Just as God disciplines his earthly children when he must (“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline” – Revelation 3:19 and see Hebrews 12:6), so he tells us we must also discipline our children when necessary. The book of Proverbs assures us “If you don’t punish your children, you don’t love them. If you do love them, you will correct them” (Proverbs 13:24 GNV). The same book says “Discipline your children, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to their death” (Proverbs 19:18) – showing that discipline or the lack of it can be a matter of life or death regarding the eventual outcome of a child’s life.
But what is the most important aspect of punishing children when they have to be disciplined? Many would probably say “restraint,” and in this day and age – when restraint is lacking in the lives of so many – that would not be a bad guess. Restraint is obviously vital in any kind of child discipline, and there is never any reason or excuse for unbridled anger or frustration that ends in child abuse – whether physical or mental.
Hopefully we can take the matter of restraint in punishment as being a self-evident necessity in child rearing as in any other part of life, and if we can do that, we can probably say that the most important aspect of child-discipline is simply the principle of punishing in love. We saw this principle in the scriptures quoted above, and the Bible often speaks of love and punishment in the same breath. But how do we apply this basic principle? What does it mean to administer correction and discipline in love? Apart from the matter of restraint which we have already discussed as foundational to any kind of discipline, parents – and especially Christian parents – can apply a number of practices that equate with punishing in love, but three are particularly important.
1) First, we must separate the person from the problem and make sure our children know it is their behavior we are not happy with, not them. Paul shows this is God’s attitude toward us when he wrote “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We too should remember to love our children – and show that love to them – even when they must be corrected. There is a world of difference between telling a child “You are ….” and “You should not…” Our correction should always guide rather than cut down the one being corrected.
2) Another thing we can do to root discipline in love is to always be sure to make the punishment fit the problem. Just as civil law is based on the principle of the punishment fitting the crime, so we should be careful to measure corrective punishment against the level of what our children do wrong. A helpful principle to follow is that whenever possible, punishment should only be given for rebellion – refusal to follow a direct parental directive rather than simply for failing to perfectly keep a household rule. A messy room and a rebellious attitude are not the same and should not be treated in the same way.
3) Finally, another vital aspect of balancing punishment with love is to be sure that we always combine the two and make sure they are never separated because of anger or thoughtlessness on our part. Time and again we find that when God had to discipline the people of Israel, he also spoke to them of his love. Notice in the book of Jeremiah, for example, God says “I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness. Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security” (Jeremiah 33: 5–6). Here, we see God combined a message of discipline with one of assurance and love – something we see a great many times throughout the book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 46:28; 48:46–47; etc.) and in all the prophetic books of the Bible.
We should always apply this principle by reassuring our children of our love after applying necessary discipline. Sometimes it may help to hug them, but we should always remind them that our punishment is based on our love for them.
These practices are simple enough, but they are also vital parts of what it means to discipline properly – for the child’s ultimate well being – and to truly punish in love.
Recent statistics suggest that as many as 40% to 50% of marriages in some developed countries end in divorce. The divorce statistics for second and third marriages are even higher (practice evidently does not improve performance), and these sad statistics underline the even more unfortunate truth that many of these divorces were undoubtedly preventable.
While some marriage splits are, of course, the result of adultery, drugs, alcohol, spousal abuse and other problems, the great majority of divorces claim “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for dissolution of the marriage bond. This is where the aspect of preventability enters into the picture. “Irreconcilable differences” is really just an expensive way of saying “incompatibility,” and at the heart of many divorces – and of problem marriages which somehow stay together – it is incompatibility that is so often cited as the underlying problem.
Now in most all cases where incompatibility is cited as an issue, it was not present at the beginning of the relationship (we doubt many couples who always considered themselves incompatible get married) – it is something the marriage partners feel “happened” as time progressed. But the truth is, incompatibility between a man and a woman usually never just “happens” – it is present, under the surface, all the time. It is simply that marriages begin to falter when couples begin to focus on their incompatibility. A century ago, in his book What’s Wrong with the World, G.K. Chesterton put it this way:
“I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.”
These may be among the wisest words ever written on marriage problems. They are based on the undeniable fact that most marriages occur because “opposites attract.” But when marriage begins we are focusing on the “attract.” As marriages progress, if we are not careful, the focus switches to looking at, and dwelling on, the “opposites.” Our point of view shifts and we begin to see our relationship differently – and as we do, the problems develop.
