As much as we dislike it, anger springs up very easily in the world of parenting. Inevitably our children will do the most irritating things throughout the day which make us want to pull our hair out.

Of course, anger can happen not just in parenting, but I’ve found that parenting has a way of bringing out problems with anger.  Yet I also believe that every good parent doesn’t like it this recurring problem.  How then do we resolve not to get angry when the children seem to excel at pushing our buttons?

I’m currently reading Raising Godly Tomatoes by L. Elizabeth Krueger, and in the last chapter she touched upon the subject of parental anger. On how to stop the cycle of anger, Mrs. Krueger explains from her own experience:

I decided to view my irritability as a serious sin, not just an unfortunate personality flaw. I decided to view losing my temper as totally unacceptable and completely forbidden. Instead of seeking to “improve,” I determined to “quit.” I changed to viewing anger as poison, not just as a small bothersome bad habit. Big difference.

. . . You must cultivate and ponder a HATRED for anger, be vigilantly on guard for its earliest signs of emergence, and be prepared to immediately overcome evil with good by replacing angry reactions with calmness and godly, right thoughts.

Watch yourself closely, raise your standards, and train yourself to be godly, just as you want your children to be godly.

I believe Mrs. Krueger’s advice is right on. In order to mortify anger, we must view anger as sin and have an intense hatred for it. We may feel justified in getting angry because after all, it was the children who cause us to sin. We need to first acknowledge that when we lash out in anger, it is our own sin, not our children’s. We have to own up to our sin and resolve to hate our sin because the God we serve is godly and detests sin. Sanctification is a process so stay vigilant in praying and in training ourselves to rid the problem of anger.

Fishmama is doing a mothering series for the next two weeks, and today she features a guest blog by yours truly about managing and loving the little people.

For arts and crafts today we made homemade playdough. Here is an excellent pictorial tutorial on how to make your own playdough.

Matthew helping me to stir the dough:

Coloring the dough:

I gave each child a tray to play on the floor. This is my attempt to control the potential mess. Having a tray makes the mess more manageable.  Here’s a picture of Emmie happily playing with the dough:

Andrew chopping the dough:

Matthew kneading the dough:

It’s interesting to note that most children make animals out of the play dough, but my children seem to stick to the food theme.  Andrew rolls a dough into a ball and tells me that it’s a “meatball.”  Emmie rolls her dough flat to make “pancakes.” Matthew chops his dough into lots of tiny pieces and tells me that he’s “chopping meat” like I do with a Chinese cleaver.  The children eventually “made” popsicles, corn dogs, and ice cream.

Along the food theme, Calissa thought the play dough looked pretty enough to eat - as soon as I gave her some, she popped it in her mouth! Even though it is completely safe to ingest, it sure doesn’t taste good. She was in for a shock and cried.  After I calmed her down, she refused to touch the dough again.

Suppose I’m standing on the ledge of a mile-high cliff, looking over. And I do this with genuine trust in God to keep me from falling over. But my friend stands back 10 feet from the ledge, offering to me that it’s not so smart to do that with the 30mph gusts that are blowing around us. He trusts God too… but he also thinks it wise to apply common sense in that situation.

So here’s the question: which requires more faith: to take the risk by hanging by the edge, or to be more “conservative” and step back a few feet and enjoy the view (though perhaps a less exciting one)? My guess is that most of us would initially be tempted to say that the one who stands on the ledge is exercising more faith than the one who doesn’t. But I think that would be wrong.

Why?  Because our Lord Himself modeled the principle that doing risky (or foolish) things “in faith” isn’t necessarily being faithful. At least, that’s one of my conclusions from his reply to the devil during his temptation in the wilderness:

And [the devil] took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.” … And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Luke 4:9,12)

In other words, he didn’t jump. Not because he lacked faith in His Father, but because “trusting God” (which is good) is not the same as “testing God” (which is bad).

