The NXR Podcast - CONFERENCE - Children As Artillery - Pastor C.R. Wiley

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00:00:23.480 five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks. That's why I named my book

00:00:29.260 after this conference. Anyway, it's really marvelous to be here. It's great to be with

00:00:36.300 Joel and Jared and to be with you too. And, you know, I was actually given the title for this

00:00:43.160 talk. That's often the way it works. I did a talk at the University of Idaho entitled Toxic

00:00:50.160 Matriarchy, and people thought that was my idea. I actually said, we want you to do a talk, but it

00:00:54.400 must be called Toxic Matriarchy. So I said, okay, I'll roll with it. Children as Artillery is the 1.00

00:01:02.400 title of this talk. And, you know, honestly, when I heard the title, immediately what came to my

00:01:10.160 mind was Circus Tense, you know, and the guy who gets in the cannon, you know, the human cannonball,

00:01:15.640 you know, and a shot across, you know, all three rings of the circus and lands in a net.

00:01:20.160 I also thought of what brought this, another thing that came to mind was Super Dave Osborne.

00:01:25.500 Does anybody remember Super Dave?

00:01:27.660 You know, the ne'er-do-well daredevil who dies in every stunt, you know, and just somehow

00:01:33.140 comes back next week for another show.

00:01:35.720 And then I thought about my time at Harvard Divinity School and the quest to expunge from

00:01:42.020 the hymnal anything that sounds militaristic.

00:01:45.280 I don't know if you were aware of this, but once upon a time in the good old days, before they got to pronouns, they were trying to get out hymns about Christian soldiers and stuff like that.

00:02:00.040 So those were the things that came to mind.

00:02:01.920 But above all, I thought about Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative.

00:02:07.100 Now, I know that the rest of you probably also thought about Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative.

00:02:11.640 so I should probably explain why this came to mind. Now, this isn't a course in modern philosophy

00:02:18.440 or deontological ethics, but aren't you glad? But anyway, it's good to be acquainted with what's

00:02:26.740 gone on in modern philosophy because it has influenced our world in ways that are hard

00:02:34.980 to appreciate. I know it's a lot of fun to make fun of ivory tower academics because it's easy

00:02:41.280 for us to more or less write them off as irrelevant and out of touch with the real world. The problem

00:02:46.400 with that is they're not interested in the world as it is now. They have an influence on the world

00:02:54.220 far after they're dead, and the influence that Immanuel Kant has exercised on our world is hard

00:03:02.680 to, I think, for many people to appreciate. Here's an easy, I think, illustration of the point.

00:03:09.220 Karl Marx. Karl Marx has made a difference in your life. He really has. A bad one, but he has

00:03:18.760 influenced your life. And first came Immanuel Kant, then came Marx. You could say that there is a

00:03:28.700 thread of influence there, but I'm not going to explore that. But when it comes to the categorical

00:03:33.780 imperative, it's been formulated in three ways. So the categorical imperative is something that

00:03:39.680 Kant developed in order to have a framework for talking about living well and living ethically.

00:03:49.520 And there are three formulations of the imperative, but the one that I think applies to children as

00:03:55.060 artillery is this one. Treat humanity in every case as an end in themselves, never as a means

00:04:04.580 only. Children as artillery seems to violate this. The idea that, you know, we're using our children

00:04:13.180 as a means to an end would seem to be something that Immanuel Kant would have a problem with.

00:04:20.300 But the thing to keep in mind is even Kant qualified his statement with the word only.

00:04:27.460 We're never ends exclusively.

00:04:30.820 We are also means.

00:04:33.280 Ends and means.

00:04:34.600 And when we think about ends and means, when we talk about means, many times we're referring

00:04:40.320 to the ordinary means of grace, preaching, sacraments, so forth, when it comes to proclaiming

00:04:48.240 the gospel and encouraging people to grow in grace. But the end, of course, is something that

00:04:54.380 we're aiming at. That's the target. The end is the target. It's the purpose. It's the telos. It's the

00:05:00.360 goal. It's perfection. Now, one of the things, though, that we see in our world today is that

00:05:06.880 when it comes to thinking about children and ends and means, there's a lot of confusion.

00:05:14.460 and one of the things that I think we see happening with particularly with parents is that

00:05:20.820 parents have come to see the objective of parenting as being the happiness of the child

00:05:27.860 that's the end that's the thing that we're all supposed to be shooting for when we think about

00:05:34.180 children and you know how it goes if you watch you know some daytime television you know you'll

00:05:39.820 hear parents when they're talking about their children say, I just want him or her or it or

00:05:46.280 whatever to be happy. Happy is the goal. Then if you were to ask the follow-up question, which I

00:05:53.280 think is a good thing to do but never seems to happen, and ask those folks to define happiness,

00:05:59.100 they have no clue. Basically, happiness, if they kind of sum it up in any way at all,

00:06:05.900 sounds like something Oprah Winfrey would say. I just want, you know, kind of a general feeling

00:06:11.080 of sort of self-satisfaction and pleasure to kind of characterize the life of my child. And that's

00:06:18.080 it. Whatever makes that happen is what I want for him or her or it or whatever. Now, what these

00:06:27.940 folks fail to appreciate is that very often people need to feel useful to be happy. Have you ever

00:06:35.000 noticed that about yourself? If you felt useless, was that like an epiphany? Wow, I'm useless.

00:06:43.760 I feel great. No. Often you need to be able to do something for others and even for yourself 0.84

00:06:52.780 if you're going to have a sense that your life has purpose. And that, of course, is pretty important

00:07:00.260 when it comes to the subject of happiness. Now, what I want to think about with you at this point

00:07:04.900 is this theme, children as artillery, and how that's actually a good way to make your children

00:07:10.860 feel happy, to help them see themselves and think of themselves as artillery. Now one of my favorite

00:07:17.600 psalms, it's already been quoted, Jared mentioned it, the 127th psalm, where we're told that children

00:07:25.220 are a heritage from the Lord, that's important, but we're also told that children are like arrows

00:07:30.520 in the hands of a warrior. That's the fourth verse. So you quoted the third verse, that's the

00:07:34.860 fourth verse. This is where we get, you know, the term quiverful. The quiverful movement is something

00:07:41.480 that swept through certain, you know, sort of parts of the evangelical world a little while

00:07:50.400 back. Now, when we think about arrows, of course, arrows are for shooting. That's what they're made

00:07:57.560 for. Arrows have no choice in the matter. We don't ask arrows about their thoughts on the subject.

00:08:05.800 We just shoot them. Arrows are for shooting. And I know that sounds militaristic, and it is.