Simple as it may sound, the quality of every marriage, and every day within every marriage, depends on how we look at our partner. We must remember it is not that beneath the attraction there are differences we must somehow try to suppress, but that the differences between us are so often the root and cause of the attraction itself – and we mean not just the sexual aspect, but the full range of psychological, spiritual and physical attraction.
A happy marriage is, then, always one of managed incompatibility. We can certainly do what we can to make it easier for our mates to deal with our differences where they are problematic (Romans 14:19 – “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”), but each mate must concentrate on how he or she sees the other – we must continue to look at the attractive things about him or her. There is perhaps no more helpful scripture on this fact than the words of the apostle Paul:
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).
We render this wonderful advice useless by consigning it to nice thoughts about pleasant ethereal things. But this approach is a potent marriage problem solver. If we apply these words in the sphere of our relationship with our mate – in constantly looking for, affirming, complimenting the good things we appreciate about each other on every level – the matter of incompatibility usually becomes increasingly a non-issue.
Incompatibility is not the destroyer of marriage; it is the healthy tension that forms the basis of meaningful marriage relationships. The more we begin to see each other in a positive way and keep our focus there, the more we see attraction and the less we see opposites. In fact, we become more and more able to celebrate our incompatibility – and good things happen when we do. In the words of Genesis: “He created them male and female and blessed them….” (Genesis 5:2). We see God blessed the marriage relationships not generically as unisex, unithought, uniform pairs of mankind, but blessed us as male and female – blessed us in our differences.
A few months ago, the research and polling agency Barna Group published their most important findings from the surveys they conducted in 2014. Those top findings included a fascinating (one among many) survey that looked at the satisfaction and stress levels of mothers – with children still at home – compared to other women.
The image snip below (part of Barna’s graphic summarizing the survey) shows a few of the survey’s findings we felt were particularly interesting. It shows, for example, that while most mothers tend to be a little more dissatisfied with the balance of their work/home life than other women, they are significantly more stressed (80% as opposed to 72% for all women), tired (70% as opposed to 58% for all women), and overcommitted (56% as opposed to 48% for all women).
These statistics are informative and interesting at any time, but they are perhaps especially relevant for us to consider on Mother’s Day. Barna’s research shows clearly and empirically that motherhood does indeed involve sacrifice. The additional stress, tiredness and feeling of over-commitment faced by the majority of mothers is something we need to keep in mind as we celebrate Mother’s Day. All too often the potentially deep appreciation we should all show on Mother’s Day is muted by well-meaning but perhaps inadequate store-bought cards and other forms of ritual acknowledgment.
This is not to say that motherhood does not bring its own rewards. It does, of course, and most mothers are happy to make the sacrifices they do. But when we consider the ongoing and very real nature of the sacrifices made by so many mothers on a day-to-day basis, we should perhaps look at this day a little differently. Barna’s excellent survey reminds us not just to see Mother’s Day as another day on the calendar – like birthdays and anniversaries – to send a card, but to see it the way we should: as a day in which we honor those who so often sacrifice for their families.
You can see the survey and Barna’s other top findings here.
A few months ago we ran an article on “Christian Adoption and Foster Care”which proved very popular and drew a number of positive comments. This month is Foster Care Month in the United States and we decided to bring you a small update in that area.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in the United States more than 400,000 children are presently in foster care, and many more children are waiting to be accepted into foster care homes. Some 114,000 children presently in foster care are waiting to be adopted.
If you are interested in fostering a child needing a temporary home (most child welfare agencies cover many of the costs associated with fostering), there is a wealth of information available online regarding Christian fostering. The Christian Alliance for Orphans is only one example, but it is one we feel is particularly helpful with lots of links to further information on fostering as well as adoption. The Alliance unites more than 100 respected Christian organizations and a national network of churches so it can be very helpful in finding contacts in a person’s local area. Another good resource, giving state foster care contacts, is the U.S. government’s National Foster Care Month page.
Also, you may find that there are people in your own church who are already providing foster care or who have adopted or are in the process of doing so. You may find such people invaluable sources of current local information and opportunities.
