TLP 85: Parenting 100 Miles An Hour!

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This has probably been the greatest benefit I've received from working at Victory Academy for Boys. The issues

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I've had to parent with all the teenage boys in the past three years helps me have a very clear perspective on my kids' disobedience.

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

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Here's your host, AM Brewster. Welcome back. I pray that series on Christ honoring educational choices was more than you expected it to be.

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I want to thank again the many special guests that were on the show. I praise God for the wisdom they have to communicate truth and the love they have to pass it on to us.

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If you didn't hear that series, I highly suggest you check it out. In fact, if you're new to the show, please know that our episodes never go out of style and they're continually relevant because they're grounded in as much as possible in God's Word.

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In fact, I've heard frequently that many of our listeners like to go back and re -listen to favorite episodes, so don't miss out on those.

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And speaking of one of our listeners, a couple weeks back, Lily left this review on iTunes. She said, quote, this is the best parenting resource

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I found. A friend from church recommended TLP to me. I listened to the four -part series on the parable of the soils.

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I love the wisdom and thoroughly biblical teaching. Since then, I've worked my way through almost 30 of the podcast and recommended it to my many friends.

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We even helped our community group subscribe on their phones last night. Keep it up. You are making a difference.

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Unquote. Thank you so very much, Lily. We are ever so grateful for your review and pray that we will continue to be faithful servants of the

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Bible to you and your family. And we still have a lot to do to serve your families well.

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During the month of September, we're going to discuss apps you thought were safe for your kids but aren't. We're going to tackle tattling, study

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Christian Parenting 101, discuss correction that softens the heart, and much more. But we're also going to celebrate our one -year anniversary on September 21st.

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I personally am in awe that it's already been a year. So in celebration, we've created a gift for you.

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We've put together an email -based parenting course called 25 Days to Becoming a Premeditated Parent.

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It's been written and we've been testing it for a number of weeks and I can't wait to have you access that. And it will be completely free.

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We're also starting a special group for all you premeditated parents out there called The TLP Family.

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It's also completely free and you'll be able to sign up on our website on September 21st along with the new parenting course.

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When you enroll, among other things, you'll receive a code that will serve as your invitation to join a closed

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Facebook group by the same name, The TLP Family. I'm part of a lot of Christian parenting groups on Facebook and they all seem to lack the same thing.

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They lack beneficial interaction from the members. That's not to say people don't post on the group, but too often everyone's looking for help with their own problems and they're not interested in helping others.

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Well, obviously, we know this group will likely start small, but we so badly want it to be a place where people can share their hearts, ask questions, seek help, and ask for prayer and the other members of the group will actually answer.

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Listen, no one's perfect and no one has all the answers. I started this podcast not because I'm some parenting guru, but because God was teaching me things

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I knew other parents needed to learn too. And God's teaching you as well. You can share your struggles and your victories and be a blessing to other premeditated parents in your church, in your neighborhood, and online.

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And we want The TLP Family to be a resource for parents, by parents, where you all can encourage and edify and admonish and pray for each other.

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And I hope that sounds amazing to you. But the excitement doesn't stop there. Our next series is scheduled for the month of October and it's possible that series will be my all -time favorite.

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In celebration of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the

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Wittenberg Castle Church, we're going to discuss what I call the merest Christianity.

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And of course, obviously, apply it to our parenting. Let me tell you, it is revolutionary.

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This one truth did more for my personal relationship with God, my marriage, and my parenting than any other single biblical truth

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I have ever encountered. And that's why I call it the merest Christianity. There's nothing more important to our life and godliness than what we will discuss.

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And the last episode of that series will also mark our 100th episode. If you can't tell,

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I'm very excited about what's to come in the next couple months, and I really hope you are too. So let me go ahead and take all this enthusiasm and channel it into today's topic, which

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I find uniquely appropriate considering today's intro. Today's episode is called Parenting 100

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Miles an Hour. Back in the 90s, my parents purchased me an accelerated reading course called

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Reading Genius. It was created by Ed Stracher, and I believe it's still available for purchase today.