Like it or not, we are surrounded (and influenced) by the culture we live in. And today’s culture is clearly adrenaline-rush-oriented, amusement-centered, and excitement-driven.  And it’s a culture that glorifies risk taking!  Thus, if our lives seem boring, I think we are tempted to ask ourselves if we are missing out. Not merely on life, but perhaps even on God’s will in our lives.

And thus, we’ve begun to equate “faith” with “taking risks” and “excitement.”

A few years, when I was still single, the Lord placed on my heart a deep burden for global missions, for declaring the glories of God to all the nations. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate than “selling all I have” and going to the unreached peoples. Anything else seemed… short of the goal.

But now, a few years later, with a wife, four young children, a house, and an office job, I’m not exactly going to be featured on “Lifestyles of the Glamorous and Exciting.” Instead, most of my days are spent working an office job to provide for my family, or caring for children, or cleaning the house, etc. And Lois could tout an even more “mundane” lifestyle, as a stay-at-home mom, where even conversations with other adults are limited to evening chats online or occasionally on the phone; and otherwise cooking, cleaning, homeschooling, etc. Add to that a tendency to be fiscally conservative (anti-debt, pay off our mortgage ASAP, buy in cash) and to be homebodies (you know where to find us on Friday night!), and we’ve found ourselves singing this song:

Do we simply lack faith? We are wise with finances, careful about time management, and we are raising a family in the suburbs. That seems to take a lot less faith than any number of believers we know who are in debt over their heads due to poor planning or living on the “front-lines” of the missions field or dangerous urban ministry. So many of those “risk-taking” believers have these amazing testimonies of God’s faithfulness in answering their prayers in time of need… are we doing something wrong by not taking those same sorts of risks? Are we living by faith or merely by sight?

And here’s my conclusion after thinking about this question.

First, it’s not whether we take risks per se that shows great faith. The person who takes risks without considering the potential cost is not commended by the Lord (Luke 14:28-30). And taking on debt (financial risk) is not looked well upon either (Proverbs 22:7). So risk-taking is not inherently an act of faith, and faith doesn’t necessarily translate into risk-taking.

Second, if the Lord delivers us when we take risks for Him is not because we had faith, but because He is gracious! God is not bound by our faith to act on our behalf. And the man who makes unwise choices and is rescued from disaster should not be commended for great faith. The glory goes to God for His merciful kindness, and the man should be admonished for his foolishness.

Third, Biblically speaking, faith in God is commended in light of resulting obedience and not mere risk-taking. For example, in Hebrews 11, a number of saints in the Old Testament are commended for their faith. But not because they took great risks (though some did), but because they obeyed the Word of their God!

What then? The real measure of faith in God is our obedience to His revealed will to us, not in the excitement level of our lives. Our lives may feel mundane. But that’s okay, if our “unexciting” lives are committed to obeying God. In the past, and even now, I’ve been really jazzed by an inspiring call to “do missions when dying is gain.” But I find it even more helpful, these days, to take to heart Biola professor John Mark Reynolds’ idea of “bloodless martyrdom”:

Married love is difficult: full of confusion and doubt. Because it is a bloodless martyrdom, designed to purge us of selfishness and show us real love it is difficult.

The concept of “bloodless martyrdom” can be applied to more than just married life. It can be applied to parenting. To homeschooling. To being faithful in my job, or being a good steward of the resources God has provided for us, such as money, house, or cars.

Furthermore, I think the concept of faith-filled “unexciting lives” is utterly consistent with the bulk of the New Testament epistles. If you examine the NT, very few of the members of the church are doing “exciting adventures.” You don’t read repeated calls to “take risks, sell all you have.” Instead, more often than not, the real work of faith, based on mere weight of repetition, is whether we Christians are faithful and obedient to God’s call in things like parenting… marriage… hospitality… ministering to the saints… loving your neighbor.

In short, I think there is a great danger in “romanticizing” the Christian life. God is not looking for His church to be made up of a bunch of risk-taking, “extreme sports” types of people. He is looking first and foremost for faithful friends, faithful husbands, faithful mothers, faithful neighbors. Whose faithfulness in those tasks is built upon their faith-filled obedience to the God who has called them to such tasks. Even in the face of ridicule or discouragement or boredom.

