Sunday, July 18, 2010

Watered Down Orange Juice or Orange Juice in the Water...

About a year ago, maybe two age sat in church listening to a sermon on how we needed to be getting the real juice, making sure that what we were learning wasn't watered down, but that it was the real thing.

The sermon illustration was in terms of watered down fruit juice vs the real thing. The sermon bugged me, not least because in this church the Gospel and Scripture had taken second place.  I left the sermon with the distinct feeling the problem wasn't that we were watering down the truth, the problem was we distrusted the "living water" and saw it as corrupting the truth. Yes I pushed the metaphor further than was ever intended. With the Woman in Samaria, Jesus presents himself as the living water, that which quenches all our thirsts.


Last week listening to the podcast series on doctrine from Mars Hill (Mark Driscoll) he made comment on psychology as a distortion of how we see the world. Mmm. Lots to think about.

Yes I still work on forgiveness, but I also work on being careful with my I statements, providing rewards for good behavior, withdrawing privileges when the kids are disobedient..etc Just below the surface are lots of psychology based ideas. I'm still working through this but I can see that psychology and its roots in humanism and self, are never going to answer the problems of a fallen human being living in a sinful world. I need to look at the depth to which I relate to the world from a Christian worldview, compared to a humanistic worldview with Christian covering.

Initially this compassionate and caring mum is at least starting to unpack some of the guilt of trying to discipline her children, and being afraid of doing lasting damage...and the frustration of not being able to motivate (should that read manipulate them into doing what I want them to do.) and the confusion of living life in a world of grey, especially where love, authority, grace, and forgiveness get mixed up with preserving self confidence, rewards, roomtimes, family conferences, consequences and punishments.Too much of our days are spent working through the negotiations and explanations that try to create ownership in the kids about what they need to do, and the kids second guessing what we need to say, so that we can do what were were always going to do without mum realizing for at least a while longer. .

Sometimes it really would be a heap easier if I only had to work with the simple right and wrong, a yes is yes, a no is no, a maybe means I'll think about it carefully  and an assignment just needs to be done the way mum asked for it. Maybe it really is just that simple, maybe or is that hopefully the reason why I find myself head to head with strong willed children.  Something to work on, something to work through.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh, this brings back memories. This stage of child rearing is so much work and so exhausting! But it is just that--a stage. Before you know it, you'll have weddings or college kids, or babies all grown up. Often I would come to a point where I suddenly realized that one of the struggles we'd been hassling over had vanished. It had worked itself out, and we had gone on to other things. Blessings in the journey!