Even if you are not able to consider fostering or adopting, there are other things you can do to help. We recommend CASA(Court Appointed Special Advocates) which promotes court-appointed volunteer advocacy to help ensure children in foster care or adoption are safe and properly protected.
If you decide to try foster parenting, or know someone who does, there are many good books available on the subject. One very new book that we have seen and highly recommend is the unique and very helpful What’s a Foster Family? by Anne Garboczi Evans (author) and Helen Cochrane (illustrator), which helps even young children of existing families understand and accept a foster sibling. Published just a couple of months ago, it’s well written and illustrated and perfectly pitched for the children who will be helped by it. In the US It is available here, and those in the UK can find it here.
Finally, if you didn’t already read our full article on “Christian Adoption and Foster Parenting,” and it is of interest, you can read it here.
The number of orphaned children in the world in which we live is staggering. It is estimated that HIV/AIDS and Ebola alone have orphaned well over 18 million children (enough children to fill a Super Bowl stadium, not just once, but 180 times). According to UNICEF, an estimated 153 million children – ranging from infants to teenagers – have lost one or both parents and are now partially or completely orphaned worldwide. These orphan numbers do not include abandoned and sold or trafficked children, so the total number of functional orphans may be closer to 200 million – equivalent to 2/3 the current population of the United States.
But some things can be done to help in this situation – even if we cannot ourselves adopt or foster parent. See our newly uploaded article “Christian Adoption and Foster Parenting” to better understand the problem and some of the things we can do to help.
Many users of pornography do not understand that like drugs, pornography does have physical, measurable, negative effects on the human brain. Most medical studies confirming this fact have been conducted with men, though there is clear evidence that women can also be affected.
Simply put, sexually explicit material triggers “mirror neurons” in the brain. These are the neurons involved in mimicking behavior and in the case of pornography, the mirror neuron system triggers arousal in the brain, which leads to growing sexual tension and a corresponding desire for release. The problem, according to Professor William M. Struthers, a psychologist at Wheaton College, is that “ … this leads to hormonal and neurological consequences, which bind [the man] to the object he is focusing on.” Pornography thus enslaves its users to its images in the sense that the biological response intended to bond a man and woman are transferred, thus loosening the bond between them and forming a bond with the pornography itself.
But this is only the beginning. In men, a primary chemical involved in sexual arousal which is affected by pornography use is dopamine, and it is well known that dopamine plays a major role in reward-driven learning. Many studies have shown that rewarded behaviors increase the level of dopamine transmission in the brain (the basis of addictions to drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine which act directly on the dopamine system). Dopamine production peaks in the brain when an individual is exposed to stimuli which are novel – especially if the stimuli are sexual. This is why pornography users become trapped in endlessly seeking new images – because they have trained themselves to be unsatisfied with the same stimulus.
As a result, viewing erotic images of numerous individuals can actually trigger more dopamine production than sex with an actual partner. In this way, pornography leads to a psychological addiction that teaches the brain that images are more satisfying – and the user becomes, in turn, less satisfied with his or her real partner (a process known to psychologists and ethnologists as the “Coolidge effect,” which affects mammalian males and to some extent females). With individuals not in sexual relationships the addiction is still firmly formed, and sexual relations within eventual marriage are doomed to prove less satisfying and less likely to hold the relationship together.
One of the final destructive effects of this cycle is that the overstimulation of the psychological reward process which occurs with repeated pornography-stimulated dopamine production creates actual desensitization; the brain doesn’t respond as much as it used to do and the individual actually feels less reward from pleasure. Over time, that same desensitization causes porn users to have to work ever harder to accomplish feelings of satisfaction through more, more frequent, or more extreme sexual stimuli. The cycle is endlessly ongoing; and the more porn is used, the more numb the brain becomes.
Telling users that pornography debases or exploits women (although completely true) often has little effect because users are usually into porn for self-centered gratification which is elevated above the happiness of others; but porn users are themselves being harmed. A University of Sydney study found that those using porn regularly were more likely to have severe social and relationship problems and were more likely to lose their jobs, their relationships, and to get in trouble with the law. But if a user can understand what is actually happening to his or her “brain on porn,” it can help the person to realize that the happiness which is ultimately and most severely compromised by porn is their own.
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