00:08:13.620 But I think at this point, bringing back Immanuel Kant, a common objection to the matter of a given

00:08:24.000 purpose for anything, really, is that all given purposes are illegitimate. The only purposes that

00:08:31.840 we should give ourselves to are the ones that we freely choose. And because of that, we live in a

00:08:40.940 world today where people can't think about given purposes any other way. Given purposes are

00:08:47.320 oppressive. Even when those given purposes are hardwired into your body, we shouldn't submit to

00:08:56.300 those. We should exercise the power to choose, even when it means denying our own physical

00:09:03.260 constitutions. Male, female, he made them, right? One of the things that I think animates and is 0.59

00:09:12.080 the source of a great deal of the animus behind the transgender movement is the hostility to given 1.00

00:09:19.000 purposes, even those purposes woven into the very fabric of creation by the creator himself.

00:09:26.060 People look at that as oppressive. What we want is to choose our own purposes.

00:09:35.120 But what is our given purpose? I'd like to think about that with you a little bit,

00:09:40.600 Not just in battle, but overall.

00:09:42.660 What is the given purpose?

00:09:44.800 We're told in Romans that we all fall short of the glory of God.

00:09:51.180 We fall short of the glory of God.

00:09:52.440 And by the way, this relates to the Greek word for sin, I think, in a marvelous way.

00:09:59.000 Hermitia, if you're not familiar with the term, literally means to miss the mark.

00:10:05.760 So let's say you're an archer in the first century.

00:10:10.100 and you spoke Koine Greek, and you were at a competition with other archers,

00:10:14.840 and you fired your arrow at a target, and you missed, what would the judge say?

00:10:24.020 Harmatia! You've missed the mark.

00:10:27.500 That's the word that we translate into the English word sin, the Greek word harmatia.

00:10:32.920 So we fall short of the glory of God, implying that the glory of God is his target.

00:10:40.100 that's what we're shooting for, God's glory.

00:10:43.240 Now, the Westminster Shorter Catechism turns this into a positive principle

00:10:48.100 or reformulates it, and we see it expressed as a positive principle there

00:10:52.620 with the first question in the Shorter Catechism,

00:10:55.620 what is the chief end of man?

00:10:58.180 In other words, the given end.

00:10:59.660 The given end is to glorify God, but it doesn't stop there.

00:11:05.160 To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

00:11:09.280 And with that, we see ends and means reconciled in a beautiful way.

00:11:15.760 It's not as though you have to choose between your duty and your joy.

00:11:21.800 Your joy is your duty, and your duty is your joy.

00:11:27.980 I know this is very difficult for us to fully appreciate,

00:11:33.380 because we tend to think, as I noted, that these things are somehow mutually exclusive.

00:11:37.620 but in God, they're reconciled. So we're creatures. We don't create ourselves, and because of that,

00:11:44.160 we don't give ourselves our purposes. Those purposes are given to us by the fact that we

00:11:51.200 are created for a purpose. And really, this is what it means to be a creature. When you're a

00:12:00.500 creature, everything is derived. In other words, everything is given. What do you have, Paul says,

00:12:05.180 that you were not given. Everything that we have is given, and we work with what we've received.

00:12:13.160 Here's a little exercise I like to use to illustrate just how difficult it is to create

00:12:19.260 something out of nothing. We, as human beings, create things in a way that, you know, depends

00:12:26.700 upon the things that we're given. Everything that we create is, in some sense, a mixture of given

00:12:31.920 things. We rework things and we don't create things out of nothing. We create things out of

00:12:39.720 other things combined in novel ways. But to illustrate why that is the only choice we have,

00:12:48.600 try to imagine a primary color that is absolutely new, totally novel, not something that you've

00:12:56.900 received. I'm not talking about some kind of blending of primary colors like chartreuse or

00:13:05.660 olive or something like that. I mean something as primary as yellow, red, and blue. Something

00:13:13.900 totally new. Can you do it? Even if you could, you couldn't describe it to the rest of us because

00:13:21.080 none of us could imagine it. You get what I'm getting at. We can't create things out of nothing,

00:13:26.560 And yet that's what we as a society have given ourselves over to.

00:13:31.000 We think we can create something out of nothing, but that's not something given to us to do.

00:13:38.320 It's not something that's possible for us to do.

00:13:41.820 We are given things, and because we're given things, we can give things.

00:13:48.200 We are loved by God.

00:13:51.060 That's why we love God.

00:13:53.420 God is our source.

00:13:55.400 He's also our end. He's also the means. With all of these things in mind, one of the things that

00:14:02.700 you need to tell your kids, one of the things that you need to demonstrate for them is what it means

00:14:08.580 or what it looks like to love God and to love other people and to demonstrate that, you know,

00:14:16.020 you are living your life to the glory of God and that you intend to raise your children in a way

00:14:25.700 that glorifies God as well. Your objective, in other words, is to use your children as a means

00:14:33.160 of glorifying God and that you have a target in mind, which is the glory of God. 0.99

00:14:39.960 And one of the ways that we're told to do that here in the 127th Psalm is that you love your kids by shooting them.

00:14:50.400 Not with the way I just think maybe that came to mind, but you use your kids as the artillery to shoot their lives toward the goal that I've been describing, which is the glory of God.

00:15:07.340 Now, I'd like to reflect with you a little bit on the matter, first of all, of having a quiver full of kids.

00:15:14.900 Now, obviously, the more arrows you have, the more you have to shoot.

00:15:20.220 Kind of follows, right?

00:15:22.300 But obviously, the number you have is not entirely up to you.

00:15:26.740 Think about Abram and Sarah.

00:15:29.320 They had one.

00:15:31.520 Would they have liked more?

00:15:32.800 Well, as you know, there was another, and that was a problem.

00:15:36.160 but there had to be something that God could only do in order for this to come about.

00:15:44.660 Now, I have three, and they're all grown and have spouses of their own and children of their own.

00:15:50.360 I've got five grandchildren, so I'm at that point in life,

00:15:54.180 and I'm happy to report that they're all on target.

00:15:58.700 If they weren't, I would feel very different about this talk.

00:16:02.600 I'm happy to announce that they are. I'd like to review, you know, the situation as it stands

00:16:11.200 currently with you so that you have some sense of the context of my life. So I have two sons and a

00:16:16.740 daughter. Now, we began having our children back in the bad old days, the 1990s, and this was before

00:16:25.480 there was a lot of emphasis that we see, you know, sort of all around today on the importance of

00:16:30.920 having children and having children early in life. So we were already 30 years old when our first was

00:16:36.300 born. So the window of opportunity for us had narrowed quite a bit by the time our first child

00:16:42.740 was born. But our oldest son, Caleb, has two daughters of his own. He's married to a lovely

00:16:48.640 girl from Texas, from Houston, in fact, our oldest daughter-in-law. And they live in Nashville,

00:16:54.200 and he's involved in the music industry. He's an audio engineer and is actually on staff at

00:17:00.380 Covenant Presbyterian Church. You probably know about that church because it was in the news not

00:17:04.680 too long ago. He was in the building when the shooting occurred. So we got the text and the

00:17:09.800 description long before anybody else knew what was going on. So I've got sort of an insider's

00:17:15.260 sort of perspective on all of that. But anyways, he's fine. They're fine. And the church actually

00:17:21.360 is doing pretty well, all things considered. So that's my oldest son. My second son,

00:17:26.940 He is married as well.

