A Peaceful Home

with elizabeth elliott and her daughter and son-in-law valerie and walt shepherd and their children in a gateway to joy special two-part presentation a christian home is a place where love abounds where individuals mature and where jesus christ is the most important family member it's where children discover god's love for them through the care and concern of the parents it's the place where a child's conduct is carefully molded and shaped so he or she becomes a responsible and caring individual a christian home is not a place that is free from pain and difficulty but it's a place where prayer is a high priority and where god is the problem solver if this is the kind of family you're hoping to shape then you've come to the right place to me it's a wonderful thing to watch my little granddaughter as she imitates her mother in the kitchen she wants to stand on the stool roll the pie crust knead the bread and use the knife to pair things and by allowing her child to do this a mother is cooperating with god in setting an example of godly womanhood for those children when your children are old enough to cut the apron strings what kind of lessons will they have learned by imitating you what kind of house do you keep how do you speak to your husband do you raise your voice when you talk to the children is your life an example of orderliness and peace and serenity well i can imagine the answers that many of you would be giving you would say oh how i wish that were a description of my life but it's not but i'm here to encourage you and to tell you that god wants to help you and to make your life a place of order and peace and serenity he is indeed willing to help you day by day to set the kind of example that you want to set for your children you are helping to shape the lives of those children by everything you do and everything that you say the job of a mother i believe is a high and holy calling i think of my own mother and of the things which i have tried to imitate in her life i think of the lessons that she set before us not primarily by word but by example my mother was a godly woman she was a woman of prayer she stuck to her bible she read it every day and she went by the rules she was a woman of self-discipline always neat feminine she accepted her femininity as a gift from god she believed in punctuality and i think of her as a woman of restraint we never heard our mother make a big fuss about anything she was also submissive to her husband and honored him in the way she treated him now these things were never formally explained to us when we were children not that i recall but we did understand that there was order in our home our father was the head there wasn't any question about that in our minds my mother taught us obedience she taught us respect she sang songs to us she prayed with us and she read us stories she sometimes made up stories for us and i can remember sitting in her lap yes i think i really do remember that the fact is that mother was always there for us in a world which does its best to influence all of us isn't it encouraging to know that a mother's input is still the most significant but even if you didn't have a great role model in your mother god can give you the tools you need to cultivate a strong christian family let's think a little bit about the basis for establishing a christian family i think there are three essential elements love trust and obedience now what do we mean when we talk about a christian family well it means very simply christ centered a family that is centered around christ family means a community established by god remember you parents that you have been given a divine assignment god has conferred on you authority over your children i meet young parents who are really very hazy about this they wonder if they have a right to tell their children what to do need they explain everything i remind them god made you the father god made you the mother and the father and the mother stand in the place of god for those children your word is god's word to those children now let's remember that as we do this holy work of shaping a christian family we are being cooperators with god we are participators in his work in this world and i like the expression shapers will who does what i say now i have a friend who when she was growing up was told by her father she and her brother and sister were told by their father that smoking is a sin now it doesn't say that in the bible but the children believed that it must be god's word because their father said it and they believed him and they never saw their father smoke but when they were teenagers they discovered that their father was smoking in the basement they found his can of tobacco they found his pipes and they realized that all those years that he'd been talking about smoking as a sin he had been committing that very sin in secret now what do you suppose that did to the moral fiber of those children they couldn't help wondering if everything else their father had told them was incorrect maybe he was talking out of two sides of his mouth the great question is what do they see well i saw in my parents seven day a week kind of christians not just sundays but monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday and saturday we saw a godly mother and a godly father don't get the idea that i'm saying my parents were perfect but they did set a strong and consistent example of love for god in their obedience now there's another element of love which shapes a christian family george mcdonald said that the most important thing that a father can do for his children is to love their mother and certainly by the same token the most important thing that a mother can do for her children is to love their father and there's a third thing family is a community of love and c.s lewis points out that there are some political terms such as equality and rights which are legitimate and useful in a political arena but that's not the case in a christian home there's a different law that obtains in a christian home and the law is love we need not discuss equality and rights the parents are those who make the decisions as to who gets what when and all of us have heard children saying but how come he got to do this or how come she got to do that and sometimes the answer is very simple because he's older or because this or that whatever the parent which wishes to explain we're all meant to be servants one of another love for god means sacrifice it means the offering of ourselves to each other for the love of god it's my job whether i'm the mother or one of the children to be available to serve the rest of the family and jesus says that if we love each other we should be prepared to lay down our lives for each other once love and service are in place the next step is to establish order in the home not only order which is visible but an invisible order as well [Music] as i look through my daughter's wedding album i think about the tremendous significance of marriage and how paul and his epistle to the ephesians says that it represents a great mystery the mystery of christ and the church and to me that is the basis on which the order of a christian home is established the husband is assigned to be the head of the wife as christ is head of the church it's not for any other reason that god has made the husband superior in that position i don't think very many husbands feel particularly comfortable with that role a lot of them would like to opt out but it is an assignment a divine assignment and i'm grateful for having grown up in a family in which that kind of submission was understood my mother accepted my father's headship my father accepted it as a holy trust from god whether he felt comfortable with it or not i have no idea because it wasn't discussed but the submission of a wife to her husband is our obedience to god it is our submission to god's order a christian home is based on love and trust and obedience my parents loved god they trusted him and they obeyed him of course there were failures my father apologized more than once to us children for having disciplined us too severely there were some times when my father lost his temper but when we got together for a family reunion a few years ago we talked about this and i discovered that the three younger children i happen to be number two in the family had no recollection of ever seeing our father's really fiery temper so the grace of god did go to work on him there's a sense in which to a small child the father and the mother are god that may seem startling but i think it's true the way they're treated by their