Parental Rationalization
When disciplining children,
parents should not allow their judgment
to become distorted by their own sins.
Here now is Gene Getz:
When we look at the life of David
following his sin, I believe we can see
very, very clearly that his thinking,
his judgments became distorted
in relationship to his own children.
And it's really related to his sins and the
sins of his children. And his failure
to deal with those sins,
I believe, basically because of his own sin
that inhibited him.
For example, first of all:
When David heard that Amnon raped Tamar,
which was a horrible, horrible story,
he was furious.
Literally, he was furious.
...However, he may have been thinking--
now think about this.
What he may have been thinking:
How can I discipline Amnon since
I committed an immoral act myself?
And I think that's a feasible conclusion
in relationship to who David was.
A second observation:
When Absalom had Amnon murdered,
David "wept bitterly."
I mean, he was really brokenhearted
over this whole situation.
He was angry but he was remorseful.
He wept bitterly.
However, again David may have been thinking:
How can I punish Absalom for his sin
when I also committed murder myself?
I mean, how can I deal with this kind of
sin in my own son's life when I'm guilty
of the very same thing?
I think that again, that's a very feasible
question that may have been going
through his mind.
Another observation:
Ironically, when David should have
disciplined his sons--you know, all of his
sons that were involved in sin--
he may have been thinking:
Since God has forgiven me,
shouldn't I forgive my sons for their sins?
And perhaps that's the most subtle kind
of rationalization. Because Satan likes to
put these things in our face. And he tries to say:
You don't have the right.
I mean, you did those things.
And even though God has forgiven us,
we become intimidated.
We become fearful.
We become really distorted in our thinking.
And I think we see that happening to
David throughout his life, after he
committed these sins.
And we see them being reflected in
how he dealt with his own children.
Not dealing with sins in his own sons' lives
really only added to David's misery.
And it is a miserable story that unfolds
throughout his life.
Even though he was, in many respects,
attempting to do the will of God.
In Absalom, boy, he went from bad to worse
because David did not deal with his sin.
And you see, he violated the will of God.
Because it was the will of God that he
discipline his children.
And it's God's will, regardless of our sins.
And of course, especially if we confess
our sins and accept the forgiveness.
David's rationalization: When David
should have disciplined his sons,
he may have been thinking:
Since God has forgiven me,
shouldn't I forgive my son[s] of their sins?
So again, we see this happening in his life.
And as I was reflecting on this--you see,
it's the will of God.
It's the will of God, regardless of our failures.
Regardless of how much we have failed,
it is God's will that we manage our own household well.
Now of course, its God's will that we deal
with our sins. And David, in a sense, did--
in many respects he did. Where he
admitted his guilt.
Especially when the prophet Nathan,
you know, put his finger on his sin and said:
You are the man.
You may be judging this man who had
all these sheep for stealing one little lamb
from this other man who had only one little sheep.
And David was livid about that.
And Nathan said:
David, David, can't you see? You're the man.
And at that moment, the Holy Spirit
broke through in his life. And we see
from the psalms that he wrote during
that period of time that he went
through a deep period of remorse.
He should have died for his sins
but God forgave him.
And because God forgave him and
because he had a responsibility now as a father,
he was to deal with his own sons.
And his own children--all of his children--
in order to be in the will of God.
There's a great verse of Scripture for example:
1st Timothy chapter 3, verse 5
where the apostle Paul is dealing
with leadership in the church.
And certainly this applies to all of us as believers.
And especially to us as fathers.
So it also certainly applies to mothers.
Where Paul wrote:
If anyone does not know how to
manage his own household,
how will he take care of God's church?
And I can assure you that many of these men
that were converted out of their pagan
backgrounds in the New Testament culture,
whether it was a Jewish background.
Or whether it was a Gentile background--
which usually was far worse in terms of background.
Whether they were converted out of those situations,
God wanted them to change.
And God wanted them to become good fathers.
And to deal with the issues and
not allow that--their background, their sins--
to keep them from being good fathers.
