"Looking Through You"
EPISODE 23
Set an Example for Your Kids
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"I'm looking through you, where did you go? I thought I knew you, what did I know." - The Beatles
Paul McCartney's piercing lyrics in "I'm Looking Through You" cut right to a crushing, familiar experience: Seeing through someone's words and sadly realizing they're not who you thought they were. "Your lips are moving, I cannot hear," quips the second verse, "Your voice is soothing, but the words aren't clear." I hear this song and ask myself, "what do my kids see when they look through me?"
"Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity" (Titus 2:7).
The Thunder Blunder
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary." Your words are like the sound of rain on the roof, pleasant and constant, but your actions are the thunder in your child's life: sometimes sudden and frightening, but always unmistakably clear and impossible to overlook. Most "parenting" happens on the fly during the everyday storms of living. I'm learning that some essential parenting activities happen when my kids are nowhere near. As I pray and soak myself in the Lord's words, I prepare to live the way I want my kids to live.
Moses gives the formula in Deuteronomy 6. First, the words get etched on your heart (Deut. 6:6). Then and only then can you effectively "teach them diligently to your children" and "talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way…" (Deut. 6:7).
Looking Through You
Your kids see right through false piety to the real priority. They hear the prayer before dinner, but they also know where we turn when a crisis hits. They see when we "go to worship" without offering worship. The command to stop whining and fighting grows faint as our complaints and arguments roar in their ears. Our comments about brethren on the way home, our favorite shows that "aren't for kids," and our bursts of unchecked rage — they reveal us to little eyes who revere us.
The Perfect Parent
Parenting sometimes feels like a walk through a dark room, bumping your shins into coffee tables while trying to protect the little one holding your hand. The best of us vacillate between bumbling and brilliant. God is the one shining example, the ideal parent. His words are faithful, but we only learn to trust them as we come to trust him. He has proven his love and integrity.
"You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48).
Although we'll never get there, we strive to parent like our Father. As he abides in us, our kids will look through us and our flaws and see him. "My father didn't tell me how to live;" said Clarence Budington Kelland, "he lived, and let me watch him do it."