father and mother the love the trust that is established and the requirement of obedience is their first taste of what it means to love and trust and obey god i'm thankful for parents who taught us in that way the lord jesus said if you love me do what i say the truly valid test of love is obedience i think it's really the only test it's one thing to sing about how much we love jesus and to talk about it and write poetry about it it's quite another thing though isn't it to daily prove our love by obedience i think sometimes he's saying to us don't tell me show me love requires also self-discipline my parents couldn't have disciplined us if they hadn't first disciplined themselves and we saw that in them we were able to trust their word because they made no empty promises or empty threats if we were naughty we knew that we would get a spanking to fail to punish an offense is really to deprive the child of his personhood in a sense because children need to learn very early that actions have consequences we trusted our parents word we knew they meant what they said and therefore it's been much easier for us to believe that god means exactly what he says many people don't have the kind of a home background that i had i would say probably most people don't i'm very privileged and very blessed and it sobers me to realize that to whomsoever much is given of him shall much be required but if you didn't have a father or you didn't have a father who exemplified the principles of god's word you can remember that your heavenly father is all that your own father wasn't our parents also gave us a strict idea of lying they taught us a high respect for truth and even a strict respect for truth they would not tolerate lying they didn't lie to us they didn't expect us to lie to them well i think on at least one occasion and only one that i can remember i lied boldly right to my mother's face you know what she did to me she hustled me out into the back shed which was a sort of a lean tube behind the kitchen where the wash tubs were and she took that old yellow bar of laundry soap which tasted absolutely horrible and she scrubbed my mouth out with a very rough washcloth and that yellow soap now as far as i can remember that was the last time i ever dared to lie to my mother i thank god for that kind of a home is that the kind you would like to establish [Music] a young woman came to me one day and told me that her whole house was absolute chaos in the morning she said i don't know what to do about it everything's out of order the breakfast is chaos the kids go to school everything is a mess i don't know where to begin well as i questioned her a little bit i discovered that the poor lady never put her clothes on until about 11 o'clock she didn't get dressed she didn't make her bed she didn't wash the dishes so i suggested something which seemed to be a very simple answer i said why don't you just try getting yourself out of bed a little earlier in the morning six o'clock seven o'clock whatever you need to do and get your clothes on so that you won't look like a wild witch for your family you might even make your bed before breakfast you might be amazed at what a difference this will make in your life i had a letter from her later she said it worked i can't tell you what a difference it's made but it was as if the idea had never crossed her mind she said wow i never thought of that well it's funny how a little simple thing may never cross our minds until somebody else suggested it one of the rules of our home was punctuality my father was a stickler for being on time because he said if you're late you're robbing someone else of his most precious commodity which is time we had to be punctual in our family because my father had a commuter train to make there was no flexibility whatsoever in the time that that train left the station we had to be at breakfast on time in order to finish on time in order to be at morning prayers after breakfast on time in order that my father could leave on time to get to the station on time and that's the way it was sometimes i used to stay with a missionary family when i was a missionary in ecuador and one evening the wife said to me supper will be at six o'clock at which point the husband just sort of rolled his eyes and he said honey why do you say that and then he looked at me and he said i don't know why she says that he says she tells us every night the supper is going to be at six o'clock it might be at 6 30 it might be 7 30 it might be 8 30 but she never gets it at 6. let's be realistic in our aims it's impossible of course for all of us all the time to be perfectly punctual things do happen but if you aim at six o'clock then let it be a reasonable aim if it's not reasonable then change it to something else so that your family has some notion of what they can count on it gives children stability and firmness neatness is another essential element i think and orderly life is something that we should aim at as much as we possibly can for example do your children get a game out play the game and then go and get another game out without putting that game away i've always tried to emphasize the fact with my grandchildren that it's a good idea to put away one set of toys the legos or the puzzles or the doll clothes before they get out the next set well it has to be line upon line line upon line precept upon precept precept upon precept that's what the prophet isaiah said neatness is an essential in the book of proverbs 25 24 it says it's better to dwell in the corner of a household than with a nagging wife and a brawling household is yours a brawling household it can be different the lord can help you with that i visited one home where things were generally in chaos there would be laundry on the sofa laundry on the coffee table dirty dishes in the sink the poor harried mother was desperately trying to feed a two-year-old who was rubbing applesauce in his hair at the same moment and just then down the stairs came the four-year-old pulling the toilet paper which he had brought from the bathroom down the hall down the stairs and into the living room at the same time several of the children were running at each other with a vacuum cleaner what do you do the poor wife she said to me i don't know what to do with these kids nobody listens to me ask the lord to help you you know my heart does go out to mothers of young children i wouldn't be doing this video if it weren't for the fact that i understand i have visited so many homes i know what it's like but i do think that the lord wants to help you if you've failed confess it to the lord and don't be afraid to tell your children that you make mistakes you're fallible you can't do it right all the time and you know it will do the children good to see that even their mother and their father have to go to the lord for wisdom they don't have all the wisdom that they wish they had i've described a peaceful breakfast and a peaceful home one of the things that my parents required of us that was that we learned to sit still it's a good healthy thing for children to learn to sit still there were four areas in which we were taught to sit still one of them was church but you're not going to be able to teach your children to sit still in church if that's the only place that they have to sit still we had to sit still at the table we were not allowed to leave our chairs without being excused we had to sit still at family prayers and in the car in those days of course there weren't any seat belts so it was a matter of life and death for us to learn to sit in our place it's quietness and stillness that will do a great deal toward bringing peace and order into into your home is there a place for everything i know how difficult it must be because many people don't have a lot of space in their homes but you do have a lot of stuff don't you we didn't have that many things when i was growing up that is certainly one of the great differences between the home in which i grew up and homes today i grew up during the depression i don't remember having more than two pairs of shoes at a time i never had more than one doll we had a few games a few little toys but when i see what my grandchildren have i understand the difficulty of finding a place for everything and putting everything in its place learn to sort out on a regular basis when you find something that you haven't used for a year try giving it away or if you're not really sure whether you should give it away because there might be another child who in a year or two would want that toy put it away somewhere else maybe in some very inaccessible place and then