TLP 108: The Rock, the Bread, and the Donut | why we give our kids things, Part 3

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It's so easy to take something that would otherwise be a supreme blessing and turn it into a curse.

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How sad is it when we present our children the weapons they are going to use to attack God? Welcome to Truth.

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Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

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Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. Welcome back to the final episode of this three -part study.

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Today we discuss what donuts are and why they can be both delightful and dangerous.

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But let's review momentarily. First we learn that everything we give our kids falls under one of two categories.

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We give them things that glorify God or things that don't glorify God. Rocks are the things we give that don't glorify

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God. We give rocks by giving our children bad things or by withholding the good things we're supposed to give them.

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They never need rocks. We should never give them to them. On the other hand, bread are the things our children genuinely need.

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It always glorifies God to give our kids the things they need for life and godliness. So where do donuts fit in?

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If rocks are the bad things and bread are the good things, does that mean there's a third category? No, it doesn't.

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And that's what makes parenting with donuts so incredibly challenging. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't use donuts in our parenting.

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I'm not suggesting we live some monastic basic sustenance lifestyle. In fact, I'm saying we should use donuts in our parenting.

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As loving parents, we desire to give them so much more than their basic needs. We love to give good gifts to our kids.

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Not only do we give them biblical truth, we provide them an education which opens their eyes to the other glorious realities of creation.

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Not only do we give them food and drink, but we give them healthy and tasty food and drink. And not only do we clothe them, we provide comfortable, attractive, affordable clothes and homes to protect them.

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And this is good because donuts are the things we and or our children simply want.

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I remember back in high school when you could find a payphone with relative ease, my parents purchased an 800 number for our house.

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That way if my sister and I were ever out and needed to call home, we wouldn't need to dig around for change. But you know what?

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Eventually, I wanted a cell phone. And even though I was at Bob Jones University and had free calls from my dorm room phone during my sophomore year of college,

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I got my first brick, I mean cell phone. Even though I didn't need one, my parents got me one anyway because I wanted one.

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That would be considered a donut. Now I said earlier that everything we give our children falls under one of two categories.

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Those that glorify God and those that don't. So where do donuts land? Well, consider a real donut. There are some times that giving your child a donut would definitely please the

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Lord. If I and my daughter are on a daddy -daughter date and we grab a donut as we enjoy our time together, that could be wonderful.

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It's part of our special time, strengthening our relationship, loving each other's company, having fun. But what if I feed my kid a donut every morning?

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What if my kid throws a temper tantrum because she wants a donut? What if I placate her temper tantrum with a donut?

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What if my child just wants a donut so he can show off at the school during lunch? What makes a donut hard to quantify is that it can fall into either the things that glorify

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God category or the things that don't glorify God category. As I said earlier, this doesn't only make it difficult, it makes it dangerous.

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Most of us can spot the big rocks in our parenting. Granted, as we saw from episode 104, it's much harder to spot all the rocks.

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I will say this, if you're having a hard time spotting the rocks in your parenting, just ask your kids. I work at home.

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I spend all day in the house, but I can count on my daughter to honestly let me know when she feels like she hasn't been spending enough time with me.

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And you know, she's generally right. And in our 25 Days to Becoming a Premeditated Parent course, we have an assignment in there that's all about talking to your kids and setting up a situation where you can ask them, hey, how can

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I be a better dad? How can I be a better mom? It's a big question. It's an awesome responsibility to put on a child and you want to do it the right way.

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But if you're having a hard time seeing those rocks, that might be a good idea. And if you sign up for that course, you can get my suggestions on how to have that conversation.

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And of course, we all know when we're giving our kids bread, at least for the most part. Those are the moments we know we're paying

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Christ's honoring ambassador parents. They're beautiful moments and we can praise God for them because the only good things in our parenting come from Him anyway.

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But donuts are things we don't need. They're just things we want. They can glorify God if we want them for the right reasons, but they can steal

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His glory if we want them and use them for the wrong reasons. And this obviously produces problems.

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Now, first, we may wrongfully think that a donut is actually bread. This is why we talked so much about bread in the last episode.

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It's vital that we don't get them confused. If you didn't hear that episode, please listen to it. And the fix to this is pretty simple.

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If God says your children need it, then it's bread. If it's still Christ's honoring, but it's not necessary to life in godliness, then it's a donut.

