TLP 67: Parenting Q&A | Natasha Crain Interview, Part 3

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I can empathize with that question because I know that I've had my own struggles as a parent.

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Sometimes when we're trying really hard, it doesn't happen overnight. Welcome to Truth. Love.

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

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Here's your host, AM Brewster. Thank you for joining us on our third visit with Mrs. Natasha Crane.

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If you haven't heard our previous two episodes, I strongly encourage you to give them a listen. These past few days have been full of parenting advice that can just revolutionize your family and be put into practice today.

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It's very applicable. And I pray this episode will just be more of the same. Welcome Natasha. How are you today?

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I'm doing well. How are you doing? I am doing very well too. Thank you very much. Today's show is all guided by our audience.

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I have a number of questions here and I'd like to get through as many of them as possible, but we can feel free to park on any one of them as long as we need to.

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These are amazing questions and no doubt many people who are listening today will be able to resonate with these parents.

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So let's just go ahead and jump into the first one. This first one is from Rudra and she says, you,

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I think she's talking to you, not me. She says, you wrote an article about overwhelmed moms. I totally connect with your story and understand your points, but I feel like the bad choices

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I've made in the past are keeping my kids from respecting the new me. I know, I know

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I don't have to be perfect, but I don't think they know that. What can I do? Oh, that's a really good question.

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And I, I can empathize with that question because I know that I've had my own struggles as a parent, especially just, you know,

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I have a, I can have a really bad temper. And so it's hard for me sometimes to just keep that in check. And I know that sometimes when we're trying really hard and we want to be that new person that it can be hard because you want to set up something new with your kids and it doesn't happen overnight.

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So I definitely can appreciate that question. I would say, you know, the most important thing is to identify, you know, you might see it as the new you and you might be thinking of this as, you know, this whole new concept, but it's probably not so concrete in your kids' heads as to what exactly that means.

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So I would say, you know, have a conversation about what the new you really means. Like, what are we talking about with this?

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What is going to change? What can they expect and, and what does that mean for them?

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Because even if you're telling them, you know, I'm making different choices now, I'm making better choices. That's not always as concrete in kids' heads as we, as we think as parents.

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And so giving them an idea of what exactly you mean and, and what that, that should mean to them,

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I think is an important first step just so they know what to expect. And then the second part of that, and this comes back to our faith, is just helping them understand why this is important.

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And why does it matter that you're now making the choices that you're making? And why does it matter that you're not making the choices that you used to make?

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And that is such an opportunity to witness to your kids to say, hey, this isn't just about me wanting to be, you know, a nicer person.

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This is about me wanting to be more Christ -like. And here's why I want to be more

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Christ -like. You know, the Bible is God's word. We have good reason to believe that it's God's word and it's reliable and it's true.

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And here's what the Bible says about some of these things, the choices that I was making before. And my life is changed, it's been transformed because I'm putting my trust in Jesus now.

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And here are different, here are the different things that I'm doing. And I'm going to be praying about it. I'll pray about it with you, maybe pray about it as a family so that you can continue to, to be transformed in that way.

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And then let them know, you know what? I'm also not going to do this perfectly. I am going to fail in this because even when we are transformed, even when we put our faith in Jesus, we are still sinners in this life.

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And when I do sin and when I do make bad choices, then I'm going to let you know, hey, you know,

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I, this is not who I'm supposed to be. So I think, I think those are the two most important things that I would say is just identifying what exactly the new you is and why it matters as it relates back to your faith.

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I couldn't have said it any better myself. And you're so right. You can't over -communicate with your kids. You need, we need to be able to have those conversations with them and you can be open and transparent.

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And wow, perfect. Okay, well, next question. Steven asks a kind of a personal question for you,

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Natasha. He asks, what's the hardest situation you've encountered in your parenting? And then how did you handle it?

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Well, I kind of, I kind of alluded to this in what I just said, but I think, you know, I just have a bad temper.

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It is hard for me and I'm very strong -willed as a person. And I have a very strong -willed daughter.

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She's kind of, I'm always amazed because she and I just think exactly the same. That can be amazing and really scary.

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It is. It is amazing and scary. Two good words to describe it.

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And so it is so hard. You know, even this morning, you know, my daughter, she said something really horrible to my other daughter.