later on you may get it out it takes discipline when i buy a new dress i try to remind myself to get rid of something else that's in the closet so that my closet isn't so jammed that i can't remove things or get them out when i visited my grandchildren one time elizabeth met me at the door and she said by way of an announcement to the rest of the family well granny's here i guess we all have to get organized and everybody laughed but i discovered that they kind of enjoy getting organized and little evangeline who was only four years old wanted me to help her organize her drawers i was delighted and so we began with the drawer that was full of t-shirts and they were all just like this just a jumble so we dumped them all out on the floor and i said okay now we're going to learn to fold t-shirts lay them like this face down on the bed and then you take this sleeve and fold it over this way this sleeve and fold it over this way then fold fold it in half and then roll now can you do that and evangelion looked up at me with her big blue eyes and that sweet angelic face and she said i think so and so she put the t-shirt on the bed but she put it back down instead of front down i said no this is the front evangeline put this down on the bed first fold this side over and this side over that's right and fold this up in half now roll and so she started to roll with her little hands it wasn't quite tight enough i said tighter of angela she learned to roll them tightly then we put them into a shoe box t-shirts were small enough so that they fit very neatly into a shoebox when she opened the drawer there was a shoe box and she could see every single t-shirt little things like that help one little story comes to mind about my mother's rules we always teased her because she was much stricter with the three of us older ones than she was with the younger ones we sort of had three sets of children in our family there was my brother phil and then me and then dave and then a gap of five years six years i guess it was yes a gap of six years and then my sister came along and then very quickly after that my brother tom and then it was a gap of five years so my parents said to us you know you do get tired when you get older and maybe we were easier on the children and one of the things that tommy was allowed to do tommy was next to the youngest we were never allowed to do but he loved to take the paper bags out of the kitchen drawer and spread them all around the kitchen and from tommy's birth i think he had a really neat streak in him and he would place those paper bags very neatly all over the kitchen floor my mother allowed that on one condition when you finish with the paper bags tommy they have to go back in the drawer one day she came to the kitchen the paper bags were spread around in the usual fashion tommy wasn't there she found him standing in the living room where my father was playing the piano she said tommy i want you to come put the paper bags away and he looked up at her with those gorgeous dark blue eyes of his with great flashing lashes and the smile of the most seraphic sweetness and he said but i want to sing jesus loves me well my father took the opportunity to point out that it's no good praising the lord if you're being disobedient to your mother to obey is better than sacrifice i guess we should never underestimate a child's ability to try and outsmart his parents even the youngest children can give a mother and father a run for their money [Music] i'd like to talk this time about behavior training the will of a child and teaching him to work three very important elements in shaping a christian family behavior the training of the will and work i had a very enlightening experience a year or so ago when a young couple asked me if i would be willing to meet them in a restaurant for a meal so that we could talk about child training they had an 18 month old son that they didn't know how to control and they said they didn't come from christian families either one of them and they were at a loss as to what to do i was delighted with the invitation i'm always eager to do anything that i can to help young parents in this predicament but i must confess that i was taken aback when the couple arrived in the restaurant with the child it had been my hope that they would leave him at home with a babysitter so that we could have uninterrupted adult conversation my heart sank when i overheard the wife say to the husband oh don't tell me they haven't got a high chair with a tray attached it's one of those chairs that goes right at the table he's going to be all over that table well it was a fulfilled prophecy he had not been at the table more than about a minute and a half i suppose before he reached all the way over for his mother's fork and he picked up the fork and the mother quietly took the fork out of his hand and put it down again then the little boy reached across the plate for the knife and she took the knife out of his hand and put it down again then he reached for the spoon she took the spoon out of his hand and put it down again not once did either the mother or the father speak to directly to the child nobody said no if a child has reached the age of 18 months without hearing that word no there's trouble it was obvious to me that those parents had never established verbal authority it's the most important thing in training a child establishing verbal authority i once took a dog through obedience school that was the principle on which the whole training program was based verbal authority well when the child finally got bored with all of that then he reached for the glass of water the mother took the glass of water out of his hand and finally in desperation she called the waitress and she said could you please bring a glass of milk and some crackers for this child so we can keep him quiet so of course the glass of milk and the crackers arrived but that didn't occupy him for very long where was he to turn next for his recreation well he looked over here to his left and very slowly that little hand reached over for my spoon now i want to make it very clear this little child had never laid eyes on me before he didn't know who i was but he didn't know what he was up against you know what i did i just lowered my head a little bit and i looked him straight in the eye and i said jeremy no and that little boy just went what did that say about what that little boy understood you know parents your children understand far more than you think they do you don't give them credit they're always way ahead of us that little boy never having seen me before recognized the voice of authority i spoke to him in a quiet tone i spoke his name and i just said one word no i was hoping the parents would get the message as far as i could tell they didn't get the message all through the meal they were talking with me asking me questions we were trying to have uninterrupted conversation but every now and then the mother would have to remove something from this little boy's hand toward the end of the meal after the dessert i could see that little boy's eyes go to me and pretty soon that little hand just began to move very surreptitiously toward my spoon again you know what i did this time i didn't say a word i just looked him in the eye and that little boy turned away with a pout verbal authority you will save yourself infinite pains infinite frustrations and impatience and the possibility of getting angry i can understand why parents get angry if they repeat commands over and over and over again and they think that the child who is obedient was born a good child they think they just got bad kids well that's not the case there are four simple principles very simple principles number one speak the child's name it's very unfair to just shout a command of the child who may be very occupied with what he's doing if he's pulling the books out of the bookcase or something like that just speak his name he turns around you establish eye contact you speak in a normal tone of voice not baby talk children don't make up baby talk by themselves you know they're taught baby talk by foolish adults and the fourth principle you speak once when you repeat yourself then you are training the child not to obey that child's obedience has got to be based on verbal authority if if the child knows that you're going to repeat commands three or four or six or ten times until you're probably raising your voice you're losing control you have trained the child but he need not pay any attention the first time he need not pay attention to the ordinary tone of voice you begin screaming you don't realize it