How To Grow Your Kid

Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Hey the Bible says trained up a child in the way that he, she, they should go. What does that mean? Is it true? How do you do it? Let's find out. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. We everybody, welcome to the Jack Hibbs Podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about something that involves every single one of us. I know that's a tall statement, but it is absolutely true. We're talking about being a kid. Being a kid, growing up, coming to that place of, do I dare say it? In the natural world of humans, there's a, a natural puberty that takes place without doctors being involved. It's amazing how we got here after all these years without doctors messing with our puberty. But God's got a great plan. And specifically, this might speak to most of you who are either teens or you have a teen. And I'd like to start out with the profound philosopher, the great thinker, the sage of wisdom, Mark Twain. Mark Twain said that when you have a kid turn into being a teenager, it is time to put them in a 55 gallon barrel and feed them through the hole. And when they reach 21, seal up the hole. That's kind of fatalistic, but you get the drift. It's like we bring our little children in the world and God gives them to us and the Bible says that they are a gift and happy as the man who has a quiver full of them, but nowhere is that set of the woman because she's running around picking up the pieces. It's family. Listen, life, family life. It's messy. It's loud. It is, it's somewhat there's a level of craziness in growing up a family. And we just need to get used to that. For some of you've never heard such a thing, I remember years ago, you guys, this was so fun. Lisa and I, we were flown out to Little Rock, Arkansas and we did a couple of programs back in those days with family life with Dennis Rainey, Bob Lapine and Dennis Rainey. And we sat down at a table and we're doing radio. We're doing a program on being a family. And right in the middle of the show, the phone rang, Dennis Rainey's phone rang. And there was an argument between his two daughters about who, who got the box. I thought it was mine. I thought my name was on it. And he's, he told, he had to say to them, listen, listen, listen, listen, we'll talk about this one when I get home. And he hung up and I'm thinking, wow, this is so refreshing to see a family life specialist, a world renowned one, a minister of family life going, going through the dynamics of a family. And he's so, it was so beautiful. He hung up the phone, put the phone down and he said, as you can see, we're a family also. And so let's get it. And it was like, yes, that's right. Family, warts and all family. But let's talk about raising up kids. So number one, the Bible does tell us that they are a blessing. They're a gift given to us by God, which is why side notes, Satan wants to kill babies and Satan wants Democrats to rule and reign so they can install abortion because it is their religious act to eventually change the Supreme Court that they might enshrine our nation again to the violation of God's will that children are a blessing. Look, if you, if you know anybody who doesn't want their baby, they shouldn't abort it. They should put it up for adoption because boy, I tell you, we know people who want to adopt babies. They're a blessing. Are they hard work? Yes. Is it rewarding? Yes. God made us to reproduce. If I was an evolutionist right now, I would be saying to you, the survival of the fittest is predicated upon the ability or the strength to breed. So for example, when we look at the animal kingdom, it's always the boar, when I say boar, I'm talking about the male bear, the great male brown or black or grizzly bear, who is the one that rules and reigns in a particular area of territory and he is the one that sires these baby cubs, these little bear cubs, right? And why is he the guy? Well, because by fighting and worrying, he wins the gold medal to be the one, the alpha male. And evolutionists look at that and they say, well, look, it's the survival of the fittest. And which is interesting because they take a God engineered reality that has always been, but they don't want to think about God. So they'll call it, it's the survival of the fittest or natural selection. Listen, there is no natural selection apart from what God is engineered. Okay. The evolutionary theory is an accident. It's not an accident in the mind of thinking. It's an accident that never took place in the past. God is the design engineer. Life is built that way and it doesn't work well unless it's structured around a family. The healthier, stronger, the family, the healthier and stronger, the outcome of the children. And so what I want to touch on in our brief time together is something that in this day and age is a simple truth that has gone missing, a simple truth that has gone missing. And it is this, proverbs, the book of wisdom, proverbs out of the Bible, proverbs 22 verse 6 says, train up a child in the way that he should go or we could even say, or she could go if you have a daughter. