What is Best for Me? A Case for Selfishness

When, I think about where to go to dinner, what to wear, or where to go to church; when I think about what college to attend, what job to take, or where to live; when I think about who to love, who to be friends with, or who to do business with, I think about what is best for me or maybe for Us, if others are in the picture.

Obviously, I don’t always know what is best.

And, typically, I almost always think that I do.

On a larger scale, we ask what political party is best for our country, what side of an issue should we raise our voice for, what role should capitalism and socialism play in society, and how should we respond to poverty?

When dealing with national and global issues, we ask a remarkably similar question to the one we ask when choosing what restaurant to eat in. What is best for Us? What is best for the people of our world?

As I’ve studied childhood development and development throughout a person’s life, I find that the question we ask grows in scope as we grow in maturity. The youngest of children are only concerned with themselves, while older children focus on their families and friends. The most enlightened adults among us consider themselves to be world citizens, considering what is best for all people including the unborn, future generations. Some empty themselves of self-interest to the extent that they are able to sacrifice themselves for a greater good.

In essence, we always divide the world into Us and Them. As we mature, the number of Us increases and the number of Them decreases.

Our question remains constant, what is best for Us?

Still obvious - We don’t always know what is best.

Still typical - We often think that we do.

Humility

For many of us, though, we can confess that there are just too many variables for us to believe that we have it all figured out.

Part of being human is: We always want what is best for Us.

Maybe trying to figure out what is best for Us, is the best any of Us can do.

Heroes

That is what we call people who are willing to courageously risk and often sacrifice their own lives in pursuit of the common good. Both the fireman who enters a burning building to rescue a single child and the soldier who dies attempting to the rid the world of terrorism are celebrated as heroes.

When someone is willing to sacrifice what is best for herself as an individual, in order to achieve a higher good, we hold her up as a model for all of Us to follow.

Christ declares that, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

You don’t have to be a Christian to know that what Christ is saying rings true. It feels right to all of Us.

The Twist

What if what is best for all of humanity is for each person to know and love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? That is another claim of Christ. He implies that that would lead us to loving our neighbor as ourselves. He claims that that is what is best for Us.

That everyone on earth would be included when we say Us and that no one would be left to be called Them.

So, what is best for humanity is not to strive for what is best for humanity, but to strive to love and know God.

1 John 5 teaches us that “the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.”

Don’t be misled by the word, “conquers”. John is not talking about a hostile takeover. He is talking about conquering the world through love, defeating the “Us vs. Them” paradigm one act of love at a time, like dominoes falling to reveal an intricate pattern of beauty and grace that includes all people of all nations.

And, in this conquering

– by faith and through obedience to God’s commandments which are: first to love God and then to love our neighbors –

we experience what is best for humanity.

The Shift

What if, what is best for Us, as individuals and as all of humanity or all of Creation, is not the beginning or end of the story? What if that is not the most important question?

Here is the shift. What if what is best for humanity is not the primary focus of history, of our world, of our time? What if what is best for humanity is not the primary focus, but what is best for God is the primary focus?

What if that is the end all, the final deciding factor?

What if humanity, history, creation and all of the above are here because that is what is best for God?

What if the main goal of every person’s life is to bring glory to God and enjoy a relationship with Him forever?

What if the main goal of every family is to bring glory to God and enjoy a relationship with Him together forever?

What if the main goal of every tribe and every people group and every nation is to bring glory to God and enjoy Him forever?

What if all of Creation was designed to bring glory to God and reveal His power?

In Exodus 9, through Moses, God tells Pharaoh that He hasn’t destroyed him and his people completely because, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

Did you hear that? God wanted to reveal his power and make His name known in all the earth.

At that time, He did his revealing through Moses’s obedience and through Pharaoh’s disobedience.

He will do the same in our lives, through our obedience or through our disobedience.

In Our Lives

As human beings, the best we can do is to consider what is best for Us, in ever widening circles, including more of our fellow humans with Us.

God’s desire is to bring glory to Himself, to make His name known throughout the earth, and reveal His power.

Since we are all here because that is what is best for God, then we can determine two things…

First, knowing what we know about the character of God, we can be confident that fulfilling our purpose is equivalent to receiving grace, mercy, compassion and love.

Second, we can accept that following God’s will, doing what is best for God, is actually also best for Us.

