No Traditions

2001

A tradition is, “I always put on my left shoe before I put on my right shoe, and if I can’t find my shoes in my closet in that order, I’m upset about it.” Or, “I always get up at this time,” or “I always go here, I always do this...”

I went for maybe two and a half years without missing a day of running. There was something good about the discipline of that. And I can look back and say, “Well, it was eleven o’clock at night and I had been traveling all day; I would get out on the interstate, leave a car full of people parked on the shoulder of the interstate and run two miles down the road and two miles back and get behind the wheel and drive so that I didn’t miss a day.”

You can admire that in one respect, but looking back on it, I can say there was enough of an obsession in it that a) I found identity in it; and b) I was willing to somehow inconvenience other people. And if I wasn’t getting it my way in my time I was nervous about it. Perhaps I had the self-control to appear to be spiritual, but it was like fingernails on a chalkboard inside my heart…”I gotta do this, I gotta do this.” It had part of my heart. That was a tradition of men, as an example.

Or as we’ve talked about before, the way you drive to work in the morning. It might be that you don’t go three blocks out of your way because you weren’t listening to God. And there might have been a car crash that you would have been the first one on the scene and could have been there to talk to them about Jesus before they died. But “Noooo, I always drive this way. It’s eighteen seconds faster, so I do it my way.” But you’re not listening to God. It nullifies the voice of God.

We can’t hear God anymore because we’re so patterned and ingrained in a comfortable way or the “best” way to do something. That’s a tradition of men that nullifies the Word of God.

It needs to be clear, and now I’m getting to the answer to the question. Something we’ve got to do with our children, with ourselves too, is do not let the things of the world possess them. Somehow we’ve got to teach our children that there is nothing sacred in life except God Himself. There are no givens. There are absolutely no givens in their schedule, no givens in the things they own or don’t own. There are no givens in anything.

While you were talking, I was picturing this “Quickdraw McGraw” cartoon where he put on a mask every once in a while and he called himself “El Kabong” and he would take a guitar and bust it over somebody’s head. That’s what I feel like doing sometimes with guitar lessons. “Oh, I’ve got to have my guitar lessons.” “Oh, do you?! Do you have to have your guitar lessons?! Kabong!!”

I think we need to be enough like God in that respect, who is very much like that, as we are raising our children, that there are no absolutes. There are no things they automatically get to do. There is nothing they can find their identity in except for God and there’s a very loose grip on everything. If we don’t teach them that by making them sit in the bleachers sometimes instead of being out on the floor in their uniform, then we have totally misled them about the character of God, and they will make all the mistakes we’ve made and then some, because we’ve mistaught them. We’ve misrepresented God to them.

God does not let us control our environment like that. If we’re paying any attention to Him at all, you can’t buy a house when you think you want to, and you can’t hold a job because you think you’re good enough. You can’t build a relationship because you think you’re cute and cuddly enough. You can’t do anything on your own, and you know that. If you don’t know that, you’re a fool, and you will find out. You need to know that God is not your co-pilot. It’s not like that. God is God and you are not. You are very small. It just needs to be very deeply ingrained in us that we’re prostrate before Him in our spirit -- physically at times too, but always in our spirit. We are prostrate. “Blessed are the poor in spirit -- theirs is the kingdom.”

That’s something we can do with our children, is make sure they don’t control or own anything; that we watch for the things that are very important to them and that they find their identify in. That they always do and always have to do, otherwise they’re upset about it. That’s where that “pure in heart” thing comes from, right?

What upsets a person? Because they don’t get to play in a basketball game? That upsets them because they sit at the end of the bench or in the bleachers? Because they don’t get to go to the coin toss because they were displaced as captain? Does that upset them? Does that stir their heart? Well they’re in real trouble then when someone else gets a promotion ahead of them for political reasons at work or something happens that they don’t like in the realm of relationship or school or something else.

We’ve mistrained them because we’ve let the traditions of men nullify the Word of God. Something they expect and owned has taken a part of their heart. They’re not pure in heart, and it’s our fault they’re not, because we let them invest their heart and own something by our lack of discernment and our false love, which is really for our own ego.

Do you know why I’m too soft sometimes? Because of my own ego. I want people to like me. I want my children to like me. So it’s for my own sake that I didn’t really want to discipline my son. Because I didn’t want to break his heart, which would break my heart. And I didn’t want to interfere with what has been an exceptionally wonderful relationship the last couple of years. I didn’t want to impede that.

But in the process I was denying God. I was denying the true definition of love. I was breaking the Word of God and covenant with God. I was violating all kinds of things in the Spirit with a false love and a false mercy. The best thing I can do for my children is to teach them not to be a slave to what we will call the traditions of men. I can’t misteach them the character and nature of God in the unseen realm. I’m going to let my son wander away from love, and I’m going to let him wander away from life that is truly life if I’m not pretty clear in my own thinking about how I raise him.

All the busyness with that stuff is not the issue. The busyness and the amount of those things we do is not nearly so much the issue as how much we let our hearts or their hearts be attached to it by allowing the traditions of men to root themselves in. The expectations and demands and all the things that “I’m supposed to be able to do.” To drive around with my friends -- “I’m supposed to be able to do that.” Whatever the thing is, it’s deadly. It’s poisonous.

You cannot read them enough bible verses at bedtime to overcome how much of their hearts they’ve given away. And we’ve let them do that by misteaching them. You can sing songs fourteen hours a day, but if you let them give away their hearts and let them be attached to and shaken by things that are of the earth and set their priorities of “Oh, ain’t they cute” or any of this garbage stuff -- these little side comments that people make and the way they think. Our children will come out with little remarks that are very clearly portraying what they are beginning to invest themselves in. And if we let that stuff slide by, they will destroy themselves and rot away their life with God and never experience God. All they will have is religion. They’ll want to have a “ministry.” They will want to “do good things for God.” They will want to “witness.” Yet they’ll never have God and the love of God in them and through them because they’ve given away that piece of their heart, that piece of their conscience and entropy took over.

So that’s something I’d add to that other stuff is making sure in our leadership that we do not allow the traditions of men and expectations to control our children to where if they don’t have it they’re shaken. We need to watch for every area in their lives and in one another’s lives where we’re shaken if we don’t have it.

“Gotta have my cup of coffee in the morning.” Nothing against coffee, but if someone “gotta have their cup of coffee in the morning,” it’s an idol. It has displaced God. Their heart is impure and they’ve wandered away from love and life that is truly love and truly life.

Whatever the thing is that if we don’t get it we’re disappointed, we’re brokenhearted, we’re frustrated, we’re nervous, we’re depressed. If it’s something other than God’s Word and God’s Promises that make us feel that way, then we’ve displaced God by giving away even the smallest part of our heart.