Imagine buying a new car. It is a beautiful sight. The color is perfect. There are no scratches anywhere. It has everything you want, including the accessories. Good sound system, cruise control, automatic everything and plenty of cup holders to boot. It’s even got the “new car smell”. Mmmmm. Yummy! Then you move to look at the beauty of the engine. You know it’s gonna be good, all nice and shiny. Everything working seamlessly…oops…umm…what’s wrong here? You opened the engine and there was nothing there. It was empty. Well that’s gonna be a problem. How the heck are you gonna drive your new car if the essential part that makes it work is missing? You realize now that that car is now worthless, right? It looks great on the outside, but how can it be useful to you without the engine? In essence, the engine is the very heart of the car. It can look awesome on the outside, but if it doesn’t have an engine, or even if it has one and it’s crappy, the exterior doesn’t matter much. It would be like putting the engine of a Pinto inside the shell of a Porsche.
Just like this car illustration, our children can look great on the outside, but I ask you what does the inside–the very heart of your child look like? Beautiful, full of character and growing or black as soot? Is the heart even there? Or is it missing too? The good news is that just like the engine of a car can be re-built, so can the heart of a child. In fact I’d have to say that maybe we as parents should be thinking more about the heart of our child and start parenting from the inside out. Some of us are fortunate enough to be able to build that heart from the very beginning, but others are not so fortunate. Yet, it’s still possible. Similarly to an engine, it can be built from scratch or re-built.
Just like I have heart issues that I must wrestle with on a daily basis, so must children. They are little Sin Balls and frankly, so am I. I can hear you wondering, “What exactly is a heart issue?” Well I don’t know that I have a Webster’s Dictionary definition of it, but let’s see what I can come up with. A heart issue is something that I think goes beyond just their personality–the way their quirky personality is made. It is something that goes deeper than surface. It is an issue that I can tell is bubbling from within.
Just today I came face to face with a heart issue in one of my children. So let’s see if I give you some examples from my home, if that helps clarify my very vague definition. The issue that surfaced today was lying. Typically if a lie surfaces in our home, I can almost bet that it came from my oldest son, but today it came from my littlest one. I had been noticing lately that he will say something and then claim that he’s “just kidding.” Well, trying to define to a child the difference between a lie and joking around with someone is kind of hard so I had avoided doing anything about it–until today. You see, lying in our house is the highest offense you can make so it comes with the ultimate consequence. I have this theory that lying is at the root of most offenses so if I can nip lying in the bud, then I can alleviate a lot of other problems.
Today, I caught my littlest son red-handed in his lie. He decided to tell his oldest brother that Mommy said he had to do his “fun stuff” on the computer right now or he wouldn’t get to do it today. Of course my oldest son came to ask me about it and when I learned of his source for information, I confronted my littlest son. The bottom line for him was that my littlest one made up the lie because he really wanted to watch someone on the computer so he thought that by telling his brother that he had to do it now, he’d get what he wanted. That’s a heart issue, in fact it’s two that I need to deal with him on–lying and selfish motives.
I also have a son that is incredibly selfish. For some reason he cannot handle it when anyone wins at a game beside him. He always takes his food first. He pushes to the front of the line. He does whatever it takes, even run over the top of people, just to be first in or out of the car. Even when we go on a walk, he cannot walk or ride his scooter beside me. He has to be clearly out in front. I honestly don’t think he realizes that he does it, but his mentality is me, me, me. That’s selfishness. Another issue to work on.
Another one of my sons has a problem with his mouth. He can’t control it. He can’t seem to figure out how to not pop off with comments. In fact, I’m not sure that his mouth ever stops except when he’s sleeping. That’s an issue of self-control. I have had to deal with this over and over with him and I honestly believe it will be a life-long issue that he will deal with, but it is my job to help him be equipped to deal with it.
My daughter can be ungrateful at times. Other people have children with anger, stealing and materialistic issues. This list is obviously not exhaustive since my family does not possess all the heart issues in the world (thank goodness), but anything that goes beyond just behavior correction and can be dealt with by using Scripture to combat it, is what I would define as a heart or a character issue. There’s plenty out there and I would bet that if you really thought about it, even when your kids are little, you’d be able to put your finger on a few that are brewing in your children. Now the question is, how will you deal with it? In my next post, I’ll tell you how I’ve specifically dealt with the heart issues in our family. I’ll attempt to get you thinking about how you can build your child’s engine to match that beautiful exterior.