We can surrender all of our understanding, performance and passion and submit to the will of God.

Maybe then we will discover for ourselves that we have not only found what is best for God, but what is best for me, for Us, and for all of humanity.

This is the history of our existence. This is the story of humanity. This is the story of the Scriptures. This is what God has revealed to us throughout His word.

All of this is encapsulated in an age old saying, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

So, our answer to "What is best for me?" is to love and know God. Let's do it.

The Death of Christianity

Christ's death was the most life changing, heaven and earth colliding moment of human history since the Creation of man.

Heaven and earth were close,
intermingled,
indistinguishable,
intertwined.
The fate of all humanity was transformed in an instant, in an eternity.

God, who is with us, who is for us, who is holding us, who is in us, died.

Everything changed,
for us.
God never changes,
for us.
Our reality will never be the same. A door was revealed, an open door. It had been there all the time, but we couldn't see it until God himself came and revealed it. All that happened before and everything that was to happen since made sense in a new way because of his death and resurrection and the new life that He offers to each of us every day.

There is hope for new life.
There is hope in Christ.
There is hope for us to live, really live.

There is hope for love and joy and peace and grace and mercy and forgiveness to be revealed through us, through the Holy Spirit in us reflecting the light that shone from heaven through the cross, through Christ.

There are so many barriers that hinder that light from shining. We talk about shining our light and sharing the Good News. Of all the barriers, there is one that has arguably done the most damage to the Church's ability to share Christ with those who don't know him.

Chris·tian·i·ty

noun \ˌkris-chē-ˈa-nə-tē

 

1: the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies

2: conformity to the Christian religion

3: the practice of Christianity

 

Being in the presence of the Almighty God has led some to fall on their faces, to shut up, to shine, to sing, to worship, to see, to dance, to live.

Christianity is designed by well-meaning people to draw others to God, to help people relate to God, and to give guidelines, provide a context for worshiping and serving God.

All of that sounds good and sounds helpful, but the one flaw is that it is designed by people.

Christianity is like a painting of Christ or a statue. It is a representation of Christ created by one for the benefit of another.

And, for as long as there has been a church, there have been those who have preferred enjoying the statue over knowing the Almighty God of the universe.

We tend to talk about different things. We either talk about the creators of the statue or we talk about the Creator of the Universe. "The founding pastor of our church was such a godly man. He was there when my son was sick. He was such a dynamic speaker, such a strong man."

We either talk about how the statue was carved out of a lump of stone or how our hearts were transformed from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. "We started with just a few families and then started meeting at the lodge and finally bought our own property and built this beautiful church."

We either talk about how the statue makes us feel or how God makes us feel. "When I come to church, I feel so loved, so accepted. I never feel better than when the team leads us in singing."

When times are hard, we either look to the statue or we look to God. "Why didn't someone from the church call? The sermons just don't connect with me. The music team just sounds flat. The programs don't meet our family's needs. Maybe we should visit some other statues."

Christianity must die

The statue must fall. Christianity must be undone. We cannot let anything detract from God, not even our beloved religion.

The system is broken. It doesn't work. It has never worked. It is just what we do. We create systems to replace relationships. We know that something is important and we don't want it to get messed up, so we create a system to protect it, provide it, or pass it down.

It didn't work. It doesn't work. It never works.

Christianity can't protect Christ, can't provide Christ, and can't pass down Christ to future generations.

At best it can protect an idea, provide a doctrine and pass down a beautiful building. But, it isn't worth the sacrifice. We lose more than we gain.

The system robs us of relationships. The system replaces relationships with programs. The system replaces intimacy with bureaucracy.

The best hope for the message of Christ to move forward is for Christians, those who know and love God, to know and love those around them.

Christ describes it this way, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

 

Christianity must die, so that people are not distracted from Christ. The statue must be torn down, so that when people reject the model, they don't think that they are rejecting God.

We must trust. Trust Christ to not let the church die. Trust ourselves to keep loving God without having a structure to protect us. Trust our children to not lose faith and forget the God who loves them.

Let the Bible be our structure, not a building. Let the relationships that we have provide for us not the programs that we design. Let the presence of God in our lives pass on our faith to our children.

God died, but He is not dead.

Now it is time for Christianity to die. Death is not the end. It will be a new beginning.

