Mistakes: Not The Enemy

Reduce The Fear

(Excerpts from Danny Silk's Book "Loving Your Child On Purpose")

Our children are professional mistake makers. They are all on a learning journey. When we are afraid of their mistakes or their sins our anxiety controls our responses to them and the spirit of fear becomes the master teacher in our home.

We need to learn to be ok no matter what they do. When we do we usher them into a right relationship with an internal God who loves them, who’s not freaked out about their mistakes, and who has a solution that really does work.

At the heart of godly parenting is the conviction that the mistakes and failures of our children are not the enemy. The real enemy is bondage. To fear our children’s poor choices is to teach them to be afraid of freedom.

For many of us intimidation is our only real parenting tool. However, Heaven is not trying to control your life. God doesn’t want to control you. Remember, in the presence of the Lord there is freedom, not control (2Cor. 3:17). Rather we have been given a Spirit of power, love, and self control (2Tim 1:7).

Many parents believe they must gain control by intimidating their children into changing their minds. We think we need a more effective way of controlling our children. Those with “strong-willed” children believe they need to break their will. But really we need to be removing fear, specifically the fear of punishment.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” 1 John 4:18. In order to train our children in love, our behavior as parents must reduce fear, not increase fear.

When we get in a power struggle it assaults the peace and freedom between two people by devaluing them. It damages the relationship when you teach “there’s one of us who has power and its not you”.

But when my heart is connected to your heart, my decisions are designed to protect our relationship no matter how far out of my presence you are. I actually live in your presence when my heart is connected to your heart, and the deposit you have made inside my life steers me in your absence. This can bring us confidence and trust in our children’s choices when they are out of our presence. We know we’ve invested in a loving relationship not one of fear.

If you see God as the great punisher in the sky, then you think it’s natural that the bad things in your life come from Him. Many Christians are afraid of “Being left behind” or “missing the rapture” because we know that we are not without faults. So many experience anxiety over whether God is pleased with us. Therefore, we wrestle with the fear of rejection or punishment. 

The heart of God, however, towards us is that we would learn to handle tons of freedom. To learn to live in relationship with the Limitless One who does not want to control us. To learn to choose those things that build a relationship of love when we have unlimited options. Remember that the way we see the Father determines how we will relate to Him and to others, including our children.