First I want to say you are doing something very different from others. I don’t have to tell you that you carry an anointing to do what you are doing. Don’t ever forget that God is using you through this medium to heal people. Also ignore those who don’t understand the task God has assigned for you and remain firm in the presence of His grace.
Isn’t it funny how we often think we have everything going, only to discover to our dismay that we are only a few steps away from doom’s day?
Being a successful pastor, I arrogantly arrogated to myself as having all the knowledge to deal with every situation. You don’t come with the type of anointing I have and not see things before they happen.
A lot of people marvel at my ability to tell them precisely what they are going through without them telling me anything. Perhaps, I got carried away or that God is simply telling me that no man is an island on his own.
Agatha, can you imagine my pains and dismay at the discovery that my teenage son and daughter are into smoking and drinking as well as all the other vices children brought up in a Christian home should not do?
Although they managed to conceal these habits from my wife, the school authority and I, they couldn’t keep it away from their 10 year old brother who in turn blew the lid.
All the while they had managed to keep him quiet over the incident until he got greedy and demanded for the latest I-pod, which the sister and brother refused to part with.
I didn’t react immediately when he came to inform me about it, instead I sneaked into their rooms for evidences. I found more than I bargained for. X-rated DVDs as well as other things carefully concealed under the rugs show their brother was right.
My most devastating moment came when I found out that my wife knew all about the issue but decided to keep the information from me for reasons she is now telling were to protect my ministry and image.
Tell me Agatha, what image do I have when my family is in shambles? I really don’t know how to handle this problem. I feel so abandoned and betrayed by everyone around me.
I find it even difficult to pray because I lack the peace of mind to do so.
This problem started in October last year and each time I get the leading to open up to someone, the spirit keeps leading me to you.
I need help because I have refused to discuss the issue with my children who after the initial attempt to point out the evil of their ways told me to my face that I made the choice to be a pastor and that I should give them the freedom to be whom they want to be.
My wife thinks I drove them to it because I am too rigid.
My whole life is crumbling right in under my nose and I seem incapable of doing anything about it.
Please help me.
Pastor Ade.
Dear Pastor Ade,Parenting is one of the most difficult assignments on earth. It is a responsibility that comes with so much pains, disappointments, and aches, but more often than not with so much joy in the end.
Looking back at your youthful days would help you understand why children are difficult. Looking also at your imperfections, the occasional slips, the selfish decisions you secretly take in your adult life would also give you a clear picture of the pains we daily cause our heavenly parents and how like we He wonders what else can He do to make us happy in His presence and choices for us.
There is no way you would make a headway with these children, if they keep seeing you as being too uncompromising in your ways and attitude. If we find it very easy to disappoint God despite his endless sacrifice and tolerance, you can imagine the absolute ease that comes with defying a rigid and difficult parent.
These children would simply ignore you and dare you to do your worst by adopting lifestyles guaranteed to aid you into an early grave.
When too many laws govern children you deny them the inherent freedom to develop and discover their own potentialities. Sometimes, it is always best to allow them learn their lessons through their own falls and experiences. By giving them the freedom to express themselves do not translate to giving them total freedom, but they have to be trusted to an extent.
Like you and I, when the situation becomes suffocating, we rebel against the government that treats us as sub-humans. We call it abuse of our fundamental human rights, isn’t it?
Then what do we do as parents? Build a maximum prison around our children, denying them their rights as human beings and refusing to recognise that right from their neo-natal days they were equipped with their complete lists, likes and dislikes? Also is the fact that our children are perfect reflections of us, way back then.
If you care to look and are honest about it, you will recognise yourself in your children. They have your DNA wired into them hence they help remind you of who you were back then, and how your parents must have felt too at the time.
Can you recognise the pains and agony of your parents in you now? What about hearing your own words in what your children are telling you now? Can you identify the attitude, stubbornness, the know-it-all of the young as well as daredevil look? Looks like a scene from a movie in which you acted the leading role of your yesteryears?
Yes, isn’t it? They are your exact specimens. You may not have smoked or drank alcoholics but you did things in consonance with your time that had similar consequences as what is in vogue among the youths now.
This is the time you must apply wisdom, sincerity, reality and friendship to help get your children back on the right track. Before you became a pastor, what were the things you did? Many of us had pasts that could make our children even in their worst states pass for saints. Their behaviour didn’t just creep into them. They are products of the society, a highly advanced one that has reduced the vastness of the world to a tiny dot. The result is a free-flow of an interchange of cultural values. With the average human mind wired to belief that everything on the other side is better than the local one, many of old values and customs are giving way to strange ones which means that today’s teenager is in danger of self-identification.
As a result of this, parenting must change to accept one clear fact that business of child discipline and upbringing cannot be done in the usual manner. Children of this generation are more exposed and aware of their surroundings as well as rights.
A parent who wants to make an impact now must be ready to be friends with them, dialogue and discuss all options. The days are long gone when parents forced their ways of life and opinion down the throats of the children.
Being friends with them doesn’t stop a parent from effecting discipline or drawing the lines. Friendship gets to listen better because it gives them a sense of importance in their affairs as well as the family.
Nobody likes to be ignored or forced into doing things in a particular way, so stop ignoring them they can bring down everything you have worked so passionately to build. It is not their reputation that is at stake but yours as well as all the dreams you have built round yourself and family.
They have nothing to protect and frankly don’t care if you perish as long as they are left to express themselves in the ways they have chosen. They have enough time to be sober but you don’t have the luxury of time on your side.
Therefore, you must find a way of getting through to them and the only person that can do that now is your wife, who from all indices still has a measure of their trust and respect.
Call her to help water down whatever offences they have charged you of. After all, even a criminal is entitled to fair hearing until proven guilty by a competent court of law. Don’t alienate yourself by fighting your wife give her enough time to voice your disappointment over her attitude and seeming betrayal. But now, you need her support to get them to come for a dialogue.
It would be in your interest to neither wear your disappointment on the face nor your pastoral righteousness. At that table, you are their father and not a pastor. Begin the discussion by sharing your own experiences with them, how your parents never understood you and how you naively thought them to be wicked and branded them enemies of your progress. This is to set the stage for them to relax and open up as well as to see you perhaps for the first time as a person, and not as a pastor.
They must be able to identify with the person who is inside of you to be able to trust you with their challenges, fears as well as desires to change. These they cannot do with the pastor because he is too rigid, Pontius, condemning, strict and generally unfriendly.
Once they are able to identify with the father inside the pastor, discipline becomes easier because respect would have been marketed and bought by the two combating sides.
This is the time for you to come down from the podium to practise some of those love and forgiveness you preach. You must stop shopping for blame in your wife, children or yourself, to make forgiveness and the peace talk very easy.
Your must take solace in the words of God that says, His thoughts towards us are good and not evil and his words would be a lamp to our feet.
What are God’s thoughts towards you and your family? They are perfect but to get there, you must apply His wisdom. Without your children and wife by your side, you have no ministry. Your home is your first ministry and the benchmark for others to grade you.
In friendship and love no weapon from the pit of hell can stand, but in anger and arrogance it will flourish.
There is no way you can pray because you are bitter against your wife and children, making your home a divided one. You, more than anyone else, know that the spirit of God cannot stay in a place enveloped in disunity and hatred.
Give yourself the freedom to excel in your ministry by planting the seed of love, friendship, tolerance, understanding, patience, wisdom and peace in your home.
Don’t worry they will overcome these habits with good management from you and your wife. Just continue to trust God and His ways.
Good luck.
Posts