Message Received: Thank You Brennan Manning for a Grace Well Lived

Brennan Manning died Friday morning on April 12, 2013. He revolutionized my view of grace. He unabashedly revealed his sins without glorifying them in the least. He talked openly about his weakness and failures. 

He wrote about sinful actions. He was an alcoholic. But, he also wrote about his sinfulness as a person. His lying and deception, his character flaws. he didn't portray himself as a good guy who messed up a little or even a lot.

He portrayed himself as a sinner through and through. It rocked my world and helped me to face my own sinfulness.

But, he didn't wallow in it or let us, his readers, wallow. He persistently pointed us to Christ to receive grace and forgiveness. He led us there with child-like honesty and vulnerability.

He showed us the power of grace to transform our lives and invited us to join him in a new way of living. (Here is my story of receiving that grace in a previous blog.)

Church can sometimes be a place where grace is mentioned but not lived.

I did my dissertation on the spiritual development of children raised in church culture. One of the young ladies I interviewed talked about her initial rejection of and eventual acceptance and appreciation of Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel. Here is some of my interview with her:

"I read [Ragamuffin Gospel] and this is literally what I said at the end, “This book is a joke, this isn’t true.  You shouldn’t be allowed to mess up like this and then be able to write about it and make other people think it’s okay.”

That was my impression of that book and I couldn’t understand what anybody saw in it.  I thought it was absolutely wrong and that nobody…you shouldn’t promote things like that.

And then, I got pregnant and when I got pregnant before I was married, all of a sudden I got that Ragamuffin Gospel and now I get it because it’s not about, it’s not about perfect people and what he said in that book, the Gospel is not for perfect people.  It is for alcoholics, it is for drug addicts and it is for people who have premarital sex and all these other things.

That is what Jesus came for, and yet I grew up in a home where it was – it’s not that you earned your salvation, but it was just that constant, you have to be perfect and you don’t accept people…

“Well she did (this and that) so we’re not friends with them anymore.”

“We don’t talk to them, they do this.”

I wish I had grown up with the acceptance of people who had flaws, as opposed to this rejection of people who had any sort of flaws."

Interviewer - Do you feel like you actually adopted that belief [of judging people and expecting perfection] based on your response to the Ragamuffin Gospel.

"Absolutely, ...[my husband] and I went to marital counseling a year and a half ago, ... and I was so set for this man to sit and tell [my husband] everything that was wrong with his family, cause there were glaring issues, and he actually got me to realize that I had adopted exactly what my parents did to me, which was reject everybody if there’s something. If somebody has an issue, you reject that person, and just that perfection and that lack of love.

And it actually started a year long journey, which is very difficult when you have children.  I’m just sort of finding for me what love actually is. Whoa, forget it, children and marriage.  It’s just sort of, it’s huge and it was an absolute break in the way that I have viewed the world for, up to that point, 30 years.

It was a massive change of a world view and absolutely I had adopted that, probably unknowingly, because what’s the [hardest mask to realize you are wearing] “You’re doing what’s right.”  So why would I ever doubt what I was doing was wrong because I was doing what was right. 

So you’re trying to do what’s right…. “Of course I have my flaws but it was always within reason.  You know, it wasn’t a really bad flaw, it was just a minor flaw and not as bad as that person over there.”  That type of situation.  So yeah, yeah, I definitely did.  I adopted [their judgmentalism and rejection of anyone who wasn’t perfect]."

Brennan Manning was a great guy, don't get me wrong. But, he didn't transform this young woman's life.

The grace of God transformed her life.

And, Brenning Manning's willingness to share his story of receiving that grace was a window that she could look through. And when she looked through that window, she rejected Brennan, but when she saw her own reflection in that window, her life was changed.

Rather than choosing to reject herself and run from God for fear of more rejection, she opened herself to receive His love and forgiveness, to embrace the Gospel of grace.

4 Times When We are Most Likely to Lose Our Cool and What to Do About It

When was the last time you got angry?

For me, it was last week.

I got home from an allergist appointment. They poked me ten times with different sticks (that was fun), and I sat there not itching as I watched the bubble on my skin grow. If you've had one of these tests, you know what I mean.

For 30 minutes, I tried to distract myself from thinking about itching, but every time I looked down at my arm, these bubbles are growing bigger and bigger. And, all I want to do is scratch, just a little bit. Just once or twice and I'd feel better. Then, finally, I made it.