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It's not bad. It's just, it's a donut. And this requires sound biblical knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

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Second, we may give our children a donut only to find later that it was used in their own self -worship.

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Now, that can be hard to predict, but I believe it's easier than many of us suppose. And third, we may withhold a donut the child would have legitimately used to please the

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Lord. Now, this isn't the end of the world. It's unfortunate, but with God on the throne, he so easily works these situations out to our best interest that rarely does anyone know the donut would have been a better idea.

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Now, we're going to explore these concepts a little more, but for now, let's go back to the phone illustration. Nearly every child who has access to a mobile device or the internet has used it to steal

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God's glory and worship his own lusts. And I'm not just referring to accessing pornography. Children who waste their time scrolling through levelist games or ingesting hours of YouTube are also stealing

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God's glory and worshiping their own lusts. Is the phone a need? No, no, you millennial parent, it's not a need.

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People have survived without phones for thousands and thousands of years. However, can a phone be a legitimate

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Christ -honoring desire? Yes, definitely. Can it glorify God for a parent to give his child a phone?

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Of course. Is the phone itself a sin? No. But if a child is going to use that tool to worship self instead of God, then this donut does not please the

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Lord. I want you to consider Proverbs 30, 8 through 9. I've developed this whole concept of the rock and the bread and the donut based off of the original passage that we looked at in the book of Matthew.

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But Proverbs 30 is the other passage. Here the author is saying this, two things

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I ask of you. He's talking here to God. Deny them not to me before I die, remove far from me falsehood and lying, give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the

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Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. Did you catch that?

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The author of this proverb is asking God not to give him too much or too little.

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He knew the propensity of his own heart. He knew it'd be easy to be tempted to steal if he didn't have enough to survive.

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But in this next part always blows my mind. This man asks God not to give him too much, lest he, quote, be full and deny

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God and say, who is the Lord, unquote. It's so easy to take something that would otherwise be a supreme blessing and turn it into a curse.

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How sad it is when we present our children with the weapons they're going to use to attack God. Now, I want to talk about when and how we give our kids rocks, bread, and donuts.

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But first I need to answer a question before we move on, because I mentioned earlier that donuts are the things that our children want or the things that we want.

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And you may be asking, what about the things I want to give my kid even though they don't need it or want it? Well, I want to answer this simply so we can move on.

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I suggest that we shouldn't really want to give them anything that they don't need or want.

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If we want to give them something they don't need, then that's a rock and we shouldn't give it to them. And so that's like the first big one.

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If they don't want it, well, there's some wiggle room there, but really we should never want to give them anything that they don't need. Now, let me explain and then we'll go ahead and move on, discuss how to know if our children should have a donut in the first place.

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Okay, so my children don't need violin lessons. And to be completely transparent, my children don't want violin lessons, but I want them to have violin lessons.

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So what is that? Well, I'd argue it's actually something they need. See, the

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Bible says, children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. They don't need the lessons because playing the violin falls directly under truth, food, water, or shelter, their mental or spiritual needs.

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But if mom and dad have decided that they're going to give their child something Christ -honoring, and though the kids are too immature to understand that, they still have the responsibility before God to submit to mom and dad's wishes.

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At that point, they do need to take violin lessons because their parents want them to, and what they really need is they need to obey.

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That's the bread of the moment. Of course, again, I can want to give my kids rocks that they don't need or want because I'm sinful, but there's an easy fix for that.

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Just don't do it. Stop giving them rocks. And that leads us to our final consideration for the day.

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Again, is it ever okay to give our kids rocks? No. It's never okay to give our children things that don't glorify

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God. Is it ever wrong to give our children bread? No. It's never wrong to give our children things that will glorify

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God. So what about donuts? Well, here's how to know if the thing you're giving your child is truly bread or a donut.

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One, the first one's easy. Ask yourself, is the thing a biblical need? Is it truth? Is it necessary food, drink, or shelter?

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Does God have an expectation for their mental, emotional, or spiritual response? If so, it's bread and you should give it to them or encourage them in it.

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If it's not a need, ask yourself this. This is number two. Why do you want to give it to your child?

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You'll want to give an unkind rebuke because you're being selfish. Well, that's a rock. You'll want to let your kids hang out with whomever they please because it's too much work to get to know all your kids' friends and you're just being lazy.

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And that's a rock too. You'll let them eat whatever they want because if you suggested that they had to eat their broccoli, you'd be afraid they'd fight you on it and you're giving in to the fear, man, and that's a rock.