We should not be like Don Quixote who imagined that the “real life of faith” is built on pursuing great risks and “impossible dreams.” Let’s instead consider the calling he has for each of us, however simple or unexciting, and with great faith, trust Him to accomplish great things through our “small deeds” of daily faithfulness.

I love my children. But even as my children are different, I’ve come to learn that they need to be loved differently.

For example, my second son, Andrew, is arguably the most huggable and the most affectionate of our four children. He’s the first to offer a hug, or ask for one; and is the most likely to spontaneously tell me he loves me.

In contrast, our eldest, Matthew, is much more typical “boy” — some have remarked 200% boy — and is more squirmy and fidgety, especially when I tell him to come over so I can give him a hug or other show of affection.

For me, it’s been a real challenge to learn how to love Matthew (and feel loved by him). While Andrew expresses himself in ways that are altogether obvious and compatible with my personality, Matthew is whole different creature with a very different personality from me. So his boyishness has often seemed a hurdle in our relationship, and as much so with respect to learning his “love language,” in giving and receiving love, as anything else.

I’ve come to learn that while Matthew enjoys hugs and kisses from me, the impact of such physical affection isn’t as strong as Andrew. Over the years I learned what makes Matthew feel loved is by chasing him around the house, tackle him, and be wild with him. This type of rough housing is the door to his heart. Even though it’s lot easier for me to dispense hugs and kisses, I have to remind myself that the door to his affections is through being wild with him.

The lesson is simple: all children are different and they need to be loved differently. One of our tasks as parents is to find out what makes each of our children tick, and how to make them feel loved.  This is simply a specific application of a general tenet in parenting: that each child is uniquely made by God, and our job is to help nurture each child into a unique person fully realizing his/her potential by God’s grace.

Our eldest son turned 6 years old today.

We’ve all survived the most adventurous six years of our lives.

But more than survived. We’ve enjoyed them. We’ve been blessed by them. We’ve learned from them.

And most of all, we’ve loved these years, as we love our dear son Matthew. Not so long ago, he was a precocious, ambitious young toddler.

Now he simply surprises with us how “adult-sounding” he can be at times. He’s a smart, quick-learning, action-loving, heart-endearing, still-impulsive, growing boy. And Lord willing, down the road, he’ll be a godly man, and before long, he’ll be up and out of the house. Until then, we’ll just hold onto these snuggling years as long as we can!

For those homemaker-types out there, the cake is a chocolate brownie cake with white frosting and “fruit-by-the-foot” made in the shape of gift ribbon. And six candles to mark the occasion!

It saddens me that how commonly I hear comments which reflect a viewpoint that children are primarily obstacles, trials, challenges, or difficulties to be overcome. When our children are young, we are told by experts how to “survive” the so-called “terrible twos.” And we are warned that before long, once they hit the dreaded teen years, what we will have to “endure” and “negotiate” the troubled waters. And lastly, we are encouraged, that when our children finally turn eighteen, we can breathe a sigh of relief as we kick them out of the house!

Almost never do I hear parents or experts talk about the blessing of children or the joy of raising children. This kind of attitude does not make sense to me. If children are such a difficult obstacle, why have them?

I am not a starry-eyed, stuck in the cloud nine mother who doesn’t understand the difficulties of raising children. I’d be the first to admit that parenting is hard and it takes a lot of patience, endurance, and love. There have been plenty of days I’ve wanted to throw in the towel! Yet while I recognize these challenges, I’m also seeing the joy in the journey of parenting. The Bible, in Psalm 127, tells us — it does not “suggest” to us — that children are a blessing. I see my children as blessings from God and as difficult as they can be to raise, they bring me so much joy and fulfillment.

Let’s not lose sight of such blessings from God when we face challenges along the way. Let’s not merely focus on the trials, but count our blessings. Lastly, we must remember that these children have souls and we have the primary responsibility of shaping their souls. What an immense privilege to be doing something of such incredible eternal lasting value!