I left the allergist and came home. I beat the boys home by a few minutes and then we were all together for the rest of the night.

No games. No practices. No meetings.

Right after dinner, about 6, I got this crazy headache. I don't usually get them like that, but I felt this pressure pounding on the back of my eyes.

Ethan left the dinner table and was complaining about having to finish his homework.

"Ethan, you have to bring your plate to the sink before you leave the table. You know that."

"But, I have to do my homework." He was not happy.

"Plate first, then your homework. NOW!"

I had been doing well about controlling my temper and hadn't raised my voice like this in weeks, so I got his attention, but he was visibly upset.

He brought the plate to the sink where I was loading the dishwasher, my head still pounding.

"You have to scrape it off first." I held out the plate to him. I could feel the anger rising in me. My heartbeat rising, my eyes pounding.

"I have to do my homework!" He went to his backpack, got out his homework and proceeded to walk right past the outstretched plate.

He was not going to ignore me, disrespect me. I wanted to get those dishes done, go sit down, and close my eyes. The Advil I took didn't touch the pain. Ahhh! I couldn't think straight.

I grabbed him by the back of his sweatshirt, and shoved the plate at him.

"Scrape it off now! Then do your homework."

"OKAY! Jeez!" He did it and I went back to the sink feeling like a complete idiot. All this work on controlling my anger, being patient, talking and not yelling, I thought I might be wasting my time. I will always struggle with anger. Who am I kidding?

My analysis was still clouded by my guilt and shame and the adrenaline still rushing through my body. As I look back now, I can see things more clearly. Maybe you picked up on some of the clues too.

First, I had used up a lot of my self-control at the allergist. It took so much out of me to just sit there and not itch. Self control is like a muscle and when we use it up, it is all used up.

After exerting self control in one area, we can't put ourselves in another situation where we will need a lot of self control and expect to behave well. I should have known.

Second, I was in pain. When we are in pain, physical or emotional, we enter into somewhat of a survival mode. We are more likely to jump straight to "fight or flight" mode without much provocation.

Third, I was working hard to finish a task so that I could go and hopefully get some relief from the pain. I felt an urgency that didn't really exist. I could have simply told Rachel, my wife, about my pain and left the dishes. Ethan was the barrier, I thought. He was frustrating me, blocking me from reaching my goal. Frustration can easily lead to anger and in this case, it led to anger very quickly.

Fourth, I was thinking and trying to analyze the situation in my head. I was talking to myself, defending myself and blaming Ethan. I reasoned that I was the one working hard on the dishes, and he was the one complaining about his homework and having to bring his dish to the sink. I was right, and he was wrong. I was good, and he was bad. I had to act! I chose to act based on adrenaline fueled incomplete thinking.

Fifth, I acted, and immediately felt guilt and shame. I knew that I was right! But, it didn't matter. I felt horrible. I was wrong.

In the course of a couple of minutes, I went from feeling pain, to feeling frustration, to feeling anger, to feeling justified, to feeling shame.

4 Times When We are Most Likely to Lose Our Cool and What to Do About It

What we do when we feel Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired (HALT) can make or break our day.

It can determine whether we feel good about ourselves or feel guilt and shame.

If we behave badly in these circumstances, we can either choose to blame others and further isolate ourselves or looking in the mirror, we can blame ourselves and begin to lose love and respect for ourselves.

When that happens we can do all kinds of self-destructive things. You know which are tempting for you. But, instead of trying to deal with the symptoms, we need to face the disease.

What do we do when we feel hungry, angry, lonely and tired?

The Path

Ask for Help. Ask God for help and then ask people for help. If you believe that God wants you to change, then ask for His help, pray that His will is done in your life. He always answers that prayer. Then it is just up to us to listen and obey.

God will often use people to help us. I asked Rachel for help. Rachel has been a patient, gracious support throughout our life together. I also found a counselor who believed in me, listened to me, and counseled me with wisdom and grace. I have had a number of accountability partners that God used at different times to help me face different sins, to overcome challenges in life and ministry and to encourage me toward some specific goals. God has used each person in different ways to help me move forward. The key in all of these relationships is grace.

