Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ethan (00:00):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
Well, we've spent about 36episodes dedicated to
understanding the battle foridentity for our kids and
(00:22):
learning, hopefully, some partsof what it means to be a member
of of the kingdom of God, whileunderstanding we walk in the
kingdom of man.
Grasping the way that the worldwants to replace God's identity
with its own identity, learningto build your family in the
(00:42):
kingdom of heaven, to have aChristian worldview, that is to
see how God defines virtue,resilience, liberty, freedom,
talent, teaching the basics offaith.
Prayer, the gospel.
And once a family commits itselfto the kingdom of Jesus, we're
then able to discuss theformation of character.
(01:05):
See, once you've laid down thisfoundational truth, then it's
time to transition into thebuilding of character.
And that's what I hope we can doover the next set of podcast is
focusing on the issues ofbuilding godly character.
The time in raising kids isshort, and it's easy to get
(01:28):
distracted.
This weekend was interesting.
Wall Street Journal writer MeganCox Gergen reviewed Jonathan
Haidt's book, The AnxiousGeneration.
Now, Hite's talking about thesmartphone to Generation Z.
He calls it the great rewiring.
And he declares in his book thatthe smartphone generation was
(01:51):
the greatest parental experimentever and a total disaster.
He talks about the spikes insuicide and mental health to
support his findings.
The same weekend, Rob Lytle inthe Sunday Times provides his
take on the growing mentalhealth crisis in the UK.
(02:12):
He seems to think it's relatedto the growth industry of
counseling.
political propaganda, and thedecline of the Anglican church.
And you start reading this stuffand yeah, I mean probably
policing the smartphone iswhat's needed and being a little
skeptical about some of thiscounseling stuff is probably
(02:34):
okay.
But these causation correlationstories They get us distracted.
The reality is Jonathan Haidtand Rob Lytle are both probably
partially right.
But what do we do about it andhow do we not get caught up in
getting too worried about thatand miss forming godly
(02:58):
character, which is the trueantidote.
Well, I think you have to startwith the words of F.
Scott Fitzgerald.
He writes in Bill Bennett'sbook, a letter to his daughter.
He poses the question, what areyou aiming for in the first
(03:20):
place?
I think what we're aiming for isthat all of us want our kids to
be Come men and women ofintegrity, hardworking, honest,
loving, kind, courageous adults.
Some collection of Christianvirtues that we hope they
develop.
And as we've said many times,the best of parents are parents
(03:44):
at best.
We're busy, hardworking couplestrying their best to raise great
families.
And it's going to take more thanus.
The Bible and the Great Mindsand the Church Fathers would
suggest three things at leastthat I think influence
character.
Story, adventure, andexperience.
(04:06):
Get the right stories, take theright adventures that reveal
truth, participate andexperience virtuous activities,
and you get the kingdom view.
Fill your head with the wrongstories, explore the darkness of
the world, experience the vicesof mankind, and the person you
(04:29):
become will not be what you'reaiming for.
It's that old quote fromEmerson, Sow a thought, reap an
action.
Sow an act, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Stories are thoughts andcharacters.
Adventures are acts.
(04:50):
Experiences are habits.
This all has to be done in theframework of Paul's words found
in 2 Corinthians, chapter 318.
And we, with unveiled faces all,contemplate and reflect the
Lord's glory, are beingtransformed into His likeness
(05:10):
with ever increasing glory,which comes from the Lord, who
is the Spirit.
See, we don't want to turn thisinto works righteousness.
In fact, we cannot build godlycharacter without trusting it is
the Lord who transforms ourkids.
Without this understanding,we're not going to avoid the
(05:33):
pride, judgmentalism, legalism,and all the nastiness that comes
out of that soup.
This is a parallel that'sdifficult for many in our faith.
But it is our faith in God thatencourages us in planting the
seeds of story, adventure, andexperience, not confidence in
ourselves or the motivationalflesh of our kids.
(05:57):
In fact, you're going to findthat the patience and at times
you're going to, you're going toneed that patience to the
resistance to these practices.
And that requires you to trustGod.
The importance of sharing greatstories, including those in the
Bible is because the world isgoing to tell your kids a
different set of stories.
(06:19):
Many popular influencers in oursociety will help kids become
nihilistic and narcissisticzombies.
