Free Will and kids

I read recently that God is a respecter of free will.  That brought me up short, and continues to sort of blow my mind.  Allowing us to have free will was so important to Him, that He gave us the capacity to ruin His perfect creation.  He wants us to do what is right because we choose His will over our own