The With Word
Here’s the thing about teaching the Bible: sometimes I’m learning more than I’m actually teaching.
Let me set the stage.
It was my weekly Zoom Bible study with a bunch of middle schoolers. We’ve been super slowly plowing through Matthew together for almost a year at this point (it’s very exciting). We read a few verses and talk about them, discussing what they teach us about God, what they show us about ourselves, how we can respond to what we learn.
Sometimes there are blank faces (like when I try to explain literally anything that involves paradox). Sometimes it is awkward (like the week they asked me what a eunuch was). Sometimes bad internet makes it nearly impossible (like today when half of the kids got kicked offline simultaneously).
Two weeks ago, though, we were walking through the parable of the two sons who receive invitations from their father to come work alongside him in their family vineyard (Matthew 21:28-31). We had a great discussion about how the invitation was personal (he went to each of his sons in turn), about how the work they were being called to was for their inheritance (what they were taking care of would eventually be given to them), about what it means to be men and women who don’t just talk big but also follow through (and what that looks like in our lives). And then we discussed the way the father parents his sons—and how it shows us a picture of how God parents us.
At this point I opened my big mouth and said, “And guys, God doesn’t berate us. He doesn’t shriek at us. At no point does he say, I can’t believe you did that?! What in the world were you thinking?!” And as I described how tenderly God parents us, how graciously He deals with our mess, God brought to mind—He brought very clearly to mind—the ugly way I routinely confront my own children about their completely trashed bedrooms and disgusting bathroom.
I felt like the sharp contrast was slapping me in the face, and I wanted to shrivel up and die. Instead, I finished teaching Bible study.
But I didn’t forget. I began to wrestle with the disconnect between how God parents me and how I parent my own children. Because here’s the deal: if God’s Spirit lives in me, then I should be reflecting His nature—and that applies no matter how many times the kids have blatantly ignored my instructions to not exist in a state of filth.
I am aware that the problem is more my short temper than it is their incapacity to stop living like animals. One day, I hope they will learn how to pick up after themselves. I would love that day to be soon. But in the meantime, I am the problem.
Still, it is easy for me to get sucked into the “if only”s. If only they would just stop trashing the place! If only they would clean up when I tell them to! If only I didn’t care about the mess! If only I was more patient!
But then, as I asked God to give me all those things, I heard a quiet voice saying, “Marian, am I not enough for you?”
To which I responded, “Of course, but you aren’t the problem! They are! I am! Fix them! Fix me! Fix something!”
But slowly, I realized what God was saying. I was asking for patience. I was asking for lived out grace. I was asking for the self-control I needed to keep from exploding like a volcano every time I walked into their rooms and tripped over a wadded up pile of clothes that I had just laundered, folded, and stacked. And God was reminding me that He had given me His Spirit to live inside of me. To act through me. To speak from within me.
I wanted patience. He’d already given it to me when He gave me Himself.
I wanted grace. He’d given me that too.
I wanted self-control. He’d given me that as well.
He’d given me everything I needed to parent my kids well when He gave me Himself. But I kept forgetting that those qualities I need so desperately are already accessible to me. They are already within me being ignored and shoved to the side. I just have to remember.
And then I heard this whisper of a word: with.
God is with me. That’s what makes Him effective as a parent. And He wants me (with Him) to be with my children. That is the only way I will be able to effectively parent them.
Unfortunately, I’m wondering if that means I need to stop trying to delegate from the other room while I try to take care of other things. I’ve been a divide-and-conquer mom for a few years now, but I’m wondering if that’s part of the problem. What’s logical—everyone take a job and knock it out—isn’t necessarily what’s effective. What’s effective may just have to look a lot more like Jesus—who doesn’t divvy out jobs so that we can get a quick check mark on salvation but comes to us so that He can be fully with us. What’s effective might look more like a Radical With.
Maybe there would be fewer lost tempers if I was focusing more on getting the job done with my children instead of just getting the job done. Maybe I need to take a page out of Matthew 21 and invite my children personally to come clean up alongside me (working in their inheritance, if you will, even if it’s an on-base rental). Maybe with is better than done.
With all that said, today I told my students what I’d learned in class with them two weeks ago and how I’d been attempting to apply it. I told them because I wanted them to see how, sometimes, it takes time to wrestle with what we hear from God and to see it bearing fruit in our lives (and that there are still going to be screw ups along the way). And I told them because confession is the first step in accountability.
And then I took my kids to the commissary with me, ripped the grocery list in half, and let Littles and Tiny knock out the frozen food, dairy, and bakery while the rest of us did the produce, dry goods, and meat. And it was 100% an excellent parenting call. So I’m not yet deep-sixing Divide and Conquer…even as I’m working to live out a little more fully what a Radical With looks like—with God, with my children, and even with my students as we take notes on a Zoom whiteboard from opposite sides of the country.