The message will be somethinglike the world sucks, so get all
you can get out of it today.
And most of us underestimate thepower of story and we undervalue
(06:40):
the importance of familystories, the ones that you
share.
I mentioned last time, I've beenreading through Marco Polo,
Venice to Xanadu.
Polo describes many tribes andreligious practices on his
journey to the Mongolian empireof the great Khans.
And as they make it across thedesert, he needs a tribe, let's
(07:02):
say they run a bed andbreakfast, very hospitable.
However, the tribe shares morethan a bed and breakfast, but
participates in what is calledendogamy.
Something I've never heard of,but it's the sharing of the
wife.
Goes completely againsteverything that you would think
of in the natural instincts of aman and his wife.
(07:24):
Polo says, Clavius Khan, GenghisKhan's grandson, is now the
emperor and he hears about it.
And he says, you got to stop.
And so they stop because, youknow, he's, he's Clavius Khan.
He can kill you.
But according to Polo, faminecomes and illness.
And so this tribe sendsambassadors to convince Khan to
(07:49):
let them do it.
risking their own lives to havethis meeting and they convince
Khan and he agrees.
You see, the thing I'm tellingyou is that the thing that you
would think is totally unnaturalgoes against all relational
understanding.
Yet when a culture is told astory over and over, it grabs
(08:13):
some correlations to thecausations.
People start to believe what isa lie.
It influences their characterand their actions and they throw
away the truth.
And that is the power of story.
And it happens in our cultureall the time.
The commentaries in our newsmedia, the influencers on social
(08:38):
media, podcasters, All thesedystopic themes in music, film,
and novels are coming at yourkids all the time.
The modern prophet, as we'vesaid before, finds the flaws of
our world, then they dismiss theentire institution whenever they
see these cracks, and then theyconclude this is why they
(09:00):
deserve to be an influencer.
And the effects to join thisnihilistic view that the world's
a mess, there's nothing that canbe done about it, and you're
stuck in it, are followed by theconclusion that, well, you may
as well grab all the thrills youcan, live your life, you do you.
Pearl Davis is one of theseinfluencers.
(09:21):
I had never heard of her.
But she has to be the most jaded27 year old I've ever seen.
She rants about marriage,family, traditional values as
pipe dreams without ever havingbeen married or had a family.
Her ideas are the result oflistening to story after story,
(09:44):
interview after interview offamilies that failed and
concluding, it's not worth it.
For our families to be what wehope for, for our kids to grow
up, to be virtuous people, tolive out and have godly
character, we're going to needan antidote to the poisoning of
the American mind and theWestern society.
(10:06):
We're going to need to tell ourchildren's stories.
We're going to need to give themadventures that include virtuous
moments, We're going to have toadopt some practices that allow
them to experience what it meansto practice virtue as the Lord
transforms them.
And so what I hope to do overthe weeks ahead is share
(10:28):
stories, talk about adventures,maybe some experiences that
influence thoughts, acts, habitsthat lead to character and
Christian destiny.
The idea that the failure statsof this world should lead us to
throw in the towel is foolish.
The world failures that lead tothese Hellenistic views are not
(10:49):
new.
They're as old as the world andthey can be seen in any
historical part of our societyand world history.
The Christian family is going tohave to push to do things
differently, dissect storiestogether, examine the adventures
we take and practice andexperience the virtues we hope
(11:11):
to attribute to ourselves.
In the kingdom.
Now I've said before GKChesterton his quote.
It's not that Christianity hasbeen tried and found lacking
It's the Christianity has beenfound difficult and lacks trying
and like all statements I wouldsay there's some truth in this
but Christianity in the longterm It's not hard.
(11:34):
Jesus says my yoke is light.
See, being countercultural seemshard, but that too is a bit of
an illusion.
Being pulled into culture andletting it form your character
is what is truly hard.
And this is difficult to see asyoung parents and especially as
(11:55):
children.
But when you get older, reallyolder, and you see how it ends,
for those who believe theworld's lies, who deny the truth
of the gospel, you see the endof that road for those who took
the wide path with thesetemporary thrills, and you
realize that path was hard.
(12:19):
Inviting Christ to explain storyin our life, to enlighten our
family adventure.
to be part of our practices inour life together.