00:17:29.080 And by the way, my oldest son, he and his wife own their house.

00:17:32.220 So they own real estate.

00:17:36.200 They own a house in Nashville, and he's gainfully employed and works for himself.

00:17:40.720 My second son is a welder and a steel fabricator and a blacksmith and lives in Hartford, Connecticut.

00:17:47.920 He's 26 years old.

00:17:49.080 He's a foreman in a large steel firm, the largest steel firm in New England.

00:17:54.120 and he has 30 men who report to him at 26.

00:17:59.040 So he's doing pretty well.

00:17:59.980 They own their own house.

00:18:01.480 They have a baby and another one on the way.

00:18:04.200 I'll be here in January.

00:18:06.180 And he's doing great.

00:18:08.020 Again, they're believers.

00:18:09.120 They love the Lord.

00:18:09.680 Then my daughter just was married here not too long back

00:18:13.760 and already has a child.

00:18:15.860 And they live in the Hartford area in Connecticut as well.

00:18:18.780 So the children are all doing well and flourishing.

00:18:21.900 and I'd like to reflect a little bit on, you know, what sort of contributed to that state of affairs

00:18:30.160 and I'll get to that in a minute. Well, when it comes to this question of how many to have,

00:18:36.660 I think one question people have is how many can I afford? And I was in a conversation with Kevin

00:18:42.920 DeYoung not too long ago who has, I believe, nine kids and Kevin's thought was more than you think

00:18:48.620 you can. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Now, in the church I serve right now,

00:18:54.060 the median age in the church, our church is around 250 people. The median age is about,

00:18:58.400 I'm not exaggerating, about 13 to 14. We've got that many kids. And so my elders, one has 13,

00:19:08.280 another has 12, another has nine, and two have six. And that makes up a tiny fraction of the

00:19:13.980 total child population in the church. Now, something to think about when it comes to this

00:19:19.480 matter of how many you can afford. One of the things that I learned reading a book years ago

00:19:24.180 that has been a marvelous book to reflect on over the years is a book entitled The Millionaire Next

00:19:27.940 Door. Folks familiar with that book? The Millionaire Next Door. It's a great book.

00:19:31.940 So it's a book about self-made millionaires, 95% of whom are men who are married and have more than

00:19:39.740 three kids, three or more, which was an interesting thing to learn, because I think that for many of

00:19:45.320 us, we assume, more or less, the more kids you have, the poorer you are. But the way men think,

00:19:52.140 and this is something to keep in mind, the way men think, is that if a man doesn't have someone

00:19:56.560 to take care of and be responsible for, what does he do with himself? He watches television.

00:20:03.000 You know, he wastes money on cars and things that depreciate rapidly.

00:20:09.640 He doesn't think about the future very much.

00:20:11.500 He's just simply kind of looking for pleasure in the moment.

00:20:14.780 And that's where I'd be if I didn't have kids.

00:20:16.880 And that's where most men would be when they don't have kids.

00:20:19.680 It's when a man has the responsibility of caring for a wife and children that he starts

00:20:25.160 to think about other people for a change and thinks about the long term and thinks about

00:20:29.980 the welfare of those people in the long term.

00:20:32.400 And what that does is it creates a kind of, well, necessity is the mother of invention.

00:20:39.800 When you have that kind of necessity kind of looking at you all the time and expecting things from you,

00:20:45.660 it has a way of getting you thinking and making sacrifices and making plans and taking risks.

00:20:51.940 Now, they don't always work out.

00:20:53.600 But when they do, they can work out very, very well.

00:20:56.860 And that's why 95% of the self-made millionaires in the world are men with children to take care of.

00:21:07.500 The other thing is that when you have a lot of kids, they don't sit around and just take.

00:21:11.740 They are required to help as early as they can.

00:21:14.960 So that's another valuable thing to keep in mind.

00:21:17.600 Children join in the work early.

00:21:20.360 Now, returning to the theme of war, I want to reflect on that a little bit

00:21:24.240 before I get into some of the practical things I want to talk about.

00:21:27.520 First thing to note is we are in a war.

00:21:30.780 No matter what the Neville Chamberlains of the winsome world would like you to think,

00:21:36.460 this is a world in which we have some adversaries.

00:21:41.120 We have to keep that in mind.

00:21:44.520 Right at the beginning of the Bible, we have that episode with the serpent,

00:21:49.980 and we're told that there would be enmity between the children of the serpent

00:21:55.020 and the woman's seed. Genesis, of course, chapter 3, verse 15. And we're told in James,

00:22:03.120 friendship with the world is enmity toward God. In other words, if you try to make friends with

00:22:07.760 the world, you make God your adversary. You've got to choose. You can't play Switzerland in this

00:22:14.780 whole thing. You're on one side or the other. Remember that song by Bob Dylan, You Gotta Serve 0.78

00:22:19.280 somebody? Some of you remember it. Some of you, like, who's Bob Dylan? But anyway, Bob Dylan,

00:22:25.500 you know, there's this great song, you know, you got to serve somebody. That was the refrain. And

00:22:29.480 then, you know, the black choir would come in, you know, you got to serve somebody. And he'd say,

00:22:34.420 you know, in that way that only Bob Dylan can speak, you may serve the devil or you may serve

00:22:40.420 the Lord, but you got to serve somebody. And that's the thing we have to keep in mind. We've

00:22:46.000 got to serve somebody. And if you think you're only serving yourself, guess which team you're on?

00:22:52.860 Finally, we're not the only ones with arrows. It's not as though the devil is just sitting

00:22:59.460 over their mind in his own business and we go and pick a fight. No, there are fiery darts that he's

00:23:05.920 firing all the time, and we're the target. That's something that we shouldn't forget.

00:23:13.220 Ephesians, you know, chapter 6, verses 12 and 16, we're told that there are these fiery darts and

00:23:20.860 we have a shield that is the shield of faith. We're told it's a shield that is constituted

00:23:26.900 by faith. And I want to reflect on that with you a little bit. But unilateral disarmament

00:23:31.260 is just simply foolish. If you just lay down your arms and say, that's it, I want to have 0.73

00:23:37.720 peace with you, you join the other side, because as I noted before, that's what we're presented

00:23:45.640 with. We either are with the Lord and serving him, or we are in league with his adversaries.