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So, you really need to figure out why do I want to give it to my child? And ask yourself if your desire for giving them this thing is truly because it's good for them, because you're as certain as you can be that this will glorify

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God. Now, number one, is it a need? Number two, what's your motivation for giving it to your child?

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And number three, what is your child going to do with it? Now, this one is the hardest one.

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This is why we're having the discussion. We want to give our children the benefit of the doubt, okay? We want to give them freedoms and opportunities to succeed regardless of their ages.

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And that's great. But sometimes you should be able to tell that certain donuts aren't going to be used to glorify

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God. If you have a child who has repeatedly connected with the wrong people and gotten into recreational drug use, then don't let them go to that birthday party unchaperoned.

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If the first thing your five -year -old does after being handed crayons is draw on the walls, perhaps you shouldn't give him the crayons.

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Now, most of this stuff is common sense, but to be completely honest, we're often too lazy or afraid of what will happen if we say no to do what's right.

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If you happen to have a terrorist child in the house, and you can listen to episode 37 to learn more about that, oftentimes they will try to make you feel bad because like, you know, this donut that they want, they're trying to make you feel like it's actually bread.

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You know, every other kid gets to do this, you know, you don't let me do this, that type of a thing. And they're trying to just kind of manipulate you and beat you down and scare you into submission.

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And so oftentimes it's very easy to be afraid of what your child is going to do.

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But that doesn't change the fact that you know your kid and you realize that this donut is not something that they're going to use to glorify

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God. And in times like that, you just have to say no. And again, episode 37 and 38 and 39, that whole series that we did on anti -terrorism in the home can give you pointers on how to deal with that.

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Now, on the other hand, many times we like to give our child a donut believing it will please the Lord, and that believing that the child will use it the right way, only to find out that our kid ended up abusing the donut.

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Now I'm gonna give you a sedate example, this is very simple. As a child, my dad did this great thing.

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He told me, Aaron, if you ever want to play with fire, just let me know and we'll do it together. Well, I've used a version of that with my kids.

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I've taught my children how to start fires and maintain fires in all sorts of conditions and for all sorts of purposes.

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For about a year now, if my kids asked to go in the backyard and start a fire in the fire pit, my wife and I would oblige and we didn't have to be out there and that was fine.

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And, you know, again, slowly but surely, we played a smaller and smaller role in that process. And it's not uncommon to find

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Micah and I playing around the campfire for hours, even without us there. So recently I told Micah, my son, that I was going to give him more freedom.

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From now on, Micah did not have to ask to start a fire in the fire pit. If he had permission to be outside, he knew he could start a fire in the fire pit without asking.

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And it worked just fine for a time. Unfortunately, he started being irresponsible. I found lighters outside in the backyard.

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He didn't clean up his mess or put away the unburned cardboard. Now he didn't burn the house down or hurt anyone.

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He was still responsible in his fire management, but he wasn't being trustworthy to glorify God with the process.

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And in retrospect, my wife and I taught our kids how to manage a fire, but we never really specifically taught them to clean up after themselves within the context of fire building.

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Yes, we'd tell them it was time to put out the fire and to clean up, but we never specifically taught them to put the lighters back inside, clean up the wood pile and put the unburned cardboard away of their own accord.

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We instructed them to do it, but we never taught them about how it glorifies God to do it and how they should remember to do it on their own.

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Well, Micah and I are now working on that, and when he's more responsible to maturely manage a fire and clean up after himself,

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I will give him his donut back. And I honestly, I imagine that will be soon. It'll be a simple lesson. Now one more illustration, and this one's a lot more difficult.

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Some of your kids are so young that what I'm about to describe seems foreign. You think, how does that apply to me?

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It's pretty easy to convince and control little kids. What I'm about to describe is more typical among teenagers who are exercising their perceived independence who, due to their overactive stubbornness and increased size, are not as easy to control.

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But you'll be surprised how many people I meet in my field who have teenage -sized problems wrapped up in elementary bodies.

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So regardless of the age of your child, I do believe that this next illustration can be applicable to you.

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This is how it works. You have a child who refuses to obey. They reject your truth, they misuse your trust, and they seem to take everything in their lives and offer it on the altars of self.

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So you attempt to biblically discipline your child. You use all the correct forms of teaching, admonishment, correction, and rebuke.

