Last Sunday, we started our study of "Shepherding A Child’s Heart" based upon Tedd Tripp’s book by that title. It is an excellent book for parents. We honor our mothers on this special day. May God bless you richly. Before the message emphasizing the nature of a child’s heart, I have several pieces that I would like to read about mothers.

My mother taught me about the food groups: If you put one foot outside that door, you’re not getting any homemade bread.

My mother taught me about contortions: Have you seen the dirt of the back of your neck?

My mother taught me to stand firm: You’ll sit there till all that spinach is finished.

My mother taught me about the weather: Looks as if a tornado swept through your room.

My mother taught me about hypocrisy: If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times---Don’t exaggerate!

My mother taught me about the circle of life: I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!

My mother taught me about behavior programming: Stop acting like your father!

My mother taught me about envy: There are millions of less fortunate children who don’t have parents like yours!

(Preaching Today, quoted in "The Heartbeat," May 7, 2002)

A mother can be any size or any age. . . A mother has soft hands and smells good.

A mother likes new clothes, music, a clean house, her children’s kisses, an automatic washer and daddy.

A mother does not like having her children sick, muddy feet, temper tantrums, loud noise or bad report cards.

A mother can read a thermometer (much to the dismay of dad) and like magic can kiss a hurt away.

A mother can bake the best cakes and pies in the world, but likes to see her children eat fresh vegetables.

A mother can stuff a fat baby into a snowsuit in 10 seconds (it takes dad longer than that to find the arm from the leg) and can kiss sad little faces and make them smile.

A mother is underpaid, has long hours, and gets very little rest. She worries far too much about her children but she says that she does not mind at all.

No matter how old her children are, she still likes to think of them as her little babies.

A mother is the very best friend anyone ever has. A mother is love.

A Christian mother is a person through whom Jesus thinks, has a heart through which Jesus loves, a voice through which Jesus sings and hands through which Jesus helps.

The most difficult thing for a mother to remember is that other people have perfect children too!

A mother is a woman who decorates her life with babies.

All mothers are physically handicapped: they have only two hands.

A man is seldom as smart as his mother thinks, or as dumb as his mother-in-law says he is!

Mothers need a few minutes by themselves at night---so they do the dishes!

A grandmother is a lady who has no children of her own, so she likes other peoples’ little boys and girls. A grandfather is a man grandmother. He goes for walks with boys and they talk about fishing, tractors and things like that.

Grandmothers do not have to do anything but be there. They’re old so they should not play hard or run. It is enough if they drive us to the supermarket and shop and then put us on the pretend horse at the grocery store and they have lots of dimes ready. If they take us for walks, they slow down for the pretty things like leaves, butterflies and flowers.

They never say, Hurry up, and usually they are fat but not too fat to tie kid’s shoes. They wear glasses and funny underwear. They can take their teeth out and chew with their gums. It is better if they do not typewrite or play cards with us. They do not have to be smart, only answer questions like: Why do dogs hate cats and why is God not married? They do not talk like visitors do, because it is too hard to understand. When they read to us, they do not skip pages and they do not mind if it is the same old story they are reading again.

Everyone should have a grandmother. . . especially if they do not have TV, because grandmas and grandpas are the only grown-ups who have lots of time.

(By Kevin Haugh, West Virginia, 21^st Century Christian, Aug. ’93.)

This evening I chopped firewood. Mom has a big pile of logs stacked in her garage, and she needed some split. The single-digit temperatures and blowing snow squalls helped remedy the cabin fever I’d been feeling. They also gave me time to think.

I once asked Dad what he thought was the best thing ever to happen to him. Without a second’s hesitation he replied, marrying your mother. Second only to God in his heart, Mom was his wisest decision. Mom would tell you the same: Dad was the wisest decision. Despite who gets the credit, they both agreed that the most important person in the life of each was the other.

The orderlies wheeled Dad toward surgery. They let me walk beside him, hold his hand and act brave. We left that seventh floor, took the elevator and exited on the fourth floor, surgery wing. The CAT Scan and MRI miracle machine had diagnosed an abnormal mass at the bass of Dad’s brain. Exploratory brain surgery would be required to answer that question, benign or malignant?

My dad having surgery? He’d always seemed invincible and now they are going to operate on his brain! The doctors had warned us that he might not live through the procedure. I wondered if this would be the final opportunity for me to talk with him.

We talked briefly about the weather. On the ride down, we reminisced of sunny days on a trout stream. When we got to the operating room, the nurse said to me, I’m sorry, this is as far as your can go. Dad looked deep into my eyes. I thought, Oh, no, here it comes—Good-bye. Dad cleared his throat and said, Kevin, be sure and check the oil in your Mom’s car.

They carted him through those huge double doors and I stood there, dumbfounded. That was it? I had been expecting an, If I never see you again, son. . . speech. Check the oil?

The surgery went well. The doctor’s initial prognosis was benign. We hugged, laughed, cried, praised and celebrated. For the next few weeks, Check the oil, became the family joke. We fully expected Dad to be back on his feet in a couple of weeks. However, even doctors occasionally are wrong.

I now realize that Dad was not concerned about Quaker State or Pennzoil. He was not even concerned about the safety of Mom’s vehicle. He was concerned about the welfare of Mom. Check the oil in Mom’s car meant, Take good care of your mother.

He never did give my brother and me the traditional lecture about becoming the man of the house after he was gone. He did not have to. He had given us an example to follow that was much more poignant than a deathbed exhortation.