00:23:52.920 Now these fiery darts, these arrows, how should we understand the nature of these arrows? One of

00:24:00.700 the things I think that is important to keep in mind is that in scripture, the devil is referred

00:24:04.860 to as the accuser, the accuser of the brethren. Are you familiar with that allusion? But

00:24:10.380 we're also told that the devil is diabolical. Now, the word diabolical has an interesting

00:24:19.560 provenance. It's a compound word in Greek, dia, meaning through, and balo, where we get the word

00:24:27.900 ballistic, means to throw. So in other words, the objective is to throw something at you and

00:24:34.200 through you, you know, to take you out. What is it that is being directed toward us? Well,

00:24:41.640 accusations. Now, I know that sometimes when people note this, they more or less, as, you know,

00:24:49.300 I think it's understandable that reformed people would do this. The way they think of this is that,

00:24:54.820 you know, these accusations that are being directed toward us are based in some fact.

00:25:01.240 we are sinful, and they're intended to undermine our confidence in our salvation. And I think

00:25:05.700 that's a fair interpretation. But if we look at Scripture and think about this particular

00:25:11.720 mode of attack, I think we can see some subtleties that perhaps we overlook. One of those is that

00:25:19.360 in the garden, the temptation that we see described for us in that dialogue between Eve

00:25:26.900 and the serpent, the accusations were directed toward whom? God. In other words, they were

00:25:36.960 intended to impugn God's character and undermine the confidence of Adam and Eve in God and his

00:25:45.820 promises. And that's why a shield of faith is something that extinguishes those things.

00:25:52.460 If you look at Job, if you remember, you know, we have a set of accusations in the book of Job.

00:25:57.680 Remember the opening to Job?

00:26:00.000 You know, here we have the high court, the Lord upon the throne, the, you know, the courtiers all around.

00:26:07.440 And who saunters into the court at this point?

00:26:10.140 None other than the accuser.

00:26:12.620 And the Lord says, well, what have you been up to?

00:26:15.880 Oh, this and that, been here and there.

00:26:19.500 And then the Lord does what?

00:26:21.000 he brings up Job. Now, I wish, you know, if I were Job, I'd say, why did you bring me into this?

00:26:29.400 Right? But, you know, he says, have you considered Job? And then the accuser accuses Job and accuses

00:26:35.680 the Lord, right, of wrongdoing. Well, the only reason why this guy, you know, is so devoted to

00:26:42.760 you is because you treat him with kit gloves. You're nice to him all the time. I mean, look at

00:26:47.440 the guy. He's got it all. He's got it made. He's got big families. He's got wealth. He's got all

00:26:51.860 this stuff going for him. If you just simply let me get at him for a little bit, he will curse you

00:26:57.320 to your face. And that's the bet. And what's interesting about how the story ends is that 0.97

00:27:03.420 even at the end of the story, Job has never let in on what this was all about. But he was God's

00:27:09.740 champion in this conflict. And the accusations took the form of, eventually, other things in

00:27:19.780 Job's case. And this is why we need a shield of faith. Now, we live in a world that believes the

00:27:25.880 lies. We live in a world that is characterized by a kind of miasma. The atmosphere is just

00:27:34.560 poisonous, and the prince of the power of the air is the reason for that. But because of that,

00:27:41.360 falsehood fills the air, and people believe what they've been told. I really do believe that there

00:27:47.160 is a direct connection, and this is scriptural, between what we believe and how we behave.

00:27:54.720 If you want to know what a person really believes, just watch how they behave.

00:27:58.800 That demonstrates what they really, that's what James was getting at, right?

00:28:04.560 Now, getting back to the matter of children as artillery, what are we aiming at? As I noted,

00:28:12.640 the glory of God. The target for our arrows is the glory of God, and our arrows are our children.

00:28:21.260 Now, what I have to present to you at this time is a brief series of suggestions. I hesitate to

00:28:28.580 call them instructions. They're based on Scripture, but they're also based on observation and personal

00:28:34.320 experience. So with those things in mind, I'm going to run through a few things with you,

00:28:38.540 and hopefully they'll be helpful. These things will be helpful. So when we think about our

00:28:42.460 children, and if we think about them as arrows that we are using to direct toward the glory of

00:28:51.420 God and aim at the glory of God, I think we need to sharpen them. We need to sharpen them.

00:28:56.880 we need to hone them and what we're looking to do is to develop them and develop their virtues

00:29:06.580 now the virtue when we think of the term virtue I think that there are a number of things that

00:29:12.800 we associate with that term that I'd like to reflect on with you a little bit about but one

00:29:17.940 of the things that I want you to know is that when the in antiquity when the term virtue was

00:29:24.400 used, it wasn't used in some of the ways that we tend to use it today. For example, in Aristotle,

00:29:32.420 we're told that the virtue of the knife is in the cutting. In other words, a dull knife is a

00:29:39.020 non-virtuous knife. A sharp knife is a virtuous knife. So in other words, there's a sense in which

00:29:47.820 virtue is associated with the effect and its ability to accomplish its intended purpose.

00:29:56.280 Another word that is used in association with virtue is arete, which is excellence. But another

00:30:03.160 thing to keep in mind is the very word virtue itself. Are you aware that it is derived from

00:30:09.300 the Latin vir for man. So virtue originally was associated with manliness, particularly

00:30:18.800 with martial sort of understandings of manliness. So kind of give you kind of the background

00:30:27.520 to help you understand how virtue has come to mean, what we mean when we use the term today.

00:30:33.280 a virtuous man would be a warrior who was effective at fighting. So if you were to list

00:30:44.760 the things that you would associate with an effective warrior, there would be a set of

00:30:51.780 characteristics that come to mind. Strength, for example. Strength would be something that we would

00:30:56.760 say helps is constitutive when it comes to effectiveness in combat. And if you just simply

00:31:04.760 play this out, you can make a list of things that you would look for if you were a recruiter

00:31:08.820 looking for men who could fight, including things that we might not associate with virtue. For

00:31:17.020 example, shrewdness. A shrewd warrior is a more effective warrior than a naive and clumsy one,

00:31:25.100 right? So therefore, shrewdness is virtuous in a warrior. Now, after a while, people realize you

00:31:35.400 can make lists for just about anything. So what do you want? We want a good potter. So what do

00:31:40.060 you want in a potter? You want somebody who's good with his hands. You want somebody who has a good

00:31:42.980 eye. You want somebody who has a good taste. And you can make a list of things that you say

00:31:46.540 characterize a good potter. Housewife, what do you look for in a housewife? What are the things 1.00

00:31:52.940 that would characterize a good housewife. 1.00

00:31:55.560 You can make a list.

00:31:56.780 You can just kind of go through, you know,

00:31:59.420 the set of things that people do

00:32:01.340 or a list of things that people do

00:32:02.960 and create lists for each of them.

00:32:04.360 And then suddenly somebody had the bright idea

00:32:06.660 of identifying things that you'd want to have

00:32:09.300 characterize everyone.

