Opening The Heart Of Children To God EP 25

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The song Photograph by the bandNickelback is an interesting

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reflection through a collectionof memories seen by photographs
that are on the floor and a tripthrough childhood and youth, and
it concludes.
While it may not be easy, it'stime to say goodbye.
Sadly, many see their youth andpersonal history as a past

(00:26):
without significance to thefuture.
So they depart from this kind ofplayful land of youthful
nostalgia.
And they're taught to followtheir hearts to a new adventure
and new beginnings.
A heart that does not see God'sheritage in its youth and it
often becomes somewhat deaf andblind to God's working in the

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present and the future.
This life then looks for newlight instead of rekindling the
old light that was passed down.
The one that's from God to lightour path toward the kingdom of
heaven.
What can be done to quicken theeyes and the ears of the hearts

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of our kids so that they canfind and enjoy the kingdom of
heaven before they say goodbye?

Ethan (01:17):
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.
Today, as we come to the finalcouple chapters of the book, I
wanted to take some time beforewe move into new material for

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next year to express theimportance of our childhood
memories and stories and how Ibelieve it plays a role in
pointing our hearts towards God.
You may have seen Tolkien'smovie, The Hobbit from his book,
The Hobbit, the movie version ofit.
And the Snow Queen is standingthere.

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She's not moving her lips.
No words are coming out.
But her voice is being heard inthe heart of Gandalf.
He's not even looking at her.
But those words we can hear aswe're watching the movie.
It inspires him to lead thedwarfs and the Baggins to fight
their enemy and find the LostKingdom.

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It's a beautiful picture.
of the voice of the Spiritcoming into the heart.
It's hard to describe the wayGod speaks to the heart.
It's even harder to tellparents, well, how do we prepare
the hearts of our children tohear the voice of God?
Because there's really no threesteps or five steps or do this

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and then rest some sort ofrecipe.
But the Bible does emphasize tous what we remember and how we
remember plays a role in ourspiritual journey.
How we help our kids recognizetheir heritage, their spiritual
inheritance is important.

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And memory and recallingmemories and telling stories and
celebrating them is part of howit works.
watch a college football game,basketball, whatever sport, and
there's some new star playerthat's emerging.
And you will almost always seehis parents and some photograph

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of him or her on their youthteam.
Maybe a little high schooltrophy will be shown.
We walk into the bedroom of mostteens and the room will be
decorated with some photographsand memories of events.
Because we celebrate our livesby successes and wins and
achievements.
And that's sort of what the songphotographs trying to show us.

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But then as we sort of walkthrough this adolescence and we
start trying to make sense of itall.
If we don't have a heritage, aspiritual heritage of memories
to understand, well, we tend tosay goodbye.
And we try to decide, well, whatdo we keep and what do we leave?
One of the interesting things Isaw regarding this, this issue

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of memories and the heart andthe heritage, our, our Christian
heritage, was done on aConfirmation Sunday.
It was a confirmation class thatour pastor led.
And it really gave someinteresting guidance in how he
handled it.
Each child was given a projectboard.

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And on this poster board werepictures of various stages in
their lives.
But it included some words ormemories or pictures of their
baptism.
of a mission trip, of somethingthat had to do with their family
and their faith, as well as thesports and the activities and
stuff at school.
The point, and you could hear itas they described it, was seeing

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the hand of God and theblessings of God in the various
stages of their life.
When kids can see the picture oftheir life as if God had some of
those photographs, On therefrigerator in heaven,
metaphorically speaking, ithelps in seeing meaning and

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purpose of God's love in yourlife.
Children become young adults andyoung adults question who they
are.
We've talked about this on everypodcast.
Who you are, what you believe,where you belong, and how they
move from The sands of ambiguitythat are throughout this

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culture, where people arequestioning everything about
themselves, to the foundationalcertainty and clarity of
Christianity.
it can't be seen in some sort ofnickelback disciple where we
sort of leave behind thisAmerican nostalgia, this mix of
childhood folly and laughs.

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And when we do that, it puts theheart in like a Bluetooth search
mode.
It's trying to connect tosomething and what we're trying
to do as parents and as familyin our stories That include
connection to God and his loveand his blessings and in our
experiences in our life Is we'retrying to connect that heart

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device to God himself now makeno mistake This is this is where
everybody ends up at some pointyou may recall Christina
Aguilera's song beautiful inwhich she repeats.
I'm beautiful No matter whatpeople say and no matter what

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people think and it's kind ofthat along the song kind of goes
along this whole, you know, nomatter what people think of me,
I'm beautiful.
I'm beautiful.
It sort of becomes a copingmechanism.
It's all over our music, ourmovies, and our stories, and it
certainly has some value to beable to it.
value yourself, but it's notlong lasting.