Know Yourself. Know your weakness. Pretending to be strong doesn't help any more than pretending to be weak does. Accept your weakness. When are you most likely to feel Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired? Don't be afraid to say, "I can't do that." This was incredibly hard for me to admit in the past. If I can physically stand, than I can do what you are asking me to do. It was hard for me to admit that I was too weak to do something if the weakness was emotional or spiritual. Face it. Admit it to yourself and then...

Set Helpful Boundaries. Know yourself and set up boundaries that will help you live from strength to strength. Good boundaries are crucial to a healthy life. Knowing my weaknesses allows me to know what boundaries I need. For me, there is no need to lock up the wine cellar when I am around, but you might want to hide the remote! I can't stand the taste of alcohol, but I could waste hours watching TV without caring what I was watching.

Here are some boundaries that I set up in my life, that have helped me at different times:
 - Make time to be with my wife, every day to catch up and make sure we are on the same page, every week to face any issues that have arisen or might be coming soon, every month to make sure we are on track with our goals for the year and for life, and every year to do an inventory of our marriage, our family, and ministry together.
- When I am angry, I give myself a time out.
- When I feel lonely, I run to my wife not away from her.
- I take time to understand how I feel, not just what I think.
- Go to bed by 10 or 10:30, so that I can wake up before the kids and have some time to pray and read and listen to God. I need to get back to this one!
- Use an accountability program that sends every website I view to my wife or some other accountability partner. I use Covenant Eyes, (which is also a great tool for parents to talk about and use with their children).
- Limit the number of nights I spend away from home.
- Cook, eat and clean up after meals together as a family as much as possible.
- Vacation together as a family and as a couple.
[I discuss this more personally in Confessions of a Pastor, Part 2.]
 
Solve the Real Problem.

Hungry? Eat something. When you realize that you are hungry and that that hunger is causing you to act in unhealthy ways, eat something. Choose something healthy, but eat something.

Angry? Deal with the underlying cause. [Here's a link to my blog about what usually leads to our Anger, so we can get to the source of it.]

Lonely? Phone a friend. Spend time with a safe person who consistently extends grace to you. If you feel like you have no one, go to God. First let him be your friend, then let him speak to you about being a good friend to others, and then ask him to point you in a direction for making friends.

Tired? Go to sleep. We have had productivity engrained in us since we were kids. The early bird gets the worm, and all that. Work hard, play hard. YOLO. Just Do It. It is never ending. We will never accomplish all that we want to do if we don't get rest. God wants us to work hard and to enjoy life, but he also knew that we need a Sabbath day of rest. Good night!

3 Relationships Parents Should Promote and Why

My 11 year old son, Ethan, was at pitching boot camp the other day preparing for the upcoming baseball season, and I overheard a pitching coach telling a young pitcher to keep his hands on his chest when preparing to deliver the ball. Sometimes pitchers, like this young man, raise their hands above their heads like the one in the picture as part of their wind up. He went on to explain that, back in the day, pitchers wore long sleeves and used this upward movement to get their long sleeves out of the way and give their arms full range of movement. Why do kids still do it today? Because that’s what they thought they were supposed to do.

As parents, what are we supposed to do?

What is our role in our children’s lives?

Too often, we just follow the example of those who raised us or, determined not to repeat their mistakes, we follow some other example. But do we really know why we do what we do?

The 3 Relationships Parents Should Promote for Their Children and Why:

1 - Be their Provider

As parents our primary role is to provide security and stability for our children. This includes lots of things including each of the layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shown below. Of course, the top level, self-actualization, is up to them, but we can certainly help give them a strong foundation to build it upon.

As parents, we also make and enforce boundaries – some of which are important and good and others which are fear-based, overly constrictive, dangerously lax, obsolete or even just plain wrong. We are fallible and though we try our best, we often fail to set healthy boundaries for our children.

In a nut-shell, that is our primary role as parents. Daunting, isn’t it?

There is more. And, here is both an added responsibility and an added support system. We have the responsibility to introduce our children to other significant adults and provide an environment where they can development meaningful friendships. These relationships play different roles in our children’s lives, but they are both essential to their development.

2 - Help them Find Supportive Adults.

At about 7 years old, children start to see themselves as something more than just a member of their immediate family. They begin to let other people in and accept them as members of their inner circle of trust.

Adults that are not in the home can be in that inner circle. And this can provide tremendous support to parents. Significant adults in a child’s life can be grandparents, teachers, coaches, spiritual leaders, etc.

