Live Free with Josh Howerton - Family: The Original Plan | Ep. 391 | Monday, August 5, 2024

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

The Bible is rich with stories that remind us that family, despite its imperfections, is part of God’s original plan. Did you know that children’s natural curiosity is a gift from God and part of his family plan? One of God's plans for families was to help raise kids in a safe environment to explore and discover freely; this can be seen in Proverbs 11:27. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. Hope you all had a great weekend. My name is Bro, an honor to hang with you for a few minutes today,

as we all try to get to know God better and become a little more like Jesus along the way. We're beginning a new series at Lake Point Church that's all about family. And there are a few things that I cherish more than family. So I thought we just go along with that this week and talk about it as well on this podcast. Now, of course, there is no perfect family. We all come from a cast of characters, right? But you know what? Family is still God's plan. He chose to start way back in Eden with a family.

Now, by their own choice, it would eventually become a broken family, and things would get so bad that God would start over. And when he did, he started over with a family, Noah's family. And he chose to bring salvation to the world through a family, Abraham and Sarah. And even though we all come from a broken one, there's something in us that yearns to be a part of a family. Now, of course, they can be extremely dysfunctional and broken and imperfect and even harmful.

But still, the idea of family is a really good one, and we all long to be part of one. My wife loves that quote from Mother Teresa that says, The problem with the world is that we draw our family circles way too small. So she loves drawing big family circles. She loves that scripture that says, God places the lonely in families. My wife Debbie is amazing, and we have a big family,

and we have a big family, we got lots of love. we've got three kids, we've got 10 grandkids, and lots of cousins that seem like grandkids. We are having so much fun. Lots of joy all around this idea of family. And I love being a dad. One of the greatest privileges of my life is being a dad. I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I know that you moms and dads would agree with me.

Parenting can be really, really challenging. It doesn't matter if you get kids in diapers or in grade school, or if you're trying to help them navigate the teenage years, every parent faces the same challenge. challenge. How do we, as imperfect parents, provide the framework, the limits, the discipline, the loving environment to raise our kids to be healthy, happy, productive, God-loving, difference-making adults? I mean, how do we give them roots to grow deep? And how do we give them wings to soar on their own someday? It's a lifelong process, and it's not easy. Now, I am far from being an expert

in the field of parenting. Debbie and I've certainly made our share of mistakes along the way, and it is simply by the grace of God that any parenting success has come our way. But I'm telling you, not as a pastor, but as the imperfect father of three, if you don't have God involved in the raising of your kids, if you don't hit your knees on a regular basis and say, God, I'm trying really, really hard, but I need your wisdom to pull this off, it's going to be a long uphill struggle for you. You've got to get a perfect father involved.

So I'd like to give you some principles this week. that I've been learning on the job for the past 40 years now. They all have a wisdom proverb from God's book attached. They all involve the letter D, so maybe it'll be easier for us to remember. But if you're going to give your kids the kind of roots and wings they'll need, you've got to start early, and number one is this. Give them freedom for discovery. Give them freedom for discovery.

You know, kids are so creative and curious. God made them that way. While it is our job to give our kids safe, loving, protective boundaries, We've also got to give them some room to explore and play and stretch their imagination and search for what's really true in life. Proverbs 1514 says, A wise person is hungry for truth while a fool feeds on trash. We create this freedom that enables them to distinguish truth from trash

as they search within the boundaries we've established. We teach them like it says in Proverbs 1127. If you search for good, you'll find favor. But if you search for evil, it'll find you. And kids will learn that principle very quickly. In fact, kids just learn quickly, period. I had my two-year-old grandson in the truck just a few days ago, and he wanted to listen to Baby Shark.

Now, if you know it, you know it's over and over and over. Baby Shark do do do do do do do baby shark. Baby Shark, do do do do do baby shark. Mommy Shark. It goes on and on and on. It wasn't enough for him just to listen. to it, he wanted to hold the phone. So I passed my phone back to him in the car seat. Well, in a few minutes, the music stops, and I know he was ordering something from Amazon. I mean, it's just

crazy how curious they are and how fast they learn. Some of you are experiencing your toddler right now discovering new things like how to open the cabinets and how to flush oranges down the toilet and how to bow their back to keep you from getting them in that car seat. And kids are so observant about everything. I can remember a story that Bruce Lark told about being on vacation somewhere in California, his family went out for a hike, and they came upon a sign that said, Naturalist Camp. So being lovers of God's creation, they proceeded into what they thought was a nature preserve. In actuality, it was a nudist camp.

And all of a sudden, a group of people buck naked come riding bicycles toward them, and the five-year-old kid says, oh, man, they're not wearing helmets? Kids were designed to be curious explorers, seekers, if you will. so give them appropriate freedom for discovery. Make sure that she has some unstructured time in her life. Balance his chores, homework, activities with freedom to play make-believe. Let them turn the couch cushions into a fort. Create a space in your home where it's okay to paint and draw and glue and glitter and make messy projects.

Let them color outside the lines. And by all means, let them draw it. And you'll begin to see little individual's wings start to sprout as you give them the first. freedom for discovery. We'll come back tomorrow and we'll build on this one and hope you have a great day. I'll see you back here tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information about all the digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint. Visit lakepoint. dot church slash daily drive. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate,

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