Jesus told Peter, Feed my sheep. Moses told Joshua and the Israelites the secret of life: Love and obey God. Paul told Titus, Speak sound doctrine. Paul told Timothy, Preach the Word. Jesus told his best friend John, Take care of my mother. My dad said, Check the oil in your Mom’s car.

This evening I chopped firewood for her.

All of the stories above are about the heart. If the heart is right with God, then everything is alright. The central job of being a parent is to so teach that the heart is reached. Controlling the external behavior is not possible without getting to the heart. Getting your children to attend the church services is not the primary goal. Trying to persuade your children to be immersed in water is not the primary goal. Some parents want a quick fix, like a conversion experience that will change them quickly. Truth is that there is no quick solution. Shepherding is a long process, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Spanking alone for misbehavior will not change the child’s heart. It takes a lot of things.

Think about the process in reverse for a moment. Paul and his co-workers had been converted to Christ. Their hearts were right with God and their fellowman. They were resisted wherever they went preaching by the Jews. The Jews beat them and imprisoned them. The Jews threatened their lives, yet they sang and prayed while their backs hurt. All the harsh actions against them did not change their hearts. They remained Christians. In an opposite way, yet in a similar manner, the primary control of anyone’s heart is in one’s own hands. In the end, the child will decide what he will do.

The clay and the potter. There are two important forces at work on a child’s heart, as there is on ours. The forces are from without and from within. This can be illustrated by a story told in Jeremiah 18. The Lord told Jeremiah to go down to the potter’s house and watch the work of the potter. As he watched, he observed that the clay would sometimes mar in the potter’s hand. The potter would refashion the clay into another vessel that seemed good to him. The Lord said, Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

Truth is that even clay is not all the same. Some clay is more pliable than others and is easier to mold and shape. Some clay resists molding and lumps up in your hand. Israel did not always allow the Lord to fashion them into the people that he wanted them to be. They resisted. God wanted one thing; they wanted to do another. The heart of man is like that. In the previous chapter, Jeremiah wrote, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, Who can know it? I the Lord search the heart and try the reins, even to give to every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings." (Jer. 17:9.)

The Bible says this about the heart of children: "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." (Prov. 22:15.) The shepherding must be directed toward a child’s heart, not toward his behavior. We get distracted from the real issue. The behavior is the most visible. The bad behavior is a symptom; the real problem is in the heart. Parents easily succumb to the pressure to raise well-behaved children. It makes you look good as a parent. But well-behaved children alone is not the primary goal. Children can be well behaved with good manners in public and at home, yet their hearts not be right. Psychology teaches you how to manipulate and control animals and humans. Reward good behavior and punish bad behavior is the trick. Many parents have relied upon excessively strong measures to keep their children under control. Outwardly, they are well behaved. External forces controlled the behavior. The child was afraid to do otherwise. This kind of good behavior is not a worthy goal to try to achieve.

Some parents try using a good education rather than shepherding the heart. Parents will work for hours with their children to help them master difficult subjects, but will overlook the most important things of all. These parents are persuaded that education brings success. This is what they want for their children. It is possible to be successful and well educated and still not know the meaning of life. This is similar to a coach wanting his team to win no matter what. Winning to the coach is the most important issue of life, not how you play the game. Christian parents want to teach their children good sportsmanship, fair play and caring about other players. We must teach our children noble goals in life, not the things that the world teaches them. Getting rich is not the chief end of life. Being more highly educated than others is not a very noble goal. Learning to serve others and how to forsake self is a noble purpose. Learning to obey God and to submit to His will should be our chief goal in what we teach our children.

An example. Suppose children are playing at home and a fight breaks out over a particular toy. The classic response of parents is to try to find out who had it first. This response misses the issue of the heart. It becomes simply a matter of justice. Who was the fastest to reach the toy? If we look at the problem in terms of the heart, the issue changes immediately.

Now you have two offenders. Both children are displaying a hardness of heart toward the other. Both are selfish. Both were saying, I do not care about your happiness. I am concerned only about my own. I want his toy. My happiness depends upon having it. In terms of the heart, you have two children who need to be taught how to respond to others. Even little children can learn to share and care about how others feel.

Sailing. The importance of the condition of the heart can be illustrated by sailing. The wind needs to be blowing, but it does not matter so much the direction of the wind. The direction of the wind does not determine the direction of a sailboat, but rather the trim or set of the sails. Children have many external forces blowing around them. Those forces do not determine the direction of the child’s life. The direction is determined by the child’s orientation to God and the state of the heart within. We often make the mistake of thinking if we can control the external pressures upon a child, we will be able to control the direction of the child’s life. This is not true!

All of us have known of children who grew up in terrible home environments. Their parents were not Christians and did not care about training their children in a godly way. They were exposed to all kinds of bad language and behavior from their parents. Yet, the children determined to live differently and follow the way of God. Others have been raised in a Christian home, sent to a Christian College, and attended church services since they were born. Some of these rejected the external conditions in which they were raised and lived ungodly lives. Why? It is the set of the sails that determines the direction of the boat.

One ship drives east and another drives west

With the selfsame winds that blow

‘Tis the set of the sails

And not the gales

Which tells us the way to go

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate

As we voyage along through life

‘Tis the set of the soul

That decides its goal

And not the calm or the strife

Ela Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

We would not say "the winds of fate," but rather the condition of the heart.