00:32:11.760 These were the moral virtues.

00:32:14.120 And Socrates is the one who's attributed with that move.

00:32:17.140 So what do we want everyone to be good at?

00:32:19.880 these are the things that we universally apply to everyone and those are moral virtues and those

00:32:27.720 are tremendously important and so we want to develop moral virtue in our children but

00:32:34.920 that kind of thing does not exhaust what we're up to when we're looking to sharpen or hone

00:32:43.600 our children for this task of glorifying God. There are other lists or other categories.

00:32:51.860 For example, practical virtue. If you've ever met somebody who was just really honest,

00:32:57.020 really nice, really good-hearted, and an absolute dolt when it came to social graces, 0.63

00:33:04.360 I can think of a lot of them. Well, you don't want that. In other words, you've got a well-developed 0.89

00:33:12.800 moral sense and zero practical sense. Moral virtue without practical virtue. We don't want that.

00:33:20.400 We want both. Intellectual virtue. That's another category that was examined and

00:33:28.860 thought deeply about in antiquity. That's just the kid who aces all the tests, who is able to

00:33:38.460 memorize things quickly and well, who can diagram a sentence like nobody's business,

00:33:45.040 you know, that kind of thing. Intellectual virtues are important. And martial virtue

00:33:50.740 is important as well. The ability to stand up for yourself and stand up for others and stand up for

00:33:58.300 the truth. These things tend to go together. A person who is cowardly in one sphere might be

00:34:05.240 able to demonstrate some virtue, martial virtue in another, but often these things can be found

00:34:11.660 together in the same person. Now, I want to address something that I think we all

00:34:18.340 more or less know, and that is when it comes to the virtues, mothers tend to focus on the moral

00:34:25.540 and intellectual virtues. This is why they make great, you know, homeschool teachers. 0.96

00:34:31.420 They're concerned with, you know, children being honest, doing what they're told.

00:34:37.940 They're concerned with the performance of their children on tests and so forth.

00:34:42.380 You remember the tiger mom phenomenon?

00:34:44.740 You know, the tiger mom phenomenon was something that had been observed by people who were not from, you know, the Orient,

00:34:51.160 but were looking on the sort of the achievements of children who are from China or even India.

00:34:59.420 and there's just sort of this astonishment that we all have because we're outsiders looking in.

00:35:04.300 Why do these kids, you know, finish at the top of their class?

00:35:07.740 Well, it's Tiger Mom. It's Tiger Mom's why.

00:35:10.820 And by the way, my wife teaches piano and she's taught hundreds of students over the years 0.80

00:35:15.260 and many of them are from the East, China, Korea, India.

00:35:21.200 And let me tell you something, those kids really do perform at a pretty high level.

00:35:25.000 And you want to know why?

00:35:26.260 It's because not only is Tiger Mom, but Lion Dad.

00:35:29.420 is on them all the time. I remember this one particular episode with my wife. She was teaching

00:35:35.940 a girl from Kerala, which is a province in India. And the father would just stand there the entire

00:35:43.100 time while the lesson was being conducted. And you knew that he was listening very closely to

00:35:50.240 every instruction my wife gave to that child. And you knew that that guy was remembering everything

00:35:55.700 she said, and that that would be repeated every day while she practiced over the course of the

00:36:01.260 week. He knew what she was supposed to do, and he was going to make sure that she did it.

00:36:06.600 And that's one of the big reasons why Indian kids and Chinese kids and Korean kids do so well,

00:36:12.520 is they have high expectations for the kids, and tiger mom and lion dad are on the job.

00:36:20.660 Something to learn there.

00:36:23.240 But there are important things that are left out when we think about these things.

00:36:29.160 And I often think that fathers are the appropriate schoolmasters in households when it comes to these matters.

00:36:36.400 Practical and martial virtues, I think, are the areas where fathers should step in.

00:36:42.040 One of the things that's been really fascinating to see demonstrated through the application of social science on Christian life and home life in particular is the causal relationship that's been identified between the faith of the father and the faith of the children.

00:37:03.180 This is one of those things that I don't think gets out as well as it should get out.

00:37:10.500 There's a very strong correlation between the faith of a father and the faith of his children.

00:37:15.160 A far greater impact than the mother has on the faith of children.

00:37:20.520 I don't want to discourage moms in this regard.

00:37:23.120 What I'm trying to do is put the pressure on you, Dad.

00:37:26.020 I mean, the numbers are skewed in such a way as to almost seem unbelievable.

00:37:32.800 There is a marvelous article.

00:37:35.740 And this is what happens when you're trying to operate from, you know, sort of off the top of your head, trying to remember things.

00:37:42.080 But there's a marvelous article in Touchstone magazine on this particular subject.

00:37:45.660 And I encourage you to look it up because it gets into the numbers.

00:37:48.960 There was a study done in Switzerland, of all places, in the early 1990s.

00:37:53.620 And what it was able to ascertain is that when a mother, a believing mother, takes a child to church consistently over the early years of a child's life, the likelihood of that child becoming a believing member of that church is like less than 20%.

00:38:14.140 But if the father does it, even without the presence of the mother, it goes up to like 80%.

00:38:20.380 that kind of difference in impact.

00:38:24.600 And I think it's because, dads, our children look at us

00:38:29.180 when it comes to how to conduct yourself in the world at large.

00:38:36.120 Mom may run the daily affairs of the house and be loved for that and respected for that,

00:38:43.280 but children generally don't look to their mothers to know how to behave at work

00:38:48.500 or how to conduct yourself when you are negotiating with a used car salesman,

00:38:55.160 that kind of stuff.

00:38:56.920 They tend to look at us whether we feel up to the task or not.

00:39:02.980 They associate adulthood and life in the world with us.

00:39:08.080 And that's why we have to take the time and invest the energy,

00:39:15.060 particularly on these practical matters.

00:39:17.480 This is how you do this. This is how you do that. Have you seen that YouTube channel with that guy

00:39:23.280 who didn't grow up with a father who decided he was going to teach other people everything that

00:39:27.220 he wasn't taught? He's got like millions of people who watch him every episode. He's like the most

00:39:34.100 honest, he's like Mr. Rogers of dadness. You know, just about as just bland and just as everyday as

00:39:41.380 you could possibly be. Today we're going to learn how to change oil. Oh boy. We're going to learn

00:39:47.300 how to get into the car and get ourselves completely covered with greasy stuff. Great.

00:39:53.440 And then he shows you how to do it. That's what our kids need from us. They need us to take them

00:39:59.180 along with us when we're doing stuff. Not necessarily just to kind of get the lesson.

00:40:03.900 Let me tell you what I just did, Junior, but to actually watch us in action. That kind of

00:40:08.800 practical instruction is really important, not just for sons, but daughters as well.

