Faith Filled Family Magazine August 2016 | Page 12

seums jousting with one another over other parents’ calamities. There are others who have cruelly cheered for or demanded the “execution” of perceived unsuccessful parents and their deviant offspring. As a society we tend to hold parents accountable for the wayward actions of their children regardless of their age. To be fair, we also accredit parents when their children grow up to be responsible or gifted individuals. Consequently, I learned the hard way—through personal experience—not to judge rebellion as solely due to a lapse in parenting and ideally not to judge at all. Shortly after moving some distance away from our authority, either to attend college or to start life on their own, my children each in their own way veered away from their Christian upbringing. Although by the grace of God they did not break any societal laws, they did things that broke God’s, my husband’s, and my heart. They are on a path of restoration now, but how did this happen considering they were saved when they were younger and they were consistently trained in Godly standards both at home and at church? My husband and I led them by example to the best of our abilities, yet they rebelled and fell into sin. Reflecting on my own life, I recall rebelling against parental authority when I was a child as well. While living with my grandmother, I asked permission to take my cousin to visit her father who lived a short distance away. My grandmother granted me permission but gave me strict instructions that I was not to eat any food offered to us by this family. She knew they practiced witchcraft and she feared they may put a curse on me through the food. As my grandmother foreknew, I was offered food as soon as my cousin and I arrived and I ate it. I was given strict instructions, yet I willfully disobeyed. Since the rebellious behaviors in these examples were against moral standards and only affected our family, they did not illicit outcry or condemnation from society. However, in God’s view it does not matter where rebellion manifests or how severe it may be, we are in sin if we know the rules yet choose our own way (James 4:17 paraphrase). Just how much of individual behaviors should we attribute to parenting strengths or weaknesses and what can parents do to overcome rebellion in their child? To make that determination we need to first understand the root of rebellion. As the first parent, God gave His children, Adam and Eve, one command and explained the consequences if they strayed from it. The consequences included immediate spiritual death (separation from God), and an eventual physical death for themselves and their offspring. These firstborns of mankind already knew good and evil, as explained to them by God. They were granted limited knowledge of what was good and evil—all the fruits of the trees were good to eat except one. Also, they were already like God, in that they were made in His image and had His Holy Spirit in them. However, Satan exploited their self-interest and used it to deceive them into lusting over things they already possessed, which then led them into rebellion. Adam and Eve did not rebel because God’s rearing skills were deficient. The deficiency resided in the application of their individual wills. Their error propagated a weakness in the wills of every human since, manifesting as an inclination to rebel. It also instigates the exaltation of one’s will over the wills of those in authority. It is choosing autonomy over sovereignty—in essence pride. The root cause of rebellion is pride, because selfregard is most often the underlying influence for the errant behavior. Pride always precedes a fall, manifesting individually first and then eventually propagating throughout societies. Each of us enters this world with a wild, unruly will. We all inherited that rebellious, haughty spirit from our original parents. This rebellious nature manifests in each individual in various ways and intensity. This is the reason the Bible advises us to “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). The will must be trained beginning the moment the child becomes self-aware. Rules accompanied with consequences are the most effective training tools in cultivating a disciplined will, and a disciplined will fosters self-control. Developmental psychologist, Erik Erikson, developed the psychosocial theory identifying eight stages of lifespan. He theorized that in the second stage of life, ages one to three years, children begin exhibiting autonomous