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And after a time, you realize you have a hard -hearted or rocky -hearted child. You can learn more about them in the 4

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Children series, which starts in episode 55, if you haven't heard that yet. So now, in addition to the normal consequences your child's behavior earns him, you have to start thinking outside the box.

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First, let me say that you should never not give your children bread. If your children need it to glorify

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God, do not ever keep it from them. That would be very foolish and a very perverted type of discipline.

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And obviously, you should never give your child rocks to punish them. It doesn't glorify God. Don't do it.

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What you need to do is pull back the doughnuts. Now before I continue, please understand that the example

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I'm going to share with you will sound extreme. This is not the norm. My two illustrations are like bookends for our application today.

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My son's example is very simple, and this one is very hard. Most of you will likely fall somewhere in the middle.

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Okay, here we go. I remember working with a family that had a boy who slept in a bare room with nothing more than a bed and a dresser for his clothes.

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Now, he was not being abused or mistreated. His parents loved the Lord. They loved their son.

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He went to school. He ate the same food. The rest of the family did. His parents hugged and kissed on him. They read books together.

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They all went on family outings. But this boy had repeatedly and often violently refused to submit to his parents' expectation that he follow the house rules.

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Now, I was intimately acquainted with their house rules, and I can say that they all glorified God. This boy was not only unsaved, but he was one of the youngest scorners

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I had ever met. He had absolutely no desire to obey. He didn't want to be kind to his siblings.

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He wanted to watch wicked things. He wanted to steal money. He wanted to break his siblings' toys. He wanted to say whatever he wanted to say.

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He wanted to never do his chores. I mean, this kid was amazing. So his parents wisely started removing things that were not necessary to life and godliness.

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They started with the things that this boy was deliberately using to sin. They removed his access to the internet, which

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I would argue he probably shouldn't have had in the first place. They also took back his iPod, which had just a ton of sinful songs on it.

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I was there when they lovingly explained to their son that they want God's best for him. They also explained that they wanted to be able to give their son tools he could use to please the

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Lord. But when he chose to use those tools to hurt others or sin against God, they couldn't give him those tools with a clear conscience.

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Now, keep in mind, they weren't punishing him for not being a Christian. They merely expected outward conformity to the rules of the home.

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They knew they couldn't change his heart. And in many ways, expecting the same compliance an unsaved parent would expect from their kids.

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You know, I want you to obey when I say do this. Well, this boy didn't care. He stubbornly tried to sneak and or steal phones so he could do what he wanted to do.

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And all the other rebellious issues continued unabated. Eventually they had this conversation with him.

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I was there for it. In the Old Testament, God promised to bless the Israelites when they obeyed

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Him and curse Him when they didn't. God was trying to teach the Jews that sin hurts.

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In this family, your mom and I give our children many blessings simply because you're our children.

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But you've made it clear that you don't want to function in this family as an active, loving member and you think that you have right to all the same blessings as the rest of the family.

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But you have to learn that sin hurts. Until you show us that you'd like to function as a beneficial part of this family, we're going to have to stop giving you those blessings that are reserved for obedient children.

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Now they were using very different terms, but what they were talking about are those donuts, those things that you don't need, those things that are just things that you desire that we desire to give to you that are fun and nice and good and can be beneficial but may be dangerous if they're used the wrong way.

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That's what they were talking about. So they started with benign things like the decorations in his room.

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Eventually, after using most of his toys to hurt the other kids, he lost them as well. He lost access to his bike.

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He was pulled from a soccer team. And this boy, in his defiance and stubbornness, pushed so hard that he found everything but his bed and clothes removed from his room.

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Now the parents didn't burn any of it or throw any of it away. They simply put it in storage, greatly desiring to return it to him when he started living for God instead of himself.

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And I was really proud of these parents. They did the very hard thing of removing the donuts because the boy refused to glorify

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God with them. Now again, this is an extreme example. 99 % of the parents

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I work with will never have to get anywhere near 50 % of what these parents did. Now in a couple weeks,

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Dr. Jim Neuheiser is going to be on the show with me. We're going to talk about how parenting is not a formula.

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And this is important to note for two reasons. Number one, I'm not saying that what this family did will definitely work for your child.

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And number two, Dr. Neuheiser is one of the few people who've written a Christ -honoring book about parenting adult children.

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In that book, he shares a similar principle to use with an adult child. And in cases like that, sometimes the consequences are more significant.