00:40:14.640 So let me give you a list of things that I think are virtues that a father should work on

00:40:21.500 that are practical and martial in character. One of those is tolerance of pain.

00:40:31.440 Tolerance of pain. It's hard to get anything done in this world without a lot of frustration and

00:40:37.080 pain. And that doesn't mean that you're unfeeling. It doesn't mean that you're a jerk. It doesn't

00:40:43.200 mean that you inflict pain in other people unnecessarily. It doesn't mean any of that

00:40:46.280 stuff. It just means that you can put up with a lot. You need to be able to demonstrate it,

00:40:51.700 that you can put up with a lot, and that you don't get squeamish, and you're not afraid,

00:40:59.120 that this is something that should characterize any capable, competent person, an ability to

00:41:05.060 endure pain because we live in a world full of thorns and thistles. There's a lot of stuff out

00:41:10.860 there that hurts, and you need to be able to deal with it. This is not, you know, stoic. This is

00:41:17.040 just simply real. You got to be able to deal with pain, and we need to be able to help our kids with

00:41:23.140 that, which means that we don't coddle them. Like when I was a kid and I fell down and hurt myself,

00:41:32.500 The question I was asked is, how's the floor doing?

00:41:36.720 It was like no interest in whether, I mean, I remember being mad.

00:41:41.980 What about me?

00:41:43.460 Yeah, what about you?

00:41:44.620 Get over it.

00:41:46.360 Let's move on.

00:41:48.160 Let's not just fixate on this stuff.

00:41:51.140 You need to move on.

00:41:53.040 Connected to this, but different in important ways, is good judgment.

00:41:58.300 we need to help children exercise good judgment in the course of our lives there's no getting

00:42:06.240 away from judgment this idea that we can live a non-judgmental life is just foolishness

00:42:11.100 every day I make judgments about what I should eat how long I should sleep how much I should drink

00:42:17.280 who I should spend time with how fast I should drive on the highway I make judgments every

00:42:21.960 single day of my life. When it comes to judgment, there is no way, I'll put it this way. I remember

00:42:28.460 Richard John, who asked the editor at First Things, he said it this way. He said, a life without

00:42:33.680 judgment is a life without meaning. When you judge, you are saying, this is better than that.

00:42:43.920 Now, when it comes to the matter of, you know, Jesus saying, judge not so that you won't be

00:42:50.160 judged, well, there's something to note that I think is obvious there. If you're a judgmental

00:42:57.960 person, you will be judged harshly yourself. So the thing to keep in mind is that mercy

00:43:05.680 is also a form of judgment. So there are times when you're merciful because that is the best

00:43:14.840 thing to do at that particular moment. You're exercising judgment as you are demonstrating

00:43:20.860 mercy. Mercy is not like, you know, okay, judgment is off. We're in the judgment-free zone.

00:43:27.820 You know, right? You know, you see that. You've seen those commercials for gyms, you know,

00:43:33.520 judgment-free zone. Like, right, yeah. Why are you going to the gym in the first place? Because

00:43:37.220 you made the judgment, you're out of shape. That's why you went, you know, you don't like

00:43:40.960 push weights and run on treadmills because you like that sort of thing, which brings me back to

00:43:46.700 my earlier point about enduring pain. But anyway, so and related to this is risk assessment. We live

00:43:53.640 in a world right now that is risk averse, but there is no such thing as a risk-free life. In fact,

00:44:01.220 the riskiest way to live is to avoid all risk. It's stupid. You're going to fail for sure. 1.00

00:44:10.960 If you don't make calculated risks in the course of your life, just because you don't do something doesn't mean you've done nothing. 0.82

00:44:21.040 You've done something which is nothing, and that is a foolish thing to do.

00:44:27.560 You've taken a bad risk.

00:44:29.620 You need to assess risks, exercise judgment, and as best you can, make good judgments.

00:44:37.160 so helping your kids assess things and courses of action and exercise good judgment is part of what

00:44:46.060 i think we need to focus on as fathers mastery mastery we should simply be good at certain

00:44:53.820 things and we should strive for excellence uh in certain now you can't be good at everything

00:44:58.960 and basically i think the the best way to approach things is you put things into three categories

00:45:04.920 There are the sort of, you know, whatever stuff.

00:45:08.960 You know, I don't think I'll ever learn how to hand-churn ice cream.

00:45:13.420 I think people who hand-churn ice cream are awesome, but I'm just not going to do that.

00:45:17.860 You know, whatever.

00:45:19.100 Then there are things that you're passably good at, passably good at.

00:45:24.000 I can wire a room, but don't ask me to wire a breaker box, right?

00:45:31.200 but you know there are things that I can do passively and then there are a few things that I

00:45:37.400 strive to be a master of and those are the things that people pay me the bucks for you get my drift

00:45:46.600 those are the things that people turn to me for help with those things the passable stuff those

00:45:51.720 are the things that I can do for myself when I'm not in a position to pay somebody else to do them

00:45:55.900 And really, that's probably more often the case than I think we tend to think.

00:46:01.580 And then there are things that we can just say, whatever, I'm glad for somebody else

00:46:05.420 to be good at that.

00:46:06.720 But we should at least get our kids to think about, what do you want to master?

00:46:13.200 What do you want to focus on being really good at?

00:46:16.620 And work with our kids on that.

00:46:19.100 I remember my oldest son, who's a really accomplished musician, he was also an athlete.

00:46:25.040 So he was one of these marvelous anomalies.

00:46:27.200 He was an athlete and a musician at the same time.

00:46:30.400 And he decided that he probably wasn't going to be a major league baseball player.

00:46:36.540 So it would be probably better to actually be able to play some music because at least there would be some places where he could do that.

00:46:42.960 And now he makes his living in that industry.

00:46:46.340 But I remember early on, it was during the days of Guitar Hero.

00:46:50.460 Do you remember Guitar Hero?

00:46:52.220 It's where you could pretend that you were a great guitarist.

00:46:55.960 Basically, you were playing air guitar, but you sounded like you were in Aerosmith or something.

00:47:03.860 Well, he told me one day, he said, I don't know why all my friends are into that thing.

00:47:07.760 Why don't they just learn to play guitar?

00:47:10.400 So he did.

00:47:11.680 Learned how to play guitar.

00:47:12.520 Anything with strings, he can play it now.

00:47:16.600 So mastery.

00:47:18.140 Courage.

00:47:19.460 Courage is another thing that I think we need to work with our kids on.

00:47:22.260 By the way, we're all afraid of something.

00:47:24.820 We're all afraid of stuff.

00:47:27.040 What we're not looking at, we're not looking for people who are reckless

00:47:31.560 and willing to do anything at any time.