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And, you know, when I told her that she needed to go to her room, she says, I don't care. And, you know, I, it makes me a little crazy on the inside.

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I just, you know, when somebody says I don't care, I immediately kind of feel that puffing up of like, how dare you say that to me?

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You know, so it has been a very big challenge for me to be the

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Christ -like example as a person who is strong -willed and does have a hot temper with a daughter who's strong -willed and has a hot temper.

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So as far as I've handled that, when I fail, because it's inevitable that I will fail and I try really hard and I pray about it.

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But when I do fail, I think it's so important that I let my daughter know that my failure is not because Jesus failed or there's something wrong with Jesus or my faith, but that there's something wrong with me.

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And so when I talk to her about it and I apologize, I freely apologize. I really try to instill a sense of humility in our home that when you mess up, you apologize.

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You know, when, when you do something wrong, then you acknowledge it. You don't get defensive. And, you know,

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I go and I say to my daughter, you know what, I yelled. And again, I don't want to yell. I don't want to be this way.

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I lost my temper. I don't want to say things like that. And so when that happens, you can kind of see that, you know, she softens up and she realizes, you know, this is that I'm coming to her in that kind of humility.

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And I point it out. I say, you know what? It's not easy to apologize. But the reason I'm apologizing to you right now is specifically because I want to know that this is not okay.

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And that this does not, this does not reflect what the Bible says that we should be.

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And I don't want to let you down. And I don't want you to think that, you know, as someone, your example, as someone who believes in Jesus, I certainly don't want you to ever think that this is, you know, the kind of behavior that exemplifies what it should be.

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So, you know, if I'm yelling at you and I've lost my patience with you, that's, that's not a good thing.

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And, and I want you to know that that's not consistent with my faith. So I think, and of course, you know, in terms of being proactive about it, of course, something

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I pray about and keep top of mind, I think it's when we get super busy, which we all can get into those modes that, you know, we stop being vigilant about these things sometimes.

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And then I find myself losing my temper, you know, more regularly when that, when we get into that kind of mode.

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So trying to just really be mindful of it and praying about it and then just being honest when we fail.

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Yeah, you can't over communicate with your kids and you almost can't be too transparent.

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And that's, that's so that spiritual pride so often keeps us from that transparency. This next one isn't actually a question.

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It says, actually, Christina sent us a message that just said simply, I just want to thank Natasha for everything she's done for me and my family.

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So, yay. Oh, wow. Yay, you're making a difference. That's very kind.

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I so much appreciate that. It's, it's so encouraging if there's something that I've written or said somewhere that has helped someone.

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It makes it all worthwhile. So thank you so much. Okay, so I have two questions here that I'm going to read together.

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They're both from anonymous moms. And before I read them, I just, I want to thank these moms both for asking them.

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It took a lot of courage to put these feelings into words. And I just pray that your questions will embolden other hurting parents.

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It really doesn't matter what stage of parenting you're in. There are other people experiencing the same things that you are.

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But there's also help. There are people who have been through what you've been through. There are people who are prepared to help you in what you're going through.

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And I'm so glad that God gave you the courage to ask these questions. The first mom writes,

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Does that resonate with any of you listeners right now? I tell you what, I know I've been there before. And the second mom says many of the same things, but the detail she shares is just so valuable.

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She writes, And I don't really know where to start.

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I'd love for it to be a natural thing in our family before the kids get any older, and it becomes even more awkward to start.

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Do you have any suggestions for incorporating Christian teaching with our three -year -old? She's just not interested at all, and I'm not sure how much she'd understand.

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I try to read from her Bible story books, but it doesn't, she doesn't want to listen. Is she too young still to be worrying about it?

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Is it's just getting started that I find so hard. Now, there were a lot of questions, a lot of thoughts tied up in those two questions right there.

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But Natasha, where do you think you would start? Where do you think you would say to these two moms? Well, there are two kind of different questions,

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I think. Both of the moms are feeling awkward, but I think maybe there are different reasons for that.

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So maybe I'll pull them apart a little bit. The first one just simply said, I don't know why it's so awkward.

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I think the second mom kind of had more of an idea of why it was awkward. So let's just start with that. I don't know why she said,

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I feel like a terrible mom just admitting it. Well, first of all, you're not a terrible mom for admitting that.