Ideally they will share the same primary values and beliefs. As the children see that adults they trust agree on the main things, they will feel more secure and confident about their core beliefs.

They will also begin to notice differences among their parents and these significant adults. Differences of opinion on certain behaviors like diet and exercise, political views, choice of entertainment, views on wealth and prosperity, ways of relating to others, and any number of other differences. These differences create space for the child to test their own individuality within the confines of the larger sense of security and well-being that the values and beliefs held by their role models provide.

They learn that they can grow up to be different and still be true to their core beliefs.

Even as toddlers, children need to test their boundaries and distinguish themselves as individuals. They long to be one of a kind! And, they are. Their uniqueness begins to take shape at a very early age. 

As agonizing as it is, our children need to say, “No!” when we tell them to eat their green beans or brush their teeth. This is a crucial step in forming their identity.

3 - Help them Develop Meaningful Friendships.

During adolescence, our children begin to identify with their peers and look to them for support and a sense of belonging. They long for the approval found in fulfilling others’ expectations. They still draw their security and stability from their family, but friends give them a sense of adventure and are will to take risks with them in their mutual search for identity.

These peers offer our children the courage to explore. All parents are wrong sometimes, our boundaries are too loose or too tight, our motivations are screwed up by our own insecurities and misplaced fears. At this age, our children want to know which of our boundaries are good and right, which are stupid and overbearing, and which are ones that they will choose for themselves.

In a sense, they want to figure out what boundaries they would set for themselves and try them on like a costume. The consequences of this can sometimes be harmful emotionally (like when our son or daughter gets their heart broken because they started dating too early), physically (like when they ride their bike over a homemade ramp that you told them wasn’t safe), spiritually (when they entrust their soul to someone who abuses their trust), or even fatally (when they participate in some life-threatening activity like cutting, car surfing, huffing, or any alcohol or drug use).

Faced with these realities, of course, as parents we want to protect our children. That’s what giving them security is all about.

Rather than trying to find a safe balance, a compromise or middle ground, we actually need to push both extremes, live in the tension. We need to let them express themselves, experiment with different boundaries, take risks and experience the consequences of their actions. And we need to protect them from themselves and their own lack of ability to evaluate risks.

Recent research on teenage brains confirms what we all have known, teenagers are bad at evaluating risks. They make dumb choices that can be disastrous. This research suggests that they actually do stop and evaluate the risk before doing something, but they are less afraid of the unknown than their adult counterparts.

This is vital for survival and thriving, since the adolescent has to face numerous unknowns in order to move out into the world and become an individual. But, it brings with it a limited ability to accurately gauge the risks involved in facing the unknown. 

Makes sense, doesn't it? Why else would teens be the most likely to start smoking, to begin having sex, to be converted to Christianity (or any religion)? Teens are less afraid of facing the unknown because so much of life is unknown to them.

We need to let them take all kinds of risks and reap the consequences good and bad. We also need to protect them from those risks that just aren’t worth it. We need to be that part of their brain that says, "No, not this time. That risk is just too great."

In the examples given before, maybe we say yes to the dating heartbreak but protect them from physical and sexual intimacy, maybe we allow them to scrape their knees on the bike ramp but move the ramp to the grass to prevent broken bones, and maybe we allow them to participate in other spiritual experiences and listen to and help them process their mixed reactions to them. And, definitely, we shield them from taking life-threatening risks all together.

Peers help our children to take appropriate risks, to press against the boundaries and find out where we have gone too far or been too lax. As much as possible we want to encourage these peer relationships with those who share similar core beliefs and values, but who they choose as friends is ultimately up to them. We can set appropriate boundaries to help them take risk in a controlled environment.

Throughout their lives, our children will be experiencing God and finding their own identity amidst a world that would gladly shape and morph them into its constantly changing image of enlightenment and happiness. These three interpersonal relationships provide a community of people to travel that road with them to act as guides, load bearers, travel companions, and comic relief.

The mutual dependence of these relationships cannot be over emphasized. In all three relationships (with parents, significant adults and peers), our children must perceive that they are responsible for their own thoughts, feelings, actions and the consequences of each and responsible to those with whom they are journeying. Each of us has times when we are the guide and others follow and when we are the load bearer carrying more than our share.

Our children need us to provide the basics and also to help them create mutually beneficial relationships that will support them along their life’s journey.

By the grace of God, we can do that.