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. What does that mean? First of all, train up. To train up a child is to do this. Mom and dad, listen carefully. To train up a child, I want you to get this picture in your mind. Think of it is if I am a journeyman, a stone worker, craftsman, I'm the journeyman, but with me is an apprentice. The relationship between the journeyman and the apprentice goes this way. By the way, the same meaning is true about Jesus being master and us being His servants or Him being Lord and we being His followers. Him being God and we being His children. It means this, the journeyman puts his hand on the project. So he is working the stone or the pottery or the painting and the apprentice puts his hands on top of the journeyman's hands so that the apprentice is actually doing no work at all. The journeyman is doing the work but the apprentice is feeling every movement. I'm not sure if you can see my hands where I'm at on the table. Producer Sharan says that you can't. So watch, here's the journeyman. Here's the apprentice and here's what it looks like. I'm sanding, right? Or I'm sculpting. The apprentice goes like this. He's doing no work but he's feeling all the work get done. He's sensing the pressure. He's sensing the speed, the motion, the movement, the intensity. He's starting to develop an appreciation for what the journeyman has known for a lifetime, right? You got that? Train up a child. You are the journeyman, mom and dad. You are the expert. I know it doesn't feel like that, right? Insert. Raising children immediately causes all of us as grown adults to all of a sudden feel incredibly overwhelmed and we can't do it this is too big. I know, I know. But again, that's why we have a family structure. That's where older brothers and sisters come in. That's where moms and dads which are grandmas and grandpas come in. This is where aunts and uncles come in. It's a family. And so we all feel overwhelmed raising kids. Thank God you know in this Christian world right now there's more books written about being a family and we've never had more messed up families than ever before. Why? Because we simply do not proverbs 22 verse 6, train up a child. Have them learn everything you know. So to speak example, are you a please officer? Are you an attorney? Are you a homemaker? Are you a schoolteacher? Are you a truck driver? Whatever it is, there is from the earliest moments of their young ages, you can reveal to them life in the areas where you are the journeyman. You are the expert in these various areas of your life's vocation. When it's a day off and it's time to work in the backyard. Listen, I know this is tough, but when it's time to work in the backyard, you don't want kids all around you because they'll, it takes an hour, takes six hours. But to be apparent, you bring your kid out there and you have them help you. You ask them, hey buddy listen, can you pick that up right now? Move it over here. Can you bring the trash can, tilt it? This is how you tilt it. Hold the, put your foot on the wheels of the trash barrel and tilt it back. You can do it. You can do it. And you help them do it. Okay, now pull it buddy, put it, bring it over by where the more is at. That a boy. That takes you four times longer than it does for you to do it yourself, but you don't pass on anything to your kid. Mums and dads, grandmas and grandpas out there. I want you to start deliberately. In fact, even make a list after hearing this podcast, write down one, two or three things that you're going to start doing that are so basic to you, you never think about it. And I want you to bring your grandchild or bring your child in on it. Hey, let's do this. This is how this is done. You need to know this. You need to know this kiddo and this is what we're going to do. And so do that. You suggest that seems so basic. It's the opening of a door to establish a lifelong relationship of saying, hey, you know what? When I was your age, I learned this. And some of you who know me or you drive by my house, you know that I'm a freak about mowing my lawn in straight lines. Call it an obsession. My dad put that into the head of my brother and I and that's what we do. I know right now I could show up unannounced to my brother's house and this I know. I don't know what kind of what condition his home will be in, but I know this. His yard will have perfect lines of mowing, right? I got that for my dad. So listen, train up a child. Here's where it gets fun. Emboss, imprint, cause the journeyman's hand to take the apprentice hand and watch the shift. The journeyman puts the apprentice hand on the stone and now the journeyman begins to move the hands of the apprentice. So the journeyman's hands are still moving, but now in a different way as we mature along from being two years old to five years old. Watch this journeyman apprentice two years old. Five years old apprentice journeyman. The journeyman is still the parent doing the work, but now it's being done through the hand of the child to expose them to the actual now. This is where they're going to maybe to make my point. They're going to start getting calluses. They feel it stronger. They feel it more vividly. There's more sweat to it. They begin to appreciate the cost of it, things that they've never known before, but because now they're acting in the place of the journeyman or of the parent, they realize, so now I get it. When we leave all the lights on in the house, we have less money to go to the movies or to get popcorn or to have fun. So I'm going to start turning off the lights, dad, when I leave the room, cause now I understand. This is how life works. And here's where it gets awesome in my opinion. Train up in a child in the way that he should go. And I don't mean to be crude or I don't mean to be rude, but this applies to either a he or a