jesus came to save the world. If the Devil burns down a few Starbucks, remember there will be better coffee in the new heavens and earth anyway. Think about the kingdom, not about individual castles. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we are not the first Christians to live in the midst of violence. I do not want to live in a violent, socialist state. I also do not want to have to wear glasses or have joint pain or cope with an ileostomy every day of my life. We do not always get what we want. But we are supposed to be the adults in this house. We are supposed to be able to see the big picture. It’s understandable the angry children outside cannot see it. They were probably raised by easily offended parents. But you and I do not have to be unsettled by their temper tantrums.