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I don't know if she felt any better. I will freely admit, and I admitted it in the book, that I am so uncomfortable praying out loud.

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It has always been a thing for me. It's like this huge fear that I have that, especially now, everyone assumes that if you're a blogger and a speaker or whatever, that you must always be the one who wants to stand up and pray.

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Absolutely not. It's very intimidating to me because prayer feels like a very personal thing.

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And so it's very, very hard for me. And that feels awkward to me. So we all have things that are difficult for us, and we shouldn't feel terrible for admitting that.

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So I don't know if that helps at all, but you definitely don't feel terrible. I think in terms of not knowing why it's awkward, it could either be on the child's end and the child's response that makes you feel awkward, or it could be on your end.

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And so I would encourage you to think about which way that's really going. You know, is it that when you talk about it, your child's response kind of makes you feel awkward because they're asking you things you don't know how to answer, or they're not interested in it, or they make you feel kind of stupid for even bringing something up?

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Because that's one whole question. And that gets, you know, I kind of refer back to the last episode.

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We were talking about how do you get more interest from your kids. So in the interest of time here, I'm not going to recap that.

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But if that is something that would be helpful to you, go back to the prior episode. Because I think that overcoming the awkwardness that's generated by your kid's response is all about getting them more interested so that they are engaging with you.

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So if it's on the kid's end, I would say that's kind of the primary goal. If it's on your end, and your kids are more than happy to talk about things but you just feel uncomfortable,

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I would suggest that most of the time parents feel awkward because they're not sure what to discuss, they're not sure how to discuss it, and they're not sure when to discuss it.

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So the what and the how and the when are big questions for people. And so if you don't know what to discuss, and you're just kind of throwing spaghetti out there and seeing if it sticks on the wall, and it's kind of like, hey, did you know

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Jesus died for your sins? It is awkward because you don't know how to work these things in.

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As far as the what and the how, that's something that I hope that my book will help a lot of parents with.

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That's one of the objectives of it, is just to say these are the 40 things. We talked about my book in last episode too, if you want to hear about that.

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These are the 40 things to talk about. Here's how to talk about them. So when we feel equipped, we no longer feel so awkward about the what and the how.

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And so getting equipped and understanding what exactly it is you should be talking about with your kids is a huge first step.

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And I think for most parents, that's probably the source of the awkwardness. But the final part of that is just the when.

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You know, when do I do this? Because I feel kind of weird, you know, when I'm passing a dinner roll saying, hey, do you know what evidence there is for God's existence?

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That seems weird, right? So people don't know, like, when do I incorporate that? And so, you know, whether you feel awkward or not,

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I tell everyone, you should always have some kind of time that's set aside during the week that your whole family knows this is a time that we're going to talk about, have these conversations.

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And when you have that, it no longer has to feel awkward because you've set the time aside.

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I think a lot of people feel awkward bringing things up during the week at random points or seemingly random points.

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But when you have time set aside, it's no longer awkward because everyone's coming to the table with the same expectation. And that makes all the difference in the world.

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So when you feel equipped and when you set aside the time, then you can begin to have those conversations.

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And even with all of that, you know what? It still might be a little bit awkward when you first start if you haven't done this before.

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But honestly, who cares, right? This is important stuff. And you just have to get over that hurdle of initiating the conversations.

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As once you do and you have these great conversations, then you're going to feel more comfortable and that awkwardness will go away and you'll have more opportunities during the week to do it.

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And by the way, I can vouch for that because even though I feel very awkward about praying out loud and it's always been a tough thing for me, the more

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I've had to do it, put in those places, the more that it has become more comfortable.

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It's not perfectly comfortable, but it is better. Don't ask me to pray at the end of the podcast though. Oh, I was just thinking about that too.

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I was like, so Natasha, will you please close this? Oh man. Well, you know, another thing

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I would just add to that, those fantastic points is just you'll feel less awkward too as you get into it more.

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And one of the moms mentioned that, you know, she struggles because she's hit or miss with her

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Bible reading. And we all are. We all are at times. But the more you know about God, the more you grow in your relationship with him, the more you'll want to talk about him because that's what we do.