she. Well, how do you know? Well, the Bible says he, but we also know from God's logic, you don't raise up boys with all the skills and leave a girl to sit in the corner and not know anything. God does not hold anyone in preference. He astings all worthy, right? So if you have a daughter, how do you know? What's your biology? Because listen, this is no joke. I know that there's people out there. I have no respect for them. I'm telling you right now, I have no respect for a the Bible says don't respect the fool. The Bible says don't give a fool one moment. The Bible says to avoid fools. The Bible says don't answer a fool. And the Bible says let a fool leave a fool in their folly. When somebody says, well, we're not going to declare the gender of our child. We're just going to let them figure that out on on their own. That is class A, type one child abuse. God says train up the child in the way that he should go. If you have a child that is XX chromosome, that's a female. If you have XY, that's a male. And so if you have a biological male, it means you the parent are supposed to be. It's not hard. It's not rocket science. You see, this is a boy. So what that means is I'm going to train this kid how to crawl around in the dirt. I'm going to teach this kid how to use a hammer and a nail. And you see, mom and dad just calm down. I don't want my kid to have some medial task job. We're not talking about that. I hope your kid grows up to be a brain surgeon. Don't get me wrong. But the brain surgeon still has to hang a picture at home. Drive the nail. Teach your kid how to change the oil. Teach your kid out of sweat. You don't have a problem in America. Children are not sweating. Did you know that's an actual medical issue. Children are not sweating. And so they're storing up toxins in their body. We got to get our kids sweating again. Teach them how to sweat. Teach them how to put a trailer hitch on the truck or the van or the SUV. Teach them how to clean windows. Get XX or XY. Doesn't matter. Everybody needs to clean windows. Train up in the train up a child in the way that they should go. Everybody likes clean windows. Someday your kids got to clean windows. Train your kids from the earliest age. Everybody gets what we're going to do right now. And they're looking at you, you know. By the way, when they're young, when they're like two and three, you say, you are going to do and they go, what? We are going to play clean the living room. And you're going to be on the vacuum and you're going to be on the pillows on the couch. You're going to arrange them that looks good and you're going to vacuum this way here. I'll show you guys. I'll do a couple of pillows, journeyman. And I'm going to do a couple of pushes with the vacuum journeyman. Why? So the apprentice can try it. This is raising up a kid in the way that they should go. You see, Jack, aren't you going to get super spiritual about this though? I mean, isn't that where we're supposed to go? You're reading out of the Bible. You're talking about spiritual things, right? I'm talking about what comes first in reality. And that is teaching you to look at from the beginning before they know anything about theological issues. You teach your child every time they see something on the floor that's not supposed to be on the floor. They pick it up and set it on the table. Have you ever heard people say, well, we, we childproof our home. Well, okay, maybe you have to do that. You can do that to some extent, but I'm a big fan of teaching your child how to respect the home. That doesn't mean you beat it into them. That doesn't mean you tie a, you know, something around their neck so they can see it all the time. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about that you would say to them, see that? That vase right there? That's grandma's vase. It's very, very precious. Grandma loves that. It's one of a kind. Nobody's got one like that. So hey, kids, here's the deal. We stay away from that. Okay, we treat that with respect. You can't say to your little one, see that? Yep. Don't touch it. The moment you say that and leave the room, guess what they're going to touch. You got to tell them why. That's grandma's vase. She loves that. That was given to her by her grandpa. And so someday that's going to be one of yours. That's pretty cool, right? So here's the deal. We're going to treat that with respect because it means something and they got an answer. They got an answer. When you start to train them, they're going to start to trust you. And so when you take them out, now let's go spiritual. In fact, without without kidding you whatsoever, I mean what I'm about to say. Let's go deep spiritually with them. Let's take them out into the backyard. We're going to go spiritually deep now. We're going to say in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Wow. The Bible says that God created everything that creeps on the earth. At that moment, your kids could care less. At that moment, there's no picture. They're their memory bank. The synapses and the operation and memory storage. It's blank. What they've heard is we're going to go in the backyard and God created everything that creeps on the earth. That's all they know, which quite frankly is theoretical. Let's not raise his and she's theoretical about the existence of God. Theory is for the laboratory for concept. When you have a concept in a theory, it is also the same laboratory that creates it and puts it to the test. Mom and dad, your park, your