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Sometimes the donut you must remove is the blessing of living in your home. Now it might be appropriate to tell your adult son or daughter that unless they choose to submit to your authority in your home, they'll have to find someplace else to live, but it would not be appropriate.

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Please hear me. It would not be appropriate to do that to a child under 17. However, programs like Victory Academy for Boys can sometimes function in a modified version of this.

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Many times parents have had to say to their minor children that they cannot go on rebelling and expecting to enjoy the benefits of living in the home.

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These parents often invest a lot of money in sending their boys to victory. They know our greatest desire is to teach their son to submit to God's truth and submit to it when it's presented to them by mom and dad.

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So the boy is here for nine months, and Lord willing, when it's time to go home, he's ready to function in the family in a

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Christ -honoring way. Of course, that's 100 % up to the boy and his response to God's truth. And even in times when the boy does respond, we know he won't be perfect, but hopefully he'll be willing to submit to God's truth when his parents share it.

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Now I will say that this practice has been very helpful for my children. If there's a toy that my wife and I find the children repeatedly fighting over, we'll tell them that since we love them, we won't allow a piece of plastic to tempt them to be unkind and hateful to each other, and we remove the toy.

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It's a donut. They don't need it. Now, here's the last thing. This is merely a consequence.

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The whole thing about removing the donuts is a consequence, just like actually giving the donuts is a consequence.

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Giving a donut in a good situation where it glorifies the Lord is a positive consequence of the child living in a way that pleases

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God, and taking away a donut is a consequence of them making poor choices. But you need to do these things in a deliberate, biblical, wise, and clear way, and you need to explain it to your children.

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Doing things like this without deliberate, biblical, wise, or clear parenting—and when I say parenting, I really mean counseling because, you know, they're the same thing—discipling.

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When you do those things without the clear communication, you're not teaching your children truth. Without an overtly clear explanation of the issue from God's perspective and without counseling the heart, your child is free to come to his own interpretation of what you did.

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You may have done everything the right way with the right motive, but because you didn't communicate it well to your child, then your child just assumes that you took the toy because you hate him.

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The only lesson he learned was that if you're mad at someone, you can take their stuff. So, I cannot overstress always communicating to our children why we do what they do, even if it's in a positive situation.

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My daughter and I go out on our daddy -daughter date. I oftentimes will take the time to explain to her why we're doing it.

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Daddy loves her, and it's important for us to please the Lord in building up our relationship and focusing it back on God, and that's really important stuff.

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I mean, we give our kids ice cream, and if we're not careful, they can come to the place where they just expect ice cream after every meal, but they shouldn't do that.

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They should understand why we're having the ice cream, and that's just a super important part and really probably a whole other episode is needed for that.

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So, in conclusion, removing donuts from a child who's choosing to dishonor God with them is the consequence, but you should never stop there.

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If you want to see genuine heart change, you need to be instant in and out of season to bathe them in God's Word when you're walking and standing and sitting, hold them to high biblical expectations, wisely draw out the thoughts and intents of their hearts, helping them apply

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God's truth to their own lives, and lovingly parenting them as a glad steward and ambassador of God, not as a put -out parent.

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Now, I pray today's notes are valuable to you. Please be in prayer about our whole notes situation.

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As easy as it should be to post free downloadable PDF notes, we believe they're unnecessarily complicating the issue by limiting our options.

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For now, the notes are just being posted on the page as a JPEG, so you don't have to mess around with Scribd. Anyway, please join us on our next episode when we get all thankful and talk about Thanksgiving and lessons your family can learn from the pilgrims and all the other fun stuff that comes with the season.

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I hope you'll enjoy that. And don't forget to connect with us on social media. If you like us on Facebook, be sure to click on the following option and select see first.

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As always, feel free to contact us at counselor at truthloveparent .com if you have any questions or concerns about your family.

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You can also join the TLP family at truthloveparent .com, which will give you access to our closed Facebook group where you can ask questions and talk about things that are on your heart, share your prayer requests and find help from other premeditated parents.

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We all love to provide for our children and generally we like giving rocks and doughnuts more than we like giving bread.

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Let's make sure we remove the rocks from our parenting, give bread all of the time, and be wise in how and when and what kind of doughnuts we give our kids.

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As long as they're glorifying God with them, pour them on, but be wise. Have a great day.

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Truth. Love. Parents. Is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.