And that's why I said:
If anyone does not know how to
manage his own household, and
"managing" there is really synonymous
with shepherding, or pasturing, or caring for.
Then he said:
How will he take care of God's church?
So God's a forgiving God. And he wants us
to move forward, regardless of our past.
And that was God's will for David.
But he did face the results of his sin.
And that's another issue, I think
we have to come to grips with.
That we cannot just do away with all the
repercussions of sins in our past.
Especially sins such as David committed.
He paid a price for that. But he also
experienced God's forgiveness.
And it was God's will for him to move forward
and be a good father to the best of his ability.
Now that brings an interesting question,
I think, for application.
Reflection and Response question:
As parents, how can we help our
children understand and accept our responsibility
to discipline them in areas where
we have failed to obey God ourselves?
And that's something to really think about, isn't it?
I think here a couple thoughts
that come to me:
Number one is to be honest--to be open.
We don't try to hide what we've done.
We're very open as our children grow to
an age-appropriate age where they can
understand our failures.
And we can share with them honestly and openly.
But we can also share God's forgiveness.
But related to that, we can have deep concern
that they not suffer the consequences
that we've suffered.
We don't want our children--
if indeed we have failed in a way that is destructive.
And certainly for David,
it was horrible what he did.
David should have had deep concern
that his children not commit the same kinds
of sins and suffer the same kind of consequences.
And children can understand that,
particularly as they get older.
In some respects, it's kind of saying:
You know, do what I say and not what I did.
But that has to be in the context of
real repentance and a consistent life.
And I think that's another thing that is
very, very important in terms of moving
forward with our own children.
And that is when we teach them that
God has forgiven, they will not see in our lives
as we move forward, inconsistencies
that will become disillusioning.
It doesn't mean that we'll be perfect.
We're never perfect.
We'll be certainly in process of
becoming more and more like Jesus Christ
as we grow, and as we mature,
and as we go on in our Christian life.
But the fact is, there is an element of consistency.
And there's an element of inconsistency.
And that element of inconsistency,
when it becomes hypocrisy, then I think
we're setting our children up for even more failure.
So these are just some guidelines.
And here's another thing which is kind
of the flip side of this. And it's a caution.
And that is that we must be careful
that we don't overreact with legalism.
You know what I mean by that?
In other words, we set up legalistic standards
for our children to try to keep them
from doing the things that we did.
And legalism will never produce
the results that we want.
It's God's grace. It's our model.
It's God's forgiveness.
And I do know of situations where I feel
that parents try to compensate for their failures.
And to keep their children from those failures
by setting up a legalistic system.
Which in some respects, just drives them to do
the very thing that you don't want them to do.
I remember a girl that I was ministering to.
And her father was an incredible, incredible--
incredibly guilty of hypocrisy.
He's no longer living but the results of his sins
in his children are absolutely incredible.
And as far as I know, to his dying day,
he never admitted to his sins. And he was
a very prominent spiritual leader.
And to this day, his children are suffering.
And I remember when his own daughter,
who knew that her father was incredibly immoral,
and inconsistent, and guilty of adultery.
And she knew it from the time she was a little girl,
which was hidden from other people.
It was one of those secrets you don't talk about.
And I remember a time in her life when
I confronted her with her own adultery.
And she said: Gene, isn't it amazing that I'm doing the
very thing I hated in my dad?
And he was incredibly guilty of legalism
to cover up his own sin,
really, it was what he was doing.
So that's an extreme case. But I do think
that we have to be aware that that
can happen in our lives.
And another thought is simply this:
As parents, that's why we need other people.
That's why we need brothers, sisters
in Christ who can help us to walk this
Christian life. To support us.
To encourage us when we get frustrated,
when we're disillusioned,
when we feel like a failure.
We have other believers that can walk
right alongside us and say:
Hey, God forgives.
Yes, there are repercussions.
There are results. But we need to
keep trusting God.
We need to keep praying for one another.
And we need to keep moving forward.