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The lyrics reveal the soulbattling to find identity beyond
what the world says.
I can take you through songsfrom Frank Sinatra to Katy
Perry.
We are taught to land our soulthen by these songs and in this
struggle on what I call therunway.
of self reflection that leads toself determination.

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The songs and the culture.
It takes us back to a philosophywe discussed early on.
When we talked about what makesus angry, and we looked at
Montaigne when we were walkingthrough the book, Why We Are
Restless.
The French philosopher said itthis way, I don't care so much
what I am to others, as much aswhat I am to myself.

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See, this is the crux of raisingjoyful children into joyful
adults.
Living beyond self reflectionand seeing yourself and your
life as a reflection God made inhis image.
Not that we're God, but we aremade in his image, called to his

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purpose, given his talents.
And that is the joy line.
And this is so foreign to us.
It confronts almost everyvestige of our culture, our
selfie life.
Our willing, our way to victorythat we hear in almost every
sports.
Oh, he willed his way tovictory.

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Our self determination.
We eat, drink, and believe thisstuff constantly while ignoring
all the evidence that the heartremains restless, the soul
confused.
The self proclamations in ournation become more ridiculous as
we go on.
And if it weren't for a wellstocked country and self

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medication, We couldn't keepswimming in this swamp and might
just come to our senses.
Look, the crux of joyfulchildren becoming joyful adults
is, is seeing ourself as Onecreated in his image with
talents and gifts and purposeand the freedom to exercise
those talents and purpose andpassions in his kingdom.

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It begins by recognizing hissovereignty.
As the king who loves you, knowsyou, and cares for you.
So the stories we tell, thephotographs we share, have to
have some reminder of what Goddid, and is doing, and will do.
When Joshua crosses the Jordan,the priest are instructed, pick

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up the river rocks, to remindyou of what God did as he dried
up the path as you walked intothe promised land.
The Passover feast isremembering how God spared the
firstborn of the Hebrew family.
Christmas, Epiphany, PalmSunday, Easter, Pentecost,
Transfiguration, AscensionSunday.

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The Church calendar, though itwas more engaged years past, but
its remembrance of holy days, offeasts, and of sacraments in the
Lord's Supper is to help theChurch not forget her identity.
The feasts are remembering whatGod did in the history of the
faith.

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Now let me be clear.
I'm not trying to get into adebate on how churches should be
remembering these days and howit should be dealing with
sacraments and all these sortsof things.
Not, not today.
But the history of our faith,the words of our Bible remind us
to remember what God did in ourlife.
And this is something we have todo and should do as a family.

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It includes holidays.
But it also can be days that wecreate in our own family that
are remembrances of what Goddid.
It's birthdays.
It just goes on.
But God has to be in thepicture.
Far too many of us have theability to give our kids the
world.
We've got the financialresources to do more for them

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than perhaps was done for us.
And we tend to forget, what doesit profit a man if he gains the
whole world and loses his soul?
Remembrance is how we don't getcaught up in that.
The Bible says, remember theSabbath day.
Remember that it was the Godthat delivered you from Egypt.
Psalm 77 and most others.

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Then I recall the days of oldwhen, you know, God blessed me
in this way or that way.
Martin Luther says, rememberyour baptism.
John Calvin says, remember yourcondition is like Abraham.
You're dependent upon God.
Aquinas says, look.
Spiritual things are harder toremember.
They're harder to hold on to.
So you gotta strive a littleharder for them.

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Which is why we do things likefeasts and stories over and over
and over.
Memories move the soul of thechild nearer to the truth and
the light of God as we tellthose stories.
And by God's grace, their heartsconnect.
And the gifts and purpose andpassions and the mysteries of

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their life are revealed and thejoy of God is released to them
day by day.
Chris Tomlin's song, Is HeWorthy, he's quoting from the
book of Revelation in the fifthchapter by asking, is he worthy?
Who can break the seals?
Who can open the scroll?

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Jesus.
It becomes the answer in thetext, because he was the one who
was slain.
The Lion of Judah must break theseven seals to open the scroll
and reveal God's will and love.
I always want to be careful notto use the scriptures

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improperly.
And this text is about so muchmore than ourselves.
But it also does act as areminder that in these mysteries
of life.
There are things that we cannotreveal to ourselves.
There are doors, there are sealsthat we cannot open on our own.

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We can try as we might, we canslam on the seal all day.
We can tell ourselves a thousandtimes what we believe God thinks
about us and what's written onthat scroll.
But only the King, only the Kingwho died and rose, has the power
and the authority to do it, andto break the seal and to open

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the scroll in the Kingdom ofHeaven and in the lives of our
kids.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
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

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Kingdom of Heaven.