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We all talk about the things we love. And so as we fall more in love with God, it will become a lot easier to talk about those things with your kids.

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Absolutely. And I just wanted to address second mom briefly because it is a little bit of a different situation with the awkwardness.

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But I just want to say that, you know, it sounds like the way that it was phrased a little bit, and maybe I'm just reading it or hearing it wrong, but it seems like it's phrased kind of as if this has happened to the mom, you know, that, you know, and we're not always reading the

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Bible. We're not doing that. But the fact is, it's a choice, right? The Bible reading does not happen to us.

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Prayer does not happen to us. We have to be intentional. And so I love that that mom realized that that's part of the problem because it absolutely is why it starts to feel awkward because if you're not having a relationship with Jesus and you're not studying the

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Word, it's going to be awkward when you try to pass that on to your kids because you're trying to pass on something that you yourself are not living.

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And that's a recipe for awkwardness. So the awkwardness will go away when you're choosing to live the life that you know you should as a follower of Jesus.

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So it's all about the intentionality. This isn't something that's happened to you. It's a choice that you can make.

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And so I would say, you know, just make that choice today that you're going to, you know, maybe find a

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Bible reading plan. It doesn't have to be a giant thing. You know, you could just say, I'm going to read one chapter a day of the

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Bible, and I'm going to start with the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. And commit to going to church and say, you know,

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I'm going to make sure I pray every single night. And just kind of make some goals for yourself. And as you get back to that, you're going to realize, okay, this is what

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I should have been doing. And now I know that, you know, I feel more comfortable with this. And that will then lend itself to you talking to your three -year -old, who, by the way, is definitely not too young.

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This is when we start those habits. So that's actually the perfect time to say, hey, you know what?

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We're going to do something new as a family, something that I've wanted to do for a long time. We're going to start setting aside so that every, whatever it is for your family, every

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Sunday night, we're going to have a special Bible time where we talk about God. And as your daughter,

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I don't know if it's daughter or son, as he or she grows up, they will come to expect that. And that will set new habits and tones in your house.

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You mentioned your book, Keeping Your Kids on God's Side. And like you said, last episode, we talked about that in a lot of good detail.

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John asks, do you think your book, referring to that one, would help a teenager even if they're unsaved?

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Well, to be clear, my book is not specifically written for kids. It's not to give a kid.

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So if you were planning on just giving it to a teenager, that's not really what it's meant to be used for.

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It would be helpful for the parent of a teenager or someone who is involved in that teenager's life to get equipped to talk about these big conversations.

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So from that perspective, it's absolutely relevant to a teenager who is unsaved, but it's not a book that you would give directly to them.

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It's for the adults involved in their life so that they can talk to them about what is the evidence for God's existence and what is the historical evidence for the resurrection and why do we have good reason to believe that the

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Bible is based on eyewitness reports in the New Testament and these kinds of questions that are important.

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Yeah. And I work with at -risk teens and many of them come in just not caring about God at all, not believing in God.

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And oftentimes I will hand them apologetic books. You know, basically the book is arguing to them about why they need to believe in God.

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And that oftentimes is super powerful, but it's good to know that really Natasha's book is written for the perspective of this is what you, the parent, needs.

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This is what you need to be equipped with so that you can help share this with your kids. So, but yes, definitely the information totally would be helpful for working with and parenting an unsafe teen.

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I love this next question because this mom understands the difference between what I'm going to call cultural

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Christianity and a genuine understanding of it, a love for it and a submission to God's word.

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Lindsay asks this, she says, how do you get your child from quote Sunday school answers to apologetics?

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Yeah, that's a really good question because it implies that our kids are not going to get that apologetics understanding from Sunday school.

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And that's true. I don't think that I have ever had a parent say, my kids are learning all about apologetics in Sunday school.

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It's something maybe they'll hear a little bit about in a high school youth group, but certainly not something that is very common.

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That's for sure. So how do we get for our kids from that kind of understanding to learning about apologetics? The answer is you as the parent.

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And really there's no way around that because it's not being addressed in most churches today.

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I think there, I recently read a study that only 1 % of all youth pastors addressed any issue related to science and faith in the past year, 1%.

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Yet this is something that is challenging kids and pushing kids away from Christianity in droves by the time they get to their early twenties.