and you get angry that i think is probably one of the reasons for child abuse parents get so impatient they lose control of themselves and that's dangerous because then the child is likely to be abused so these were very simple principles i established eye contact by calling the little boy's name i just spoke his name in a normal tone of voice i spoke once and he understood he got the message now some of you are saying well i've made a whole lot of mistakes it's too late now what am i supposed to do my child is not 18 months he's three years old or he's six years old or he's eight years old he never listens to anything i say unless i scream at him you know you can start over you can just say to that child your mama has learned something that may be a big shock to your child that you can learn something but you can say we've been making some mistakes and we're going to do it differently from now on i'm going to speak once and i will expect you to obey me you know it's amazing how wonderfully children live up to parents expectations if you expect your children to act like little devils when you go into the grocery store they will act like little devils if you expect them to be out of control when you go visiting in somebody else's house they will be out of control the control has to be established verbally at home so never don't hesitate to apologize to that child don't hesitate to say we've made some mistakes and we need to start over but be consistent be very careful what you make issues out of if you make issues out of everything it's impossible to carry through every time think and pray in advance about the things that really matter discuss them with your husband with your wife ask the lord to show you what are the things that really are important unselfishness respect teaching the way they treat their brothers and sisters picking up their things whatever the things are that are very important and that need to be done every day those are the things to make issues out of and then when you make an issue you must carry through and there has to be punishment i had a letter from a mother who asked me what i thought was a very strange question she said i have three daughters and one son well my son is the oldest he's 11 years old and i've asked him to wash the dishes and he says mom that's girl's work why do i have to wash dishes she wrote to me to say i don't really think that it only should be girl's work i feel pretty strongly that my son ought to learn to wash dishes but i'm not sure why can you give me a good reason to give him and i thought there's a very simple reason just tell him you're a member of this family we serve each other i cook the meal you're going to wash the dishes sometimes or you can wash the dishes with your sister he doesn't need any more of a reason than that you ask him to do it because it is a legitimate and reasonable request that has to do with the good of the whole family so authority obviously the parents who are bullied by their teenagers have not established it early enough may god help us to do his will to bring up our children according to his word and you know the bible says that the father who does not discipline his son hates his child shaping conduct can seem like a big challenge but what if you're also dealing with a strong-willed child i'd like to talk a little bit about the subject of what is called the strong-willed child young parents often say to me well i got a really strong-willed child and i ask what do you mean by that well he wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it he doesn't want to do what i want him to do and i say well what else is new i don't think that that is a very accurate term to use according to the description that the parents have given me that describes a stubborn child a rebellious child a willful child not a strong-willed child i believe that the definition of strength of will is the ability to will against oneself that is the highest thing of which a human being is capable and it is the solemn responsibility of parents to teach their children to will against themselves not to be self-indulgent not to cater to every whim it's a tough job isn't it and again it's a job with which the lord will certainly help you but basically we're all rebels when we're born that that's just the truth about all of us isn't it so we need to teach the children that there are times when we will withhold things from them that they want someone has said that one of god's greatest mercies is his refusals a wise father will say no to the child that wants two popsicles just before supper why can't he have two popsicles the father has wisdom it's not good for him you don't need to explain all the reasons you just say no when a child is old enough perhaps there are times to explain your reasons but don't always feel obligated to explain them i like the poster that i saw of a mother hen with a flock of little chicks the legend on the poster is because i'm the mama that's why that ought to be enough of a reason well this business of giving your child what is good for them withholding from your child what is not good for them it takes discipline on the part of the parents self-discipline if you haven't taught your children to will against themselves before they reach teenage you're going to have a tougher job a much tougher job i recommend that you start when the child is very young i once saw a television program the subject of which really captured my imagination it was parents who are bullied by their teenagers i thought what bullied by their teenagers one woman on the panel said if i ask my son to take out the garbage he's 16 years old and he will look me in the eye and he will say i will take out the garbage when i want to well i was just tickled to death when a woman in the audience jumped to her feet and she said if my son said that to me he would be wearing that garbage well of course that brought down the house but there are going to be some real clashes aren't there between a godly parent and a willful child and my mother tells the story of her first real showdown with her first child my mother had six and the oldest was my brother phil we lived in belgium at the time that's where i was born my parents were missionaries for a while and phil was about two years old and he was in his high chair and he had finished everything in his lunch except his milk he hadn't drunk his milk so mother was doing her things there in the kitchen and phil sat in the high chair suddenly a little voice piped up and he said want to get down and so mother said as soon as you finish your milk phil you may get down and she continued her dishwashing pretty soon another little voice want to get down she looked at the cup cup was still full phil when you drink your milk you may get down and that little child was not old enough to say all of those things but he understood every word she said i don't know how long this went on as i recall it was probably at least an hour that this was repeated want to get down you may get down when you finish your milk want to get down then mother heard the rattle of the dog cart coming down the street the milkman had a dog cart pulled by two huge belgian bouvier dogs and mother had to go down with her pictures and he would dip out the amount of milk that she wanted from the cans and phil just loved to go down and meet the milkman he loved to see those big dogs and so when the cart came rattling down the cobblestone street down went the milk but you know that little boy was perfectly aware of what his mother was telling him and he knew that there was no chance that he was going to see the dog cart that day if he didn't drink that milk first years later when phil was in the army during world war ii in italy he wrote a letter to my parents and he said thank you for teaching the obedience it has been so much easier for me to obey my commanding officers in the army than it has been for many of my fellow soldiers spend a lot of time being punished because of disobedience thank you for being consistent in teaching us obedience i remember very well when my daughter valerie learned to crawl i think that's the crucial age at which you must establish verbal authority because that's the age at which the child can do real damage not only to your property but to himself he can get into things he might get into poisons under the sink he might get into other things that he's not supposed to touch whatever be sure to establish verbal authority now we lived in the jungle of ecuador at that time and we didn't have very many precious things the most precious possessions that jim and i had were books