neighborhood, a terrarium, your garden is the laboratory. Take your kids out in the backyard and say, kids, what did I just say a moment ago? Let me repeat that God created everything that creeps on the earth. Well, let's see what's creeping in our backyard. Do you see anything creeping? No. Well, where do you think we'll find things creeping on the earth? And maybe your little one doesn't know. But you say, let's get on our hands and knees. Let's look around and you go over there to the flowers, to the garden and there's a rock in there or there maybe there's a brick or maybe there's something and you turn it over and I guarantee you, you'll see a worm quickly go down into the earth or you'll see a little bug scurry away and you're telling your kids, look at that. Didn't God say that? There it is. God did that. That's amazing. He made everything and he made the birds of the air that fly through the sky through the air. He made those birds. See any birds? No, I don't see any birds. Wait, if you don't see any birds, close your eyes. Listen, do you hear any birds? And you're going to hear a bird. You might hear more than one. So kids, listen, we just heard a bird. How do we find the bird when we can't see the bird? Okay, wait, stand here. Stand this way. Listen, movie here is around. What do you think the bird is? I think it's over there. I think it's over there because that's where I heard it over there. Listen, you're taking what God said is true and your kids now are seeing it in their heads. They're touching it with their hands. They're hearing it with their eyes and a picture is being formed in their mind. If they can't see the bird but they can hear the bird, ask them, what colors the bird, you think? I think it's black. I think it's brown. I think it's white, they might say, all right, let's see. I think it's a big bird. How big's the bird? Oh, it's a little bird. No, I think it's a bird like this. Let them guess. Let them play. Why? What are they doing? You are training up a child in the way that they should go. They should be thinkers. They should be analyzers. They should be researchers. They should be explorers. Why do we? Why do you think we love adventure? You know, we're in our offices, at least in America, we're in our offices 51 weeks out of the year and then we get a week off for vacation. Europeans, I don't know, I'm certain I love the European model way better. Europeans take four to six weeks off a year for vacation. It's totally normal there. In America, it's brutal. We take a week off and I don't think that's enough. We take a week off to try to find ourselves or to find something cool. But here's the point. If you've got a few days or a few months off, you know what you do, you go like this. Where are we going to go? What are we going to do? You know, God made us to be explorers. Isn't it amazing? You read about Magellan and Balboa. You read about Cortez and Cornado. You read about Columbus. You read about the Fuca and all these guys that were adventures. And they they traveled the globe. I don't know about you, but I am not going to get in a hundred-foot ship and sail the Atlantic. Are you nuts? But that's all they knew back then and the drive of exploration was greater than their fear of dying. And they said, we got to go, man. We got to check this out. Your kids were born with that God-given human nature of exploration. Train up a child in the way that they should go and when they are old, they will not depart from it. When you begin to ingrain within your kids that discovering bugs, finding worms, identifying birds, and looking at leaves with a magnifying glass and through or at night taking the leaf and shining a flashlight behind the leaf and looking at all the veins and all of the arteries and the capillaries that are in a leaf. You tell your kids, now watch this and you hold your hand up to your kids and you turn on a nice big strong flashlight behind your hand and they can see your bones in the blood vessels just like the leaf. You know what you say? You say to them the same God that made this hand is the same God that made this leaf and you can even tell by some of his design features that he built into us and they'll never forget it. Why am I saying this? Because that's how you introduce the Bible to your kids. And when they are old, they will not depart from it. Do you know what that means? It means that no matter what in life that has been seated in their mind and their imagination and in their storage banks forever. God has promised it to be there. So if, for example, your child is a wayward, the context of this verse is often used to quote or to pray for a wayward child, I get it. I do understand that. But most importantly, it's actually to know that you have a son or a daughter and to raise them in that direction. And then I'll end with this. If you have a son, if you have a son, you expose them to male things, male things meaning this. And it's, by the way, it's loosely, I loosely put this because man things look, changing the oil in the car is not a man thing. Our daughters should know how to change the oil in our cars. That's good for them to know that. Look, our sons should know how to change the tire or flat tire. Our daughters should know how to change a flat tire. But what I'm saying is that a boy should be handed things that are part of the boy nature that's within a boy. For example, it doesn't take any instruction whatsoever. And this is a great experiment, by the way, to do at home. It's not 