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So unfortunately church is really not addressing this on a large scale right now. So as the parent, it has to be up to us.

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We have to take the primary responsibility for doing that. So getting from Sunday school to apologetics means number one, saying, okay, that's gotta be me and taking on that responsibility.

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And number two, involved having a plan. And we talked about that, I think in maybe the first episode that we did.

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I think it was. Okay. So in the first episode of you actually, I talked a little bit about having a plan for what you're teaching, but that is so important because apologetics can seem like a huge, huge area.

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And we've been talking about 40 questions in my book. And even out of those 40 questions, it's like, okay, well, you know, where's the best place to begin?

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I think that identifying what the case for Christianity is, not necessarily how are we defending it, but how do you make a proactive case is the best place to start if you have not done any kind of apologetics with your kids.

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So number one, what is the evidence for God's existence? Number two, can all religions point to the same truth?

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Number three, what is the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? Number four, what good reasons do we have to believe that the

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Bible is reliable? Those are kind of the big four questions that if you look at all other questions, they all kind of in some way roll up into those.

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So we can kind of boil it onto those and use that as a starting point. And that doesn't mean you have to go into, you know, the equivalent of like 500 pages of knowledge with your kids the first time around on each of those.

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Absolutely not. Your plan just needs to have that kind of structure to it so that you know what you're teaching. Share the plan with your kids so that they can see this is the framework we need to consider when we're looking about at whether or not

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Christianity is true, and that's helpful to them as well. And just start by studying a little on each of those.

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So you study a little bit something about the evidence for God's existence and a little bit about the exclusive nature of truth claims, a little bit about each of those, and then go back and study a little more.

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And over time, as you add to that knowledge, you keep coming back to the same framework where you're building the case for Christianity, you're talking about what evidence there is for it, and along the way you can bring in some of those challenges.

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So start with the proactive case before you get into the objections. Kids have to know what exactly they're defending and what's worth defending before they're ever going to want to defend it.

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You know, building a case is the best starting point, I believe. And those four points you made, they're good because I think the kids will be introduced to those ideas while they're in Sunday school, but they won't necessarily always be taught how to defend them or to truly dig down and answer the harder questions.

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So yeah, it's taking the ideas that are talked about in Sunday school and going further with it. A longtime listener and a friend of the ministry and also a voracious reader asked this question, what's your favorite book on parenting other than the

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Bible? I don't read a ton of parenting books, actually, because I always have my nose in some kind of politics or theology book.

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But one book that really, really stands out to me is called Revolutionary Parenting.

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It's a book, it's a summer of research, actually, that the Barna Group has done.

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The Barna Group, if you're not familiar with it, is a research group. They research religious trends in America and they publish their research online.

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And they do a lot of great work that's very helpful for understanding kind of the cultural trends today and religious trends and how they intersect.

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But there's so much that's been written about the youth exodus, how at least two thirds of kids are turning from Christianity by early 20s.

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And these books look at these kinds of trends and the reasons for them. One excellent one also from the

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Barna Group is called You Lost Me. And it talks about why people are leaving. But the reason that I mentioned Revolutionary Parenting specifically is that it's kind of the opposite book.

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They did a lot of research on the kids who didn't leave the faith. And they backed into it.

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They interviewed both the parents and they interviewed the kids as adults now. And they, because they wanted to get a view from both ends of what they did in their house.

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And this book summarizes the research on what they found on what led kids in the faith.

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If there's a, I actually wrote a blog post where I summarize it. If anyone wants to see the summary points before they get the book, if you just Google Natasha Crane, Revolutionary Parenting, it'll take you to my blog post there.

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But just it reads you a couple of the quick finds that were so interesting. The adult children stated that it was the extensive time spent studying the

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Bible family that made the greatest difference in their emergence as dedicated followers of Christ.

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So, you know, this is especially enlightening because research has also shown that fewer than one out of every 10

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Christian families read the Bible together during a given week. On the one hand, you have the research showing that more than 90%, if we flip that around, more than 90 % of Christian families don't even read the

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Bible together. And then when you look at the research of who's staying in the faith, surprise, surprise, it's the ones who read the

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Bible together. So I think that it's just, it was so eye -opening to me to read this book and just see the research firsthand of what they found.