00:47:34.780 What we want to develop is good judgment so that our children can know

00:47:41.880 when it's appropriate to exercise some courage and take that risk,

00:47:46.820 that think doing something that's courageous in character. So we're not looking for, as I noted,

00:47:54.240 recklessness. With boys, and I think any father here understands what I'm getting at when I say

00:48:02.180 this. With boys, we want to develop manliness. It's just kind of a thing, you know, when you

00:48:09.660 come across another man as a man, you kind of assess, is this a guy that I can respect? And

00:48:16.820 then there are some things that you can do that are nonverbal in nature to demonstrate that you

00:48:21.740 are trustworthy as a man. And those are things that we want to help our sons with. You know,

00:48:27.380 there are subtle nonverbal clues. There are other things, being able to look people in the eye,

00:48:32.380 firm handshake, that kind of stuff. Forthrightness, being able to just say things the way they should

00:48:39.880 be said, when they should be said, being able to be direct without being caustic or offensive,

00:48:48.120 but just simply direct, that kind of forthrightness I think we want to develop. Magnanimity,

00:48:53.740 great souledness, this sense of plentitude that we as men should be able to, in some sense,

00:49:04.480 exemplify, where we have it within ourselves not to be petty, not to be vindictive, not to be

00:49:12.040 small-minded and vengeful, magnanimity. Protectiveness. I think that a man should be

00:49:21.200 protective of the people who are around him that are not in a position to protect themselves.

00:49:26.820 There's nothing shameful about finding yourself in a position where you're not able to protect

00:49:30.800 yourself. But if you're in a position to protect somebody else because you have the resources to

00:49:37.420 do so, you have a moral obligation to do it if other people nearby are threatened. It's something

00:49:45.420 that we should develop in our sons, but our daughters as well. And then wisdom. Wisdom

00:49:53.060 and intelligence aren't necessarily found in the same person. I don't know if you've noticed this.

00:49:58.580 Basically, what you have with the story of Forrest Gump is a guy who wasn't very intelligent,

00:50:03.760 but who was very wise. Wisdom and intelligence, different things, but we ought to be able to

00:50:11.940 develop and grow in wisdom. Have you ever thought about, you know, when you think about the Lord of

00:50:18.320 the Rings, who's the hero? Who's the hero? I think our minds immediately go to Frodo, you know,

00:50:25.240 or to Gandalf or to Aragorn. But I propose to you that Sam is the hero, the Lord of the Rings.

00:50:33.620 A man who was wise but simple. In fact, his simplicity was the source of wisdom for him.

00:50:40.740 It was like a reality check. Remember when he had the ring briefly and he had this fantasy of

00:50:46.100 becoming Sam the Great, the Sam the Great warrior? And then he corrects himself, says, Sam, what are

00:50:51.420 you doing? You're just Sam the Gardener. But in that moment, he was great. He demonstrated

00:50:58.740 great wisdom, more wisdom than many others who were far more powerful than he was,

00:51:04.480 who didn't possess that wisdom. Now, so that's the first thing. I think we should sharpen our

00:51:12.340 children and prepare them to be launched. But I think a couple of other things to note as I wrap

00:51:19.720 up. One is that you need to know your weapons, which means you have to think about what is this

00:51:26.200 child made for? What is this child made for? Yeah, I mean, we have this very large target called the

00:51:33.720 glory of God. But this particular child is going to glorify God in a particular way, and you need

00:51:41.360 to be able to work with that child and help that child understand his or her purpose and how that's

00:51:48.440 going to be accomplished. Now, in order for this to happen, you need to have a small measure of

00:51:54.800 knowledge about a wide range of things so that you have some sense of what may be in store for

00:52:03.080 your son or daughter. And at the same time, you'll need to study your own child in depth.

00:52:09.600 Make your child an object of study, not just somebody to like boss around and tolerate.

00:52:19.420 What is this child made for? What are the talents this child possesses? How might those talents be

00:52:27.260 encouraged and developed. I remember my second son, who's very bright, but is not academically

00:52:33.460 sort of, I guess, oriented. We're all into orientation these days. I'm not academically

00:52:43.440 oriented. But anyway, he wasn't. But when he was small, so he looked like the spitting image of

00:52:54.540 his older brother. In fact, if they had been born at the same time, you would have thought

00:53:00.000 they were identical twins when they were small. But my older son, he became the tall, thin one

00:53:04.360 and excelled in baseball and basketball and things like that. My second son, he had zero interest in

00:53:11.340 sports, none. He liked knocking things over. He liked building things. And I noticed early on that

00:53:19.860 even though he didn't have macro-coordination, he had micro-coordination. He was able to make

00:53:25.880 things that were really astonishing at an early age. And I saved some of them to his embarrassment.

00:53:34.020 But I would give him tasks. And one of the things I saw is that when I would give him a task, he

00:53:39.540 would step back and he would look at the job. I'm talking about physical work. Figure out the

00:53:44.800 quickest way and most efficient use of his time and energy to get it done. And then he'd get

00:53:49.820 it done in no time at all, right? I was not like that. I was a framer, a deck builder, and my boss

00:53:56.940 would always complain about how inefficient my movements were because I was a ditherer. You know,

00:54:02.420 I'd work on something, I'd stand back and think about it for a little bit, then I'd correct myself

00:54:06.580 in the middle of it and I'd start over again. You know, I was definitely a, you know, a money sink.

00:54:13.540 one of my one of my bosses he said I wish I had like a gauge on your forehead that I could see

00:54:20.080 how much money I'm losing on you every minute you know that was that was me when I saw my son in

00:54:25.380 action I said this kid is made for the trades this kid is made for the trades and when he got

00:54:31.400 out of high school we went out to we would go out to you know breakfast like once a month eat too

00:54:36.960 many pancakes that kind of thing and he said dad you know what do you think I should do I said well

00:54:41.360 you need to go to trade school. I said, why don't you take a gap year, go to trade school,

00:54:46.960 learn something, and then go to college to see how that goes. He says, what do you think I

00:54:51.440 should study? I said, welding. Something dangerous. Because if you study something that's not

00:54:57.480 dangerous, other people think they can do it, and then if they ever bring you into the job,

00:55:02.600 it's like you're kind of fixing a mess. But if they're afraid to try it themselves,

00:55:06.520 then they just call you. So you want to learn something dangerous. And so he said, okay. So

00:55:11.860 that's what he did. So now he's very good at his work. As I noted before, he's a foreman.

00:55:18.880 But so you study your children. Now it's nice when your children have the same interests as you.

00:55:24.520 It's great. And I'm happy to say that in each case, there's an interest that I share with my

00:55:30.960 children. But not all of the things that they're interested in, I have a great deal of interest in.

00:55:37.580 But I try to be informed. I try to be supportive. I try to, you know, encourage their development in

00:55:44.600 those areas. At this point, you know, they're adults and they don't need that from me anymore.