That's what I'm hoping we canuncover in some stories and
adventures ahead.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
(12:41):
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
Well, we've spent about 36episodes dedicated to
understanding the battle foridentity for our kids and
(00:22):
learning, hopefully, some partsof what it means to be a member
of of the kingdom of God, whileunderstanding we walk in the
kingdom of man.
Grasping the way that the worldwants to replace God's identity
with its own identity, learningto build your family in the
(00:42):
kingdom of heaven, to have aChristian worldview, that is to
see how God defines virtue,resilience, liberty, freedom,
talent, teaching the basics offaith.
Prayer, the gospel.
And once a family commits itselfto the kingdom of Jesus, we're
then able to discuss theformation of character.
(01:05):
See, once you've laid down thisfoundational truth, then it's
time to transition into thebuilding of character.
And that's what I hope we can doover the next set of podcast is
focusing on the issues ofbuilding godly character.
The time in raising kids isshort, and it's easy to get
(01:28):
distracted.
This weekend was interesting.
Wall Street Journal writer MeganCox Gergen reviewed Jonathan
Haidt's book, The AnxiousGeneration.
Now, Hite's talking about thesmartphone to Generation Z.
He calls it the great rewiring.
And he declares in his book thatthe smartphone generation was
(01:51):
the greatest parental experimentever and a total disaster.
He talks about the spikes insuicide and mental health to
support his findings.
The same weekend, Rob Lytle inthe Sunday Times provides his
take on the growing mentalhealth crisis in the UK.
(02:12):
He seems to think it's relatedto the growth industry of
counseling.
political propaganda, and thedecline of the Anglican church.
And you start reading this stuffand yeah, I mean probably
policing the smartphone iswhat's needed and being a little
skeptical about some of thiscounseling stuff is probably
(02:34):
okay.
But these causation correlationstories They get us distracted.
The reality is Jonathan Haidtand Rob Lytle are both probably
partially right.
But what do we do about it andhow do we not get caught up in
getting too worried about thatand miss forming godly
(02:58):
character, which is the trueantidote.
Well, I think you have to startwith the words of F.
Scott Fitzgerald.
He writes in Bill Bennett'sbook, a letter to his daughter.
He poses the question, what areyou aiming for in the first
(03:20):
place?
I think what we're aiming for isthat all of us want our kids to
be Come men and women ofintegrity, hardworking, honest,
loving, kind, courageous adults.
Some collection of Christianvirtues that we hope they
develop.
And as we've said many times,the best of parents are parents
(03:44):
at best.
We're busy, hardworking couplestrying their best to raise great
families.
And it's going to take more thanus.
The Bible and the Great Mindsand the Church Fathers would
suggest three things at leastthat I think influence
character.
Story, adventure, andexperience.
(04:06):
Get the right stories, take theright adventures that reveal
truth, participate andexperience virtuous activities,
and you get the kingdom view.
Fill your head with the wrongstories, explore the darkness of
the world, experience the vicesof mankind, and the person you
(04:29):
become will not be what you'reaiming for.
It's that old quote fromEmerson, Sow a thought, reap an
action.
Sow an act, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Stories are thoughts andcharacters.
Adventures are acts.
(04:50):
Experiences are habits.
This all has to be done in theframework of Paul's words found
in 2 Corinthians, chapter 318.
And we, with unveiled faces all,contemplate and reflect the
Lord's glory, are beingtransformed into His likeness
(05:10):
with ever increasing glory,which comes from the Lord, who
is the Spirit.
See, we don't want to turn thisinto works righteousness.
In fact, we cannot build godlycharacter without trusting it is
the Lord who transforms ourkids.
Without this understanding,we're not going to avoid the
(05:33):
pride, judgmentalism, legalism,and all the nastiness that comes
out of that soup.
This is a parallel that'sdifficult for many in our faith.
But it is our faith in God thatencourages us in planting the
seeds of story, adventure, andexperience, not confidence in
ourselves or the motivationalflesh of our kids.
(05:57):
In fact, you're going to findthat the patience and at times
you're going to, you're going toneed that patience to the
resistance to these practices.
And that requires you to trustGod.
The importance of sharing greatstories, including those in the
Bible is because the world isgoing to tell your kids a
different set of stories.
(06:19):
Many popular influencers in oursociety will help kids become
nihilistic and narcissisticzombies.