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Just one other finding, they found that while there are, they say while there are ample instances of family members engaging in spiritual activities apart from other family members like Sunday school classes and small groups and such, the glue that holds it all together consists of two things.

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Number one, family conversations that bring biblical views into their shared lives. And number two, efforts to engage in faith activities that model the integration of faith into their lives.

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So Bible study, worship, and prayer. So this book is, it's really, I really can't recommend it enough because when you read it, you'll come out on the other end saying, okay,

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I really got to do something here. It's really important. Awesome, yeah.

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Actually, I had never heard of that. I'm looking forward to checking that out myself. All right, we thank you for your time. This has been so eye -opening, but we do have one last question here.

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And I think it's really extremely important. You know, we've been talking a lot about preparing our kids to contend for the faith.

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We've heard from parents who know the truth, but who are struggling translating that to their kids. We've talked with parents who are, they themselves are new to the truth and they're having a difficult time kind of starting from scratch with their kids.

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But this last question is from, I think a different category. This mom is struggling because she herself sometimes has a hard time believing the truth herself.

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Mary writes this right away in the beginning of your book, you write something along the lines of how

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I can guide my children when I'm fighting with my own faith. Well, that is so me right now and I need help.

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I grew up believing and knowing about the Bible, but when I started college and took a course called Intro to Religion, it was like an instant heartbreak followed by severe panic attacks.

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So now I'm at that point in my life where I'm just trying to read and educate myself as much as I can. Like I'm trying to force the idea of God being non -existent out of my head.

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I wake up every day feeling pretty good and full of hope and faith, but my surroundings get to me. For example,

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I'll be feeling really good until I watch the news and then I'm full of fear and doubt. I start to think and wonder what if when

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I die, that's just it. I feel like to describe myself, I would be like 80 -20, as in 80 % of the time

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I'm good. I love God. I know he's there and then something will happen across my mind and I'm instantly full of doubt.

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How do I get rid of that doubt? When you were battling with your faith, was it like a light switch where one day you had it all figured out?

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Or were you more like me when it comes and goes? I hate feeling like this. Any suggestions? Natasha, now before you answer,

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I just want to say to this lady that I've been where you are. Even now, having been a

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Christian for nearly 30 years, every now and then this crazy thought or this ridiculous doubt will slip in and I find myself thinking exactly what you do.

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So please take comfort knowing that it's not just you. And there are ways to grow so that you can go from 80 -20 to 85 -15 to 90 -10 and so on.

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So Natasha, what suggestions do you have? Yeah, I agree with you in just first saying that some amount of doubt is normal.

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I think that everyone goes through periods of doubt and we even see in the

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Bible, my favorite example of this is with John the Baptist. John the Baptist is out preaching in the wilderness preaching about the repentance that everyone needs to have and that Jesus is coming and he is very convicted of his beliefs very clearly.

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He's out there eating locusts and honey, that takes a lot, right? So he's very convicted of his beliefs but eventually he gets thrown in jail and he sends two disciples to ask

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Jesus, hey, are you really the Messiah? Are you really the one who is to come? And that's a fascinating story to me because even

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John the Baptist who we think of as like someone who had this very powerful understanding and knowledge of Jesus, even he, once times got tough, was like, can you guys just check with Jesus to make sure he really is the one?

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Yeah, John was the one who baptized Jesus who said, I'm not even worthy of undoing his sandal. Right, exactly.

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And equally interesting is Jesus' response. He doesn't say, oh my gosh, how could you be doubting right now?

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Instead, he sends back a confirmation and says that, yes, I am he. And so I think it's helpful for us to see that we are human and because we are human, when we have anything short of 100 % certainty of something, that necessarily means that there's room for doubt.

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And we don't think of it in this way but if I get onto an airplane, I can be very confident that that airplane is going to get me to my destination but I'm not 100 % certain.

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So if I'm being honest about the nature of air travel, I should have some doubt, right?

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And that's not saying that it's not reliable and trustworthy, that airplane. It's saying that when we don't have absolute certainty as we don't with most things in our human lives, there's going to be room for doubt and it's no different when it comes to faith.

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So there will be that room for doubt and sometimes faith, that can actually be a good thing because it can lead us into that deeper relationship.