00:55:48.220 Basically, I need them. I'm the one who's calling them up for advice now. It's a nice place to be

00:55:52.860 in life where your children are giving you advice. And that's where I'm at. But if they do choose the

00:55:59.800 same occupation as you. Pray that they surpass you. I can't tell you the number of guys I've

00:56:08.140 met over the years who are threatened by their boys. Threatened that their boys will be better

00:56:14.040 than them. You know what? If you are that small, you should be ashamed of yourself.

00:56:21.020 Get over yourself. Delight in the achievements of your children and pray that they will go

00:56:28.640 further than you. That's a legacy. Something that we should all hope for. Which brings me to my

00:56:39.800 final point, prayer. Once the arrow is launched, it's launched, baby. It's not like going, running

00:56:46.900 after it like Bugs Bunny and blowing on it and trying to redirect it at that point. It's gone.

00:56:51.480 the child is launched. At that point, though, you can continue to have an influence in their lives,

00:56:59.020 but that influence is largely spiritual in character, and prayer is what should have

00:57:05.800 characterized your entire work as a father or a mother all the way along. But ultimately,

00:57:11.760 you're not in charge. You're a middleman. Embrace the middleman concept. You are a middleman.

00:57:18.780 There is upper management, and then there's you.

00:57:23.060 Upper management is up, and it's managing stuff.

00:57:28.740 And your job as the middleman is to represent upper management to the people on the line,

00:57:36.200 the kids, the wife, whatever, and to intercede for them seeking favor,

00:57:43.180 seeking favor from upper management in the interest of your subjects in the interest of

00:57:49.800 your kids this is what we saw job doing right he knew his kids and that's why he thought maybe they

00:57:58.600 sinned i don't know i wasn't at the party they never invite me but knowing those kids

00:58:06.740 I think some sacrifices ought to be made right now.

00:58:12.420 I'm going to be praying for these kids.

00:58:15.140 And that's something that we should do on an ongoing basis.

00:58:17.900 And obviously, we should seek, you know, things in their proper order, salvation, growth and grace.

00:58:24.260 These are things that we should be praying for for our kids.

00:58:26.880 We should be asking God to make the callings of our children clear.

00:58:32.240 We're reformed.

00:58:33.100 We believe that every vocation, that's what vocation means, calling, is a calling.

00:58:39.360 You know, so my son is serving the Lord as a foreman at United Steel.

00:58:45.600 That's his calling.

00:58:47.600 What's fun is that his brother-in-law now works for him, reports to him every day.

00:58:54.980 But anyway, then we should be praying that they establish households of their own.

00:59:00.820 This is something that we need to relearn in the West.

00:59:03.780 In other parts of the world, the formation of households is primarily a father's responsibility.

00:59:10.520 The father is involved with making sure his sons and daughters form new households.

00:59:18.660 Now, I'm not saying we need to bring back arranged marriage or anything like that,

00:59:22.480 but we need to be more proactive.

00:59:25.320 Let me give you a couple of stories as I conclude.

00:59:28.120 My daughter, very bright, scored in the top 1% in the SAT on both the math and the language.

00:59:33.700 She could have gone to school anywhere. 0.91

00:59:36.260 And she didn't want to go to college. 0.99

00:59:38.720 Her aspiration was to be, you know, a mom and to have a family of her own.

00:59:44.460 And I said, sweetie, you are so smart.

00:59:47.700 There's nobody in your Sunday school class that makes a good match.

00:59:51.720 Where do you think you're going to find this super smart guy that you're going to be able to respect?

00:59:56.600 She said, probably college.

00:59:59.980 I said, that's right.

01:00:01.060 You're going to go to college. 0.99

01:00:02.680 So I sent her to college not because I wanted her to be a career woman and be a success. 1.00

01:00:07.460 Because I sent her to college because I wanted her to get married and be a success. 0.99

01:00:11.640 And I knew that's where the pool of bright young men was likely to be found.

01:00:16.320 So she asked me, what should I study?

01:00:18.780 I said, physics.

01:00:20.720 You'll be the only girl in the entire program. 0.99

01:00:25.600 I did. This is my advice for her. And it'd be surrounded by a lot of socially inept men

01:00:30.960 who will love you and are going to make a lot of money. That was my suggestion to her.

01:00:40.420 So my daughter looked back at me and said, no, I don't want to do that. I said, well,

01:00:43.880 what do you want to do? I said, I want to study Jane Austen. I said, well, of course.

01:00:47.000 you and every smart girl in America want to study Jane Austen and you know the guys who

01:00:56.360 were in the Jane Austen program are not guys that I'm going to approve of

01:00:59.360 so I actually had to turn one of them away I said no baby that's that's not going to work

01:01:05.580 sweetie that guy goes home back to go starting over but anyway she did find the right guy

01:01:11.660 And after she found the right guy, she was in her senior year,

01:01:15.660 and there was no good prospects, and she said,

01:01:18.580 I think I'm going to have to settle for being an academic.

01:01:25.200 Think about that.

01:01:27.660 That was the consolation prize in her mind.

01:01:31.280 So I just started praying and praying and praying,

01:01:35.240 and next thing you know, there was this guy.

01:01:37.960 And now they're married.

01:01:39.200 My daughter asked me, Dad, were you praying for me?

01:01:42.160 I said, yeah, I was praying for you.

01:01:46.060 So I pray for my kids all the time, and they know it, and they want it.

01:01:51.760 You know, you don't want to be that parent who says, I'm praying for you,

01:01:55.020 like when the kid is being disobedient.

01:01:56.800 Oh, Mom, stop praying.

01:01:58.560 Don't do it!

01:01:59.900 You know, that's the kind of thing you get if it's all about correction, right?

01:02:03.520 Sometimes when kids hear, I'm praying for you, that's what they're hearing.

01:02:06.140 This is kind of a, this is like a, what's that term?

01:02:13.220 Passive-aggressive. 1.00

01:02:16.320 It's a passive-aggressive way for moms to control their kids. 0.98

01:02:19.000 I'm praying for you. 0.98

01:02:22.920 Guilt trip time, right?

01:02:26.440 Pray for them and pray in such a way as they want you to be praying for them.

01:02:31.860 Praying for their success.

01:02:33.140 Praying for their futures.

01:02:35.420 praying for their vocations, praying for their future spouse,

01:02:40.220 pray for those things, and then check in with them every once in a while.

01:02:44.380 How's it going? What's going on?

01:02:46.420 I need to know what's going on so I have a better sense of how they should be praying.

01:02:50.220 And fast and pray.

01:02:52.900 That's, I think, the most important thing of all.

01:02:55.440 If we invest ourselves and our kids in these ways,

01:02:59.080 then I think the prospects of hitting the target improve immensely.

01:03:04.460 Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - December 12, 2023

CONFERENCE - Children As Artillery - Pastor C.R. Wiley

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