and we did not want that little child messing with our books one day we were sitting in the living room valerie was crawling around on the floor and her eye went to that bookcase and she started to make a beeline across that floor toward the bookcase and jim spoke her name valerie she turned around and looked over her shoulder with a very mischievous and i felt defiant look and he said no and she quick as a wink went straight to the bookcase pulled a book out of there and tore a page and looked back with that same defiant look she understood us she disobeyed she got a spanking as far as i can remember that was the first spanking she ever had and it was the last one she ever got from her father because he died about two months later but it was a lesson that stuck and she never pulled a book out of that bookcase again but she did test us don't be surprised if your children test every line you ever draw my father always said wherever the line is drawn is where the battle will be drawn up if you move the line you gain nothing that too is where the battle will be drawn up so the next day or the day after again we were sitting in the living room and again valerie was watching us with a mischievous bleem in her eye and she started across the floor toward that bookcase all we had to do that time was look at her here she was looking at us with that defiant look over her shoulder and she just crawled away as if she had no intention whatsoever of touching those books and she never touched them again now let me go over the four principles which are so clearly illustrated in this little story number one jim spoke her name he was sure he had her attention she turned when he spoke her name and he established eye contact principle number two number three he gave a command the word no in a normal tone of voice now when you speak in a special tone of voice baby talk or a shrill or a loud tone of voice you are conditioning the child not to listen to any other tone of voice speak in a normal tone of voice and give a simple command and i think the first two commands that a child needs to learn are know and come so the fourth principle was speak only once if you repeat the command you are training the child not to obey the first time i think one of the silliest things that i see parents do is give a child a countdown 10 9 8 and that child has been trained to know that he does not need to obey until the father gets down to two or one or perhaps the father is in the habit of raising his voice and repeating commands that conditions the child to know that he doesn't need to bother until dad starts to yell terrible habit to get into and you know you're going to save yourselves infinite pains and frustration and impatience when you establish verbal authority another thing that i remember very clearly from my childhood is that delayed obedience was treated as disobedience my mother would give us a command and if we dilly dallied around then we were going to get the consequences it wasn't good enough when we saw our mother going to get the consequences it wasn't enough for us to say oh i was just going to no delayed obedience was treated like disobedience this concludes part one of a peaceful home the balance of this presentation continues on tape two and features the shaping of the will through discipline a special question and answer session with valerie on hints on child training developing a work ethic and shaping a family's prayer life please view that tape when you're ready it and the shepherd family the following is a special musical tribute to the family by steve green then you'll hear elizabeth elliot's view on how to discipline your child effectively while you may not share her specific method it's an effective means of training when used within carefully defined guidelines to each other by his will and from our hearts we will be a family in a house that will be a home and with faith we'll build it strong we'll build a house that together we can make and when the strong winds blow it won't fall down as one in him will grow and the whole world will know we are a household of faith how to be a family we've got to love each other at any cost unselfishly and our home must be a place [Music] it won't fall down [Music] we are a household of faith it won't fall down [Music] we are a household [Music] now i know it's very important in this day and age to define what we mean by spanking i am not talking about child abuse child abuse is wicked it is a sin it is something for which you will have to answer to god now what is a spanking exactly a spanking is a measure of pain inflicted on a disobedient child who understands that he has been disobedient and never underestimate the understanding of your child they're usually way ahead of what you think it is a measure of pain inflicted on a child who has been disobedient and the pain is inflicted by a mother or father who is in control of himself and that's very important now my mother's method of spanking was a little 18-inch rod that she called a switch it came from a bush in the backyard and more than once we children were subjected to the great indignity of having to go out and pick a new rod because one of them had been broken on somebody's little bare legs now mother never slapped us she never used a rod on anything but a bare bottom or little bare legs it stings but it will never do any harm there is no danger of any serious injury but you have to make the child cry a little child understands that language he understands it very clearly now my authority for this is not just my mother the bible speaks of using a rod in the book of proverbs the rod is mentioned i think four or five or maybe six times there are many instructions in god's word it says in there that the father who fails to discipline his son hates him the world would put it the other way around wouldn't they the world would say a parent who spanks his child hates him that's abuse and we get scared to death we get all twitchy and worried and thinking that we're talking about child abuse i hope i've made it clear they are poles apart the one is a parent who is not in control of himself he has not made it clear what that child is to do he has established a pattern of repeating or yelling or violence of some sort a spanking is administered by a calm controlled parent who has taught the child that he is not to do that thing and the child's sense of justice is violated if he is not punished when he knows as well as you do that he was being dis disobedient [Music] one more verse i want to give you from the book of proverbs train up a child in the way he should go and when he's old he will not depart from it you can trust god to help you with the discipline of your children don't forget verbal authority from time to time elizabeth invites her daughter valerie shepard to discuss various subjects on the radio program gateway to joy valerie has had to put parenting lessons to use eight times already in her home let's hear what she's learned val i know that you're a full-time mother probably because you feel it's very important that you should be home with your children as much as possible there are a lot of women who are uncertain about whether it's a good idea to be a full-time mother and i think one of their fears is that they won't be fulfilled what would you say to them well i feel fulfilled in staying at home and taking care of my children but my time for myself is early morning before everybody wakes up that's when i may read my bible or i may pray or i may take a walk with our dog or i may work at my desk or on saturday mornings my husband and i go out for a date so i love that early morning time and that's my special time alone with the lord and the fulfillment comes from just being able to take care of what needs to be taken care of every day i'm sure that that quiet time is like a well it's the source of peace and serenity and order now one of the things that can certainly destroy the order of a home is a child who throws temper tantrums have you ever had a child like that yes i've had several and what do you do with them well i don't think the screaming and the kicking should be allowed so first i spank and then if they continue to scream i take them into another room usually the bathroom or the laundry room and i tell them they have to stay there until they're ready to be quiet and cheerful and then they come back out sometimes the screaming goes on in that room so that i can tell they need to be spanked again because i don't think they need to keep on screaming and i tell them they may cry quietly then they can come back out it doesn't always work