100% because there's curiosity within a child, but we have to direct them. But this is a good place to end. If you put in your backyard, some stuffed animals, maybe some toys, airplane, some toy guns, Barbie, GI Joe. I don't even know if there's a GI Joe anymore. I hope there is. I had them all grown up, not Barbie. I had all GI Joe's. Basketball, slingshot, mirror magnifying glass, you see what I'm saying? Put this stuff out there. Mom and dad, pull back. Let the kids go in the backyard. Watch who does what with what? Most often, most often, the boys will gravitate toward the gun automatically. The boys will automatically gravitate toward a magnifying glass, perhaps. Now, these are generalities. So watch, you might be saying, oh my gosh, I did that and my boy went straight for the doll. So he must be gay. No, he's not. Here's what you do. He goes for the doll and he looks at it and you should go to him and say, what is that? It's a doll. Who plays with the doll? I don't know. I was thinking about playing with it. What do you do with it? I don't know. Well, why don't you ask your sister or the girl next door who's in the backyard with this and this little experiment? Ask Susie if she wants to play with the doll. Susie, you want to play with this doll? You have any need for the doll? More often than not, the girl will say, that doll looks like it needs help. That doll looks like it. It's lonely. This is often how things go. This is child development. You see, you and I have been conditioned. Oh, that's so sexist. That is so gender insensitive. That's what I'll do with respect. That is the argument of lunacy. That is the woke sick mentality that violates 100% the command of scripture. If your three-year-old boy wants to wear your high heels in the house and he goes down the hallway with your high heels, you should say, hey, little jack, what are you doing? I'm playing these shoes. Well, listen, those are mine. So listen, you want to play with shoes? Put your dad's work boots on and do the same thing. Give those back to me right now. What would you just do? You just sent them a message that little boys put on big boy boots. If you don't see that plainly, then you've already been woked and whacked by a system that denies the existence of God. You've got to train up a child in the way that they should go. And if you think I'm making this up, how about this? Do you have a job at your job? You should have a job at a place that says something like, hey, Jack, you've been doing this job for six months. You're doing it good. We're going to move you on now to a new part of what this company does. You know what that's called? That's called a promotion. That's not gender insensitive. That's not being mean. They're developing you. Same as true with a child. You develop them upward and onward. And you might say, well, my daughter is very, very tomboyish. Yep. A lot of tomboyish-type girls. I think they're pretty awesome, to be honest with you. A tomboy girl is fun stuff because you know what? She's the one that you want to take out because she totally wants to go. She comes in and says, Dad, I want to go to the shooting range. I want to shoot some guns. Yeah, come on, girl. We'll show you how those things work. It's so much fun. Just prepare yourself, Dad. Women shooters are way more accurate than us guys. They have an amazing gentle squeeze on the trigger at very still hand. There's nothing wrong with that. It's fantastic. Or your son might say, I want to spend more time in the kitchen learning how to cook and bake some really awesome stuff. That doesn't mean he's gay. It means he's more like Jacob in the Bible. Jacob was a dude in the kitchen. Did you know that? He saw was the guy out in the field. It's nothing wrong with that. Just make it something that your son or your daughter is aware of the fact all along the way in life that they happen to be a female cop. That they happen to be a male cop. They happen to be a female captain of United Airlines or a male captain of United Airlines. They happen to be a female in a construction zone or a male in a construction zone. It's not wrong with that. Just teach them because the ultimate goal is to teach them about the Lord and what they experience in life should be consistent with the instruction of scripture and your child will grow up never being confused. Never being confused. I'm really curious to see the response to this podcast because I don't know where it's happening right now, but you're seeing comments being made somewhere around here and people are saying, oh my gosh, that makes sense. Look at that one right there. People are saying that guy's an idiot. People are saying things like, yeah, that's how I was raised. People are saying, I never had any parents. I wish I would have known this before. Or I've been doing it the wrong way and I'm going to change that today. Good. Bible truth is the only truth. All truth is God's truth and it has saved your life. So listen, as always, remember, hit subscribe, give us the five star, give us the thumbs up, give us the likes, tell people about this podcast share with others, but as always, it's time for us to live out what we believe in. It's time for real life, and at the Jack Hibb's podcast, living out real life is what we want to do. God bless you guys until next time. This Jack Hibb's podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, our listeners supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibb's.com to learn more and stay connected.