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The program was wonderful, and it increased my reading speed and comprehension immensely. But what

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I loved the most about Ed was his philosophy of education. Ed didn't only teach accelerated reading, he taught world -class chess players, tennis players, hockey players, and Olympic swimmers.

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One of the tools he used to teach tennis players was to shoot 100 tennis balls at the student as quickly as possible, and then require the player to return as many of them as possible.

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He'd do this for weeks, and only slowly start decreasing the number of balls after the student was able to return the vast majority.

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But my favorite story is how he trained people to play chess. He blindfolded them, and then he would have them play 20 games of chess at the same time.

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They'd make a move on one board, and then move to the second board, then the third, all the way down the line until they made one move on all 20 games.

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And then they'd go back to the first. A student would have to remember each game. He'd have to remember where he was, and where his opponent had moved to.

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I mean, can you imagine that? Can you imagine being on round 17, right? And you're on board number 12 in your 17th move, and you're trying to remember, okay, board 12, 17th move, where was his piece, where was mine?

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So after a while, he moved it down from 20 to 15 games at a time, blindfolded, then 10, then 5, and eventually he'd play one game blindfolded.

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Imagine what happened when that chess player took his blindfold off. He was a machine.

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I mean, at that point, playing a single game of chess with both eyes able to see what was going on was incredibly easier than playing 20 blindfolded.

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This is how I'd like to illustrate Ed's philosophy of education. Imagine three roads all running parallel to each other.

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One car is driving at 70 mph on the left road, and one car is driving 30 mph on the road to the right.

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Eventually, they both have to exit their roads and pull onto the middle road. Now, the speed limit on the middle road is 50 mph.

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So both cars are driving the exact same speed now, but because the car on the left just exited a road going 70 mph, it feels like 50 is much slower, whereas the driver from the right -hand road had to speed up to 50 mph from 30, so to him, 50 mph feels much faster.

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Isn't this so often how life works? Two people experience the same dramatic circumstances, and yet one seems to weather it with grace, patience, and peace, while the other is losing their mind.

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So often, we learn that the peaceful individual has probably been through similar situations before, potentially even worse ones.

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So here's my application for us. Do you remember the ambassador parent from episodes 26 and 27?

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The only Christ -honoring parenting style is to have high biblical expectations for yourself and for your children.

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And it's those high biblical expectations, those divinely high expectations, that are the key to what we're talking about today.

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Now, if you haven't listened to those episodes, 26 and 27, I highly suggest you do so because I don't want you to misunderstand what

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I'm talking about when I say high biblical expectations. This is not some dictatorial parenting

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I'm encouraging here, so please listen to those episodes if you haven't already. I'm talking about parenting 100 mph.

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If we have low expectations for ourselves and our kids, and we parent at 30 mph, then the 50 and 70 mph situations we encounter, you know, that require us to parent like Christ would, seem too hard.

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We panic. Sometimes we overcompensate. We even do what Natasha Crane illustrates in her new book,

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Talking With Your Kids About God. In the introduction, she writes, quote,

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When we have no discipline and no direction, we're leaving our kids to wilt spiritually.

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This happens when we're inconsistent in watering their spiritual lives. No discipline. And when we don't understand all that they need to thrive.

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No direction. It's an easy trap to fall into when we're busy. Our spiritual training ends up being a mealtime prayer here and there, a wishy -washy commitment to church, and occasional references to the

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Bible thrown in for good measure, especially when someone's behaving badly. If guilt takes over, we may then drench our kids with more church activities or devotionals for a while, but for many kids, it's too little, too late.

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Unquote. This is perfectly describing someone who's been parenting at 30 mph, and upon realizing was no good, tries to put the pedal to the metal, only to swerve spastically in their parenting, often smashing against the guardrails and spinning out of control, and the result in parenting is generally as destructive as it is in driving.

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But when you're used to parenting at 100 mph, then the 50 mph and even the 70 and 80 mph issues in the house seem much less scary.