perfectly but as long as they know that the throwing the temper is not allowed crying quietly sounds like an impossibility but i remember reading that susanna wesley who had how many children was it 19 just 10 of them lived i had 19 children 10 of whom lived but it is said that she never permitted loud crying and i often wish that she had put in detail just exactly what she did about that but my mother took the view that if a child doesn't have an audience no temper tantrum is likely to last very long and she always had a little sort of a was actually cupboard that she called the crying room and a child would be sequestered in the quiet crying room and she would say we don't want to see you until you find a happy face so when a child doesn't comply or if a child doesn't comply with what you've told him to do what next do you do you have to you do have to make it perfectly clear what you're expecting of a child isn't that basic okay yes and if he disobeys then what then spankings are in order um i've had sometimes when my son theo who's a toddler when he was learning to eat he refused to eat something and i knew that he needed to eat i knew that he hadn't had snacks and he was hungry and he threw a fit one time in the high chair because he wouldn't eat what i was planning to feed him and so i took him out of his high chair and put him over on the couch and said you may not come back to the table and eat until you're ready to eat what mama has to give you and i don't remember whether i had to spank him at that point or not but it took several times of coming back to the high chair sitting there and refusing to eat and i took him back to the couch and saying you have to stay there until you're ready to eat i remember that actually val i was there at the time and i was very impressed with the way you maintained a calm and cool attitude toward him and i can still see you just setting him down quietly on the sofa and i think you knelt down in front of him and just looked him straight in the eye and you said theo you may not scream and you must eat your lunch and it did take several attempts as i recall but then there are a lot of people who have children way past what i would think of a spanking age what do you do with them i don't think i've had to spank after the age of nine or ten and then at that age the best punishment i think is taking away a privilege making them go to bed earlier than they expected to or finding them or behavior certain behavior finding them uh-huh they have to pay money out of their earnings or out of their allowance can you give me an example of how much you might charge for a given offense i think i've only had to do it with jim who's my 10 year old for being angry at his sister for yelling at him at her or just being disrespectful i find him 50 cents it's only happened a couple of times of course he doesn't want to lose his money he got the message when a child is it has been taught how to make his bed and taught that he must pick up his clothes and put away his toys and that sort of thing do you continually have to check up to see whether they've done that and if so how many years would you continue checking up on them well that's a hard one because i i still am checking up on them but i don't think i should be checking up on them my my seven-year-old or the girl that just turned eight colleen and evangeline are the ones that forget that they're supposed to be doing their chores they're getting into playing before they finish their chores so when my oldest son is at home my son walter is 17 i have him check and he's the supervisor of all the chores so he's the one to make sure that they're getting them done and that they get done if he's not at home because he's gone to school then i may assign one of the older girls to do it but i i do check on them and because i don't want to start school or let them start playing until the chores that they're supposed to have done are done this whole idea of being a teenager to me it seems as though it's a very it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy if you talk about how awful the teenage years are then the prophecy is likely to be fulfilled and i remember when you were about 10 or 11 i was talking with another mother and she said to me uh what kind of relationship do you have with valerie something like that and i i couldn't say anything but that it seemed to me like a perfectly wonderful daughter-mother relationship i mean i can't remember that you and i had any very serious conflicts and she just looked at me and she just rolled her eyes she said well just wait till she gets to her teenages teenage and i said and what will happen oh she'll go she'll just go silent and you won't have any more communication with her well i'm still waiting it's never happened it depends on the child i've had one that has gotten quieter in his teen years but he hasn't gotten more rebellious and my husband really helped me when our children were young he said we're going to raise our children in faith that they will be happy and respectful teenagers we're not going to raise them in fear that they're going to be awful and that helped me to get my mind straight about not being worried and anxious about those years when i began to see my oldest one withdrawing a little bit at the age of 11 or 12 becoming a little more negative but not being disrespectful to us i began to get pretty anxious and and my husband again helped me by saying we have to give that anxiety up and we have to trust and hope in the lord that the lord will work in his heart so far we haven't had any trouble with rebellion we have good relationships with our teenagers and we're very thankful for it but i think it has to begin when they're very young you have to establish that you're in authority and of course as they get older they do get privileges that the younger ones will fuss and foam about but the older ones get to do this and they're not getting to do this but i just tell them that's because they're older they get to do certain things i think that's so important kids are always saying well that's not fair you know he gets to do this or that and there's some very significant differences that are connected to age if you get to do this it may be because you're 16 and not 14 and i think children need to be taught that very clearly now let's talk about home schooling would you tell us why you home school the main reason we home school is to develop good character character qualities in our children because when they go to a regular school even if it's a christian school a public school a private school there is so little time for working on those qualities they have they have to go to school for the major part of the day and then they have homework and then they eat and then they have more homework and they go to bed or they might have a sports activity there's so much time taken up with that that i've felt very strongly that they need to stay at home in order to work on perseverance or in order even to have time for reflection time to think time to enjoy a good book so we've enjoyed having them at home it hasn't been because of terrible schools that we've kept them at home it's mainly just that we want time more time with our children we want them to have more time to to enjoy life now that you've mentioned giving them time to think could you tell us about this quiet hour that you've instituted after lunch we have a quiet time and for the younger ones that means taking a nap that means usually under the five-year-old the young the children under five for the children that are older than five they just have to play by themselves quietly and i'm constantly challenged on this because my colleen and evangeline want to play together and they'll say can't we just play quietly and i'll say no you need time by yourself and it doesn't necessarily i mean i can't make them think sit on their bed and think i can't make them reflect but i do believe if they just spend time alone that eventually time for thinking will will become part of that quiet time i think that solitude and silence are two commodities that are very rare today and very few adults know how to spend quiet time everybody's got to have noise everybody has to be entertained and amused and i think there's a book out called amusing ourselves to death i haven't read it but it sounds like a good title another very important area which i think you and walt seems to seem to be doing a pretty good job on is teaching your children to work your children do a lot of work around the house don't they mean they have to when do they start at what age do they start or what