The message will be somethinglike the world sucks, so get all
you can get out of it today.
And most of us underestimate thepower of story and we undervalue
(06:40):
the importance of familystories, the ones that you
share.
I mentioned last time, I've beenreading through Marco Polo,
Venice to Xanadu.
Polo describes many tribes andreligious practices on his
journey to the Mongolian empireof the great Khans.
And as they make it across thedesert, he needs a tribe, let's
(07:02):
say they run a bed andbreakfast, very hospitable.
However, the tribe shares morethan a bed and breakfast, but
participates in what is calledendogamy.
Something I've never heard of,but it's the sharing of the
wife.
Goes completely againsteverything that you would think
of in the natural instincts of aman and his wife.
(07:24):
Polo says, Clavius Khan, GenghisKhan's grandson, is now the
emperor and he hears about it.
And he says, you got to stop.
And so they stop because, youknow, he's, he's Clavius Khan.
He can kill you.
But according to Polo, faminecomes and illness.
And so this tribe sendsambassadors to convince Khan to
(07:49):
let them do it.
risking their own lives to havethis meeting and they convince
Khan and he agrees.
You see, the thing I'm tellingyou is that the thing that you
would think is totally unnaturalgoes against all relational
understanding.
Yet when a culture is told astory over and over, it grabs
(08:13):
some correlations to thecausations.
People start to believe what isa lie.
It influences their characterand their actions and they throw
away the truth.
And that is the power of story.
And it happens in our cultureall the time.
The commentaries in our newsmedia, the influencers on social
(08:38):
media, podcasters, All thesedystopic themes in music, film,
and novels are coming at yourkids all the time.
The modern prophet, as we'vesaid before, finds the flaws of
our world, then they dismiss theentire institution whenever they
see these cracks, and then theyconclude this is why they
(09:00):
deserve to be an influencer.
And the effects to join thisnihilistic view that the world's
a mess, there's nothing that canbe done about it, and you're
stuck in it, are followed by theconclusion that, well, you may
as well grab all the thrills youcan, live your life, you do you.
Pearl Davis is one of theseinfluencers.
(09:21):
I had never heard of her.
But she has to be the most jaded27 year old I've ever seen.
She rants about marriage,family, traditional values as
pipe dreams without ever havingbeen married or had a family.
Her ideas are the result oflistening to story after story,
(09:44):
interview after interview offamilies that failed and
concluding, it's not worth it.
For our families to be what wehope for, for our kids to grow
up, to be virtuous people, tolive out and have godly
character, we're going to needan antidote to the poisoning of
the American mind and theWestern society.
(10:06):
We're going to need to tell ourchildren's stories.
We're going to need to give themadventures that include virtuous
moments, We're going to have toadopt some practices that allow
them to experience what it meansto practice virtue as the Lord
transforms them.
And so what I hope to do overthe weeks ahead is share
(10:28):
stories, talk about adventures,maybe some experiences that
influence thoughts, acts, habitsthat lead to character and
Christian destiny.
The idea that the failure statsof this world should lead us to
throw in the towel is foolish.
The world failures that lead tothese Hellenistic views are not
(10:49):
new.
They're as old as the world andthey can be seen in any
historical part of our societyand world history.
The Christian family is going tohave to push to do things
differently, dissect storiestogether, examine the adventures
we take and practice andexperience the virtues we hope
(11:11):
to attribute to ourselves.
In the kingdom.
Now I've said before GKChesterton his quote.
It's not that Christianity hasbeen tried and found lacking
It's the Christianity has beenfound difficult and lacks trying
and like all statements I wouldsay there's some truth in this
but Christianity in the longterm It's not hard.
(11:34):
Jesus says my yoke is light.
See, being countercultural seemshard, but that too is a bit of
an illusion.
Being pulled into culture andletting it form your character
is what is truly hard.
And this is difficult to see asyoung parents and especially as
(11:55):
children.
But when you get older, reallyolder, and you see how it ends,
for those who believe theworld's lies, who deny the truth
of the gospel, you see the endof that road for those who took
the wide path with thesetemporary thrills, and you
realize that path was hard.
(12:19):
Inviting Christ to explain storyin our life, to enlighten our
family adventure.
to be part of our practices inour life together.
That's what I'm hoping we canuncover in some stories and
adventures ahead.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
(12:41):
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
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