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So if we are finding that, we are having this because the person who submitted this question because she said,

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I feel like God's not there. Well, maybe that's a great opportunity to start studying the evidence for God's existence, right?

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Because our feelings are not reliable but there is objective evidence outside of ourselves, outside of our feelings where we can learn about the evidence for God's existence so that next time we're having these fleeting feelings of, man,

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I just feel distant from God. I wonder if he's there. It's like an anger. It's like, well, I don't feel like he's there but I do know that there had to be a creator of the universe.

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I do know that that moral understanding has to come from somewhere. I do know that there was a designer of life.

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All of these arguments for God's existence become very powerful and I know that I've relied on that a lot myself at times when

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I feel like, gosh, God seems so far or I don't feel anything when I'm praying and those are just realities.

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And so I think that understanding some doubt is normal and that it can be a good thing to spur us on is an important perspective.

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But that said, it shouldn't just sit there and linger. We don't wanna just let doubt roll around and fester because Jesus warned that that can actually lead to some very bad things as well.

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So what we wanna do is identify the root of the doubt and there's actually a free book online and I always blank on the name of it and I'm always recommending it so I've gotta get this down.

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It's by Gary Habermas and it is about doubt. And it's a whole book.

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It's available on his website. So if you Google Gary Habermas, H -A -B -E -R -M -A -S, doubt, then you will find his book.

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But I love referencing his work because he identifies three different kinds of doubt. He identifies that some are intellectual, so there are doubts about the facts of Christianity.

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Some are purely emotional. They're just, I don't feel like it's true and some are volitional, meaning

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I just don't want to believe because I like what I wanna do better. And so in that book, he in depth goes into which kind of doubt you might have and what you could do about that.

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In the interest of time, I can't really go into all the different kinds there but it sounds like you have more of an intellectual doubt because you were talking some about the existence of God and that kind of thing.

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Actually, that's probably the easiest kind of doubt to deal with because there's so much information available where you can learn about the facts.

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An awesome, awesome book that you can get that I recommend to everyone about the evidence for God's existence is called

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God's Crime Scene. It's by J. Warner Wallace. He's a case homicide detective who applies his skills to looking at the universe and seeing does it look like something that could have just happened naturally or does it look like something that was created and guided by something or someone outside of the universe?

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Really recommend you take a look at that book. And just to finish up on that, you said what about as this relates to raising my own child,

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I would say don't wait until you get everything resolved before you talk to your child about Jesus.

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Because if you do, and there are lots of reasons why we can struggle with doubt and struggle with our faith, but God forbid you're struggling with it for a while longer than you'd like to, you don't want to delay in teaching your child about these things.

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So if you are a Christian but yet you're having these doubts, you want to trust in God through this process that you can still be building in this knowledge and this understanding into your kids.

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And you know what? This is a perfect opportunity for you as you're learning to teach your kids. So as you learn about the evidence for God's existence, that's when you teach your kids about it and bring them on this journey with you so that they can learn everything that you're learning.

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And that's a perfect opportunity to do it. Oh, amen. And so incredibly important for us to think about this when those doubts come into our brain.

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I'm definitely interested in looking at that book because that's so similar to a lot of the things that we work through the guys here at Victory Academy with.

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But Natasha, once again, from everybody here at Truth, Love, Parent and all of our listeners, thank you. Thank you for taking this time to help us become intentional premeditated parents.

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That theme came up, I think, in every episode. And we cannot thank you enough. And we hope to chat with you when your new book comes out.

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And I really hope that all of the listeners will take the opportunity to check out your blog and to just really take the time to invest themselves, obviously, first and foremost, in God's word, but then spend quality time reading things from people like you that will help to strengthen their faith.

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Thank you so much. Hey, thanks so much. It's been a real pleasure talking to you. Well, July the 4th will be here before you know it.

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And with it, a countrywide celebration of our independence. But next time we'll be looking at a new way to view your family as we discuss

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Dependence Day for your family. I hope you'll share this episode on social media so more and more

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Christian parents can be introduced to biblical help for their parenting. And remember, if you're struggling in your parenting or you feel like a failure, there's no shame in seeking help.

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We're all broken, but God miraculously uses us in each other's lives to bring about genuine mending.

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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.