time of the day do they start what age they start working at toddlerhood my theo is two years old and he has started to emptying the trash cans he usually has an older brother or sister to help him and he's just learning to make his bed with me or an older brother and sister he has to put away his toys he actually enjoys doing that he hasn't gotten to the point they do get to an age three or four i guess when they start to realize that everybody else complains about chores and they don't want to do them either but they should start early because that's when they enjoy them and that's when they get into the habit of doing chores and if a child doesn't do his own chore do you do it for him i've been found to do it for them but i shouldn't i know that there are times when a child has gone to some activity and i've found something that didn't get done but it had to be done so i've had to do it but i've had to explain to them when they come back that they were supposed to have done that chore but i usually i find myself thinking now who was supposed to do that job when i see it and then i'll go and find that person and say you didn't do this you need to finish it now it seems to me you used to have a schedule on the refrigerator do you think i do have a chore chart yes and i remember seeing jim at the age of seven vacuuming the whole downstairs yes is that when he started at seven or did you start four or five no i'm pushing the back i think seven six or seven maybe at six they would do a small vacuuming job but seven and eight they can start do the whole living room or the whole family room or they clean toilets and they clean bathrooms and yeah because we have so many in our house we have to come clean almost everything every day almost everything every day of course the living room doesn't have to be vacuumed daily but the family room needs to be vacuumed daily so i have every everyone taking turns on different days the family room gets vacuumed the foyer gets dusted the foyer gets vacuumed every day because of the dirt that comes in and they clean their own bathroom so the only jobs that i'm really in charge of are big monthly jobs refrigerator needs to be cleaned or i may have one of my daughters clean the refrigerator or my own room i dust my own room and clean my own bathroom and when you get one of the girls to do the refrigerator do you pay them are there any jobs for which they get paid actually i haven't paid my older girls to do a job like that but my seven-year-old my excuse me my eight-year-old colleen will offer to clean the refrigerator for pay and she calls that a pay job and so i have let her do that i usually haven't paid her more than 50 cents for a job like that can she manage to get everything out of the refrigerator and clean the shower what i usually have her do is do one shelf at a time and she's done a pretty good job yeah that's great so with this your children do some of your children work out of the house house right yeah my three oldest ones have babysitting jobs and sometimes house cleaning jobs and so i don't give them allowances what do they do with their money well they have to save some they have to have a spending they of course they have a wallet and they have to have tithe and they also have a savings account in the bank and they have to put pretty regularly i make them put money into their savings account and they're allowed to take it out if they have a big purchase that they think they have to do make or for christmas gifts i've gotten these ideas from ron blue's book parents teaching their children how to handle money now you mentioned the word tithe you must have made it very clear to your children what that means and you and walt set the example what does it mean briefly it means that they have to give 10 of whatever they have each week and uh my oldest ones will divide it up for the month what they've got for the month or what they plan to have earned for the month and the younger ones that just have a small allowance and so evangeline who is five she gets two dollars a month for her allowance so she has to put in 20 cents a month but divide it up over the sundays and i used to want to just do one check a month for our tithe and my husband says no we need to do it weekly so we put in a check each week for our tithe so the children see it done regularly well i'm sure that a grandmother's view is hardly worth anything you know but my opinion is that you and walt are doing a good faithful job with your children but i know that people are going to be saying well elizabeth elliot she makes her daughter valerie sound absolutely perfect everything runs like clockwork oh it doesn't i know that and you know that but i am sure that you have wisdom that a lot of people will welcome and i'm so glad that we're able to have this time thank you i'm glad to be here with you i think of work as a gift from god it really is a wonderful gift and i think of many tough times in my life when it was physical work that enabled me to get through one of the maxims of my life is do the next thing it's inscribed i'm told in an old english parsonage down by the sea and my mother gave me that rule many many years ago i've given it to valerie and i couldn't tell you how many people have written to me to say that that has changed their lives a very very simple rule do the next thing when you just are totally at a loss what shall i do next you want to sink into a pile of self-pity do the next thing get up bake a cake make the beds do the laundry just ordinary physical work another thing that we need to learn is to love it i do love the work that god has given me and i have to confess that i really love housework now that makes me some kind of freak in this day and age doesn't it but housework is part of my job and a lot of my job involves sitting at a desk and trying to write something i never know what the results are going to be when i sit down to write something but when i go to clean a toilet i know exactly what to do i know exactly how to do it i know how long it's going to take me and what the results will be i don't know any of those things when i try to write a book or a newsletter or just a letter but i'm very grateful for all the different kinds of work that the lord has given me and i'm very thankful to my mother that she taught us children to love work she said if you can't do what you like then like what you do and that's a rule for life too lots of people don't have the job that they would choose if they had an array of options but how about just learning to like what you do my mother also taught us to do things quickly there are a lot of things that one has to do every day you have to get yourself out of bed you have to put your clothes on so that you look semi-civilized at some point you have to make your bed hang up your clothes the things that have to be done every day why not just learn to do them quickly then you have time for other things another thing cheerfully do your work cheerfully and valerie has told me that she can get her children to do the work that they are assigned around the house but she said it is the hardest lesson to get them to do it without whining and i agree that that is a tough question how do you get your children to work cheerfully the most important answer to that is show them the example if you hate your work if you're a thank god it's friday kind of a person or a blue monday kind of a person you're giving your children a very loud clear message that you really hate work too and that work is just in this necessary evil and we live for the weekends it doesn't seem to me that that really is a christian attitude now when teenagers reach the point where they want to do their own thing and they don't want to go by the rules of the house it's important to review that this is our house this is our family you know what the rules of the house are and as long as you're prepared to comply with those rules you are welcome under this roof but when a teenager becomes so rebellious and refusing absolutely to comply then that teenager is choosing to take himself out of the shelter and protection of his parents authority that's a very dangerous thing to do but we know teenagers that do that don't we and when you've tried all other methods and they absolutely refuse to go by the rules of the house then perhaps it's time to make it clear to them that they must find another roof again god will give you wisdom in dealing with that child and show you what the best thing is to do i think it's important that we demand responsibility we must demand responsibility if they don't learn it at home what sort of a