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This has probably been the greatest benefit I've received from working at Victory Academy for Boys. The issues

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I've had to parent with the boys here in the past three years just kind of really puts the loudest temper tantrums and fights and lies and direct disobedience my kids can muster into a very clear perspective.

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Now, the concept is easy enough to understand. In order to parent 100 mph, we need to learn to consistently and successfully parent with extremely high biblical expectations.

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But how do we do this? Well, let me give you some important steps that are a little easier than moving into a home for at -risk teens, because that probably isn't an option for you.

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Number one, remember that the biblical expectations you have for yourself and your kids are God's, not yours.

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Number two, you must rely on God's strength and grace to accomplish God's will. If you try to parent 100 mph on your own, you're just going to crash, and great will be the crash thereof.

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Number three, we must follow Peter's warning in 1 Peter 5 .8. Be sober -minded.

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Be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

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To parent 100 mph, we need to be vigilant. The world, the flesh, and Satan are constantly trying to lull us into a feather -foot type of parenting.

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In fact, Satan wants nothing more than for us to come to a dead stop in the middle of the parenting highway, and many parents have.

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So we must open our eyes, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, from Hebrews 12 .2.

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We must constantly check our blind spots, like we discussed with Tim Challies in episode 35. We can't afford to fall asleep at the wheel.

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We can't afford to slow down. Now, before I continue, please understand that this driving metaphor doesn't mean that we run ourselves ragged, literally running around like a crazy person.

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No, there's a time for haste and a time for rest. This metaphor is just describing the passion and intensity we have for God and His Word.

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It describes our personal refusal to live for self, to be lazy, and to abdicate our parenting responsibilities for even a moment of the day.

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So we need to know God's Word and rely on the Holy Spirit to fulfill His will in our lives.

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And we need to be ever vigilant. There's no small sin. We won't ignore our kids' bad attitudes or blindly stand by while our kids fill their lives with un -Christlike influences.

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And number four, we need to be fervent. The whole of Scripture paints a picture of believers fervently and excitedly growing.

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Listen to Romans 12, 9 through 13. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil.

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Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

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Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope.

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Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

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Listen to those descriptors. Genuine. Abhor. Hold fast. Outdo. Fervent.

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Rejoice. Patient. Constant. It would almost be overwhelming if we didn't have

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God's promise of divine enabling. And number five, lastly, embrace your own need for change and growth.

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Second Corinthians 3 .18 sets the standard when it says, And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the

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Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

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For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. When was the last time you experienced continued transformation into the image of God?

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Is your spiritual growth a past tense concept in your life, or are you still being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another by the

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Spirit? To that end, I want to remind you of a special opportunity available for you on September 21st.

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To celebrate Truth Love Parents' one year anniversary, like I said, we're giving away our first parenting course called 25

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Days to Becoming a Premeditated Parent. It's like a couple's retreat and a parenting workshop all rolled into one.

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It's pretty intense, but since it's email -based, you can take your time if 25 days seems too short to tackle the assignments.

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Either way, I encourage you to parent 100 miles per hour. Daily dig into God's Word.

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Daily throw yourself on His mercy and grace. Daily and vigilantly be watchful of your children.

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Daily parent them with godly fervor. And daily work to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed because you're rightly handling the

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Word of Truth, as 2 Timothy 2 .15 tells us. So, stay tuned to TruthLoveParent .com,

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follow us on social media so you don't miss the announcement, and join us every Tuesday and Friday to hear how

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God's Word can be applied to our parenting. And as you strive to parent 100 miles per hour, don't forget our episode notes that have been linked in the description.

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Next time we're going to continue this theme of high biblical expectations as we discuss one flesh, one team.

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Don't miss our next episode. We can't parent 100 miles per hour in our own strength, but our kids need us to.

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Parent the way God wants you to parent, for His glory and in His power, and you'll be able to praise

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Him for the work that He will do in your home. See you next time. Truth.

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Love. Parent. Is part of the Evermine 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.