This summer, my eleven-year-old granddaughter and her friend were here to participate in a kids’ Drama Camp at our local outdoor theater. Both girls are baptized Christian tweens, at a perfect age for mentoring as they enter into middle school this year. We’ve been doing my Bible study Face-to-Face with Mary and Martha: Sisters in Christ via SKYPE, or in person, for quite a while. We’ve had many discussions where I help them use Scripture from their Bibles to apply to their young lives. They have so many questions and are at a crossroads between not being little girls, but not grownups either. As tweens, they’re soon going to have more freedoms to make decisions—but not the wisdom that comes with maturity.
Every parent has heard the excuse, “But everyone else is doing it.” I remember my parents saying something like, “If everyone jumped off a cliff would you too?” Sadly, today many kids and adults are jumping off the moral and spiritual cliff to fit in with the culture, or they’re afraid to express beliefs that differ from the worldview.
Even children are bullied for supporting America’s president when their accosters usually don’t even understand why they’re reacting so violently. Where do these young bullies learn this reaction? Television, the Internet . . . perhaps parents, grandparents, or even teachers?
I watched an interview of high school kids encouraged by their teachers to ditch school and participate in a protest march. Those kids had no clue why they were marching or what they were protesting! They weren’t trying to change the world; they were being changed by a worldview they didn’t really understand.
We may want to pull the covers over our head and ignore the unrest in the world. But the parting words Jesus gave to His disciples regarding Christians’ place in the world, the Great Commission, reminds us there’s work to do, starting with our children and grandchildren.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
However, the last page in the Bible also foretells that the world will always have good and evil.
“Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.” Revelations 22:11
We all want our children and grandchildren knowing and doing what’s right and holy, even when their peers encourage them to do wrong and vile acts! Parents and grandparents are the ones responsible for teaching and instilling these virtues. We cannot rely on the schools, and sometimes not even our churches.
We must help them not grow weary or discouraged doing good. Here are some ideas for guiding and mentoring your children, grandchildren, or mentees.
1. Help Them Learn Scripture from Their Own Bible
For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Hebrews 4:12 NLT
Teach them to paraphrase if they need to, but God’s Word applies to every area of life in every century (Heb. 13:8). Jesus used Scripture when tempted by Satan in the desert and taught the disciples to pray “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matt. 6:13). Help them memorize Scriptures to resist temptation. My granddaughter’s friend said her Dad is teaching her Psalm 23 for when she’s afraid.
2. Remind them to Stay Civil and Polite, But Stay Firm in Your Convictions
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 1 Peter 3:15-16
Those caught up in the world’s cults, atheism, alternate belief systems or lifestyles, feel compelled to challenge us for our faith in Christ, so our first impulse is to engage in a debate. If you’ve ever tried arguing or reasoning with someone blinded by the world’s belief system, you know it’s usually futile. I mentor my granddaughter whose third grade teacher reprimanded her for sharing Jesus with two girls challenging her for her faith, that her best answer is, “This is what I believe because the Bible (or God or Jesus) tells me so.”
Other times, believers fall into the same trap the serpent used with Eve when someone asks them, “Did God really say…?” Simply say, "Yes He did, and I’ll find the Scripture for you.” Jesus didn’t come to sanctify the world’s ways, He came to save the world from its ways.
3. Remember the World is In Spiritual Darkness, So Let Your Light Shine
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16
The world loves darkness. Yet into this dark world came Jesus, the Light of the world, and He has hidden His light in each believer’s heart. Our light must shine brightly, no flickering. When we enter a room, a social media conversation, a family or friendly gathering, work, play, school, as parents, grandparents, employers, employees, kids . . . wherever life takes us . . . our light shines, even if we’re the only light for Jesus. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!” Teach your grandkids that song and sing it with them.
4. Everyone is Not Going to Like You
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” John 15:18-19
We’re living in a lost world loudly anti-God and anti-Christian and influencing the next generation. We can’t be quiet. As Christian parents and grandparents, our job is to help the next generation be world-changers for Christ concerned more about what God thinks about them than what the world thinks. It may be hard for kids to get this point, but they need to be prepared that some people won’t like you for not agreeing to do wrong. They may try to bully, dare, entice, call you names, make you feel bad, but that’s just because you doing the right thing convicts them for doing the wrong thing.
We’ll never have a perfect world until Jesus returns, but as long as we have breath, we're saved to make a difference in the world. Start your children and grandchildren young believing this means them too! Maybe it’s their friends, sports coaches, unsaved relatives…teach them to pray. Here’s a prayer to start with:
Dear Lord, though the world does not know you, I___________ know you, and I pray that you will let the world know that you have sent me as your servant. Help me make you known to a lost world and I will continue to make you known where you put me so that the love you have for me may be in them also. Thank you for sending your Son Jesus to live in my heart. Amen. John 17:25-26 personalized and paraphrased as a prayer.
My September release Mentoring for All Seasons: Sharing Life Experiences and God’s Faithfulness has helps, tips, encouragement from Scripture for mentors and mentees from tweens to twilight seasons and a special chapter on the Grandparenting Season, in which Lillian Penner contributes her story. It’s available for sale now at bookstores, online at Amazon, and signed at my website bookstore. #mentoringforallseasons and the link to the book bit.ly/mentoringseasons
Janet Thompson, an international speaker, freelance editor, and award-winning author of 19 books including her latest Mentoring for All Seasons: Sharing Life Experiences and God’s Faithfulness. She’s also the proud Grammie to eleven grandchildren.
Here additional books: Forsaken God?: Remembering the Goodness of God Our Culture Has Forgotten, The Team That Jesus Built, Dear God, Why Can’t I Have a Baby?, Dear God They Say It’s Cancer, Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter, the Face-to-Face Bible study Series, and Woman to Woman Mentoring Resources. She is also the founder of Woman to Woman Mentoring and About His Work Ministries.
Visit Janet at:
womantowomanmentoring.com.
www.facebook.com/Janetthompson.authorspeaker
http://www.linkedin.com/in/womantowomanmentoring/
www.pinterest.com/thompsonjanet
https://twitter.com/AHWministries
Comments