work person will they be in the work world and what sort of homes will they have and what about their teaching their children some references that you might want to look up along these lines are second thessalonians 3 10 that tells us that we should learn to be quiet to work with our hands and to mind our own business it's a good thing for all of us to learn to work with our hands even if our major job may be an intellectual one we do need to learn to work with our hands and then in john 13 we have that beautiful chapter that describes jesus humble serving attitude he accepted the place of the lowest slave in an eastern household and got down on his knees and washed the dirty feet of his disciples and he said if i your lord and master wash your feet then you must wash one another's feet as we hold forth new responsibilities for our children god does the same for us with a loving challenge to set our sights on things above that's what the bible says and you know my father did that he talked about those things and one of the times that he would talk about them with us would be on saturday afternoons now saturday mornings of course in our house were given to work we two girls did cooking and cleaning and laundry and baking and things like that i love to bake and my brothers would work outside with my father mowing the lawn shoveling snow whatever needed to be done and in our home if we would complain about the rules or said to our parents why do we have to do this why do we have to do that or what why can't we do what everybody else does they would sometimes just take us back to the scriptures and say look this is what god says about this and that's why we want to do it they were not moved by arguments about everybody else is doing it they just said fine that's their business but we don't do that because we're christians or we do this because this is what god says my father took the view that if my mother was responsible for three physical meals per day for her children he was responsible for spiritual meals he knew that he was assigned to be the priest in the home every morning he got up very early in order to have time to pray for his children every morning after breakfast he herded us all into the living room we sang a hymn together we listened to my father read the bible and we got down on our knees and prayed now there's one thing that's very important if you have family devotions i would suggest that it's a good idea to use just one translated translation of the bible because your children will memorize without effort if they hear the same words read over and over again we heard the king james bible read every day at home every sunday in church and yes five days a week believe it or not it was read in public schools my mother kept a little red notebook beside her bible and in the first page of that little red notebook she copied out the verse from first chronicles 29 19. mother used to tuck us into bed at night and always would sing to us that lovely little children's hymn jesus tender shepherd hear me bless thy little lamb tonight through the darkness be thou near me keep me safe till morning light all this day thy hand hath led me and i thank thee for thy care thou hast warmed me clothed me fed me listened to my evening prayer mother had her own private devotional time after breakfast when we had left for school and my father had gone to the commuter train for philadelphia are you that kind of a mother are there times when you just feel as if you can't go on there's a side of you that says i was never cut out for the job of a mother i don't know whatever gave me the idea that i could do this i can't do it it's too big a job for me i'm confused my mind's in a tangle i can't get out i feel trapped and helpless i'm desperate when that happens may i suggest that you just go and kneel and ask god to vanquish those demons of discouragement and give you the strength to cooperate with him for these little people that he has given you you know god has never given anyone a job to do which he would not also enable them to do amy carmichael that irish missionary to india wrote for her children this prayer father hear us we are praying hear the words our hearts are saying we are praying for our children keep them from the powers of evil from the secret hidden peril from the whirlpool that would suck them from the treacherous quicksand pluck them through life's troubled waters steer them through life's bitter battle cheer them father father be thou near them from the worldlings hollow gladness from the sting of faithless sadness holy father save our children and wherever they may bide lead them home at even tide teach your children to pray first by setting the example praying with them and for them and you know you can teach a young child a very young child who is only beginning to speak four simple prayers the first one is thank you lord thank you god for this food for the sunshine for mama daddy for my bed for a nice bath then bless mama bless daddy bless susie and johnny and then the third prayer is help me lord to be obedient to mama and daddy help me to do what i need to do and then a prayer that every child needs to learn and every one of us you and i need to remember is to say again and again i'm sorry lord forgive me i did something wrong set the example of prayer for your child when special needs arise during the day you're showing the child then by example that it is god who is in charge of this home he is the one who gives you wisdom you don't know all the answers you trust him he's always ready to hear our prayers a mother's prayer life is the very foundation of a strong christian home set the example and then teach your child to pray do you pray with your children you fathers you mothers do you pray with them separately on an individual basis if a child comes to you with a question or a problem that you just don't know the answer to do you put your arms around that child and say let's ask the lord what to do prayer nurture and admonition and let me emphasize how important i think hymns are as i mentioned we sang a hymn every morning after breakfast and we learned theology through the great hymns of the church i'm not speaking now of choruses or praise songs but the old hymns that teach theology one of my favorites was beneath the cross of jesus i feign would take my stand the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land we need all the help we can get don't we in articulating spiritual things we can find lots of help in the prayers of the bible and the apostle paul wrote wonderful prayers in the epistles you can look them up and also in the great hymns of the church it's amazing how many hymns are prayers so get your hands on a good hymnbook if you can you might find one in a library or maybe even in the church basement and you will be amazed at how much you can learn very effortlessly by singing these old hymns family prayer i believe is an irreplaceable and fundamental element in educating children to pray pray as a family and why not just get down on your knees maybe you don't do that in your church but you can do that at home i find it very moving to see a family together in the living room everyone on their knees and it's a good idea to do as my parents did have it in one place at the same time every day if you possibly can and if you can't do it every day maybe you can arrange to do it twice a week three times a week but do it ask god to show you how to do it what needs to be rearranged in your family schedule and if you've never even thought of doing it before you can say to your children today look we've learned something we are going to start doing this today it's encouraging to know that each day can be a new beginning start by building the foundation of the family with love trust and obedience then teach your children submission and respect by your own example toward god and your husband after that let the physical orderliness of your home be the focus all the while you'll be shaping your child's conduct will and work ethic and then finally be committed to being a woman of prayer teach your children to pray and be a family of prayer if you've enjoyed this presentation of a peaceful home then we'd like to invite you to join elizabeth elliott each weekday for her 15-minute radio program gateway to joy if you're looking for additional information related to both family and home here are a few other gateway to joy resources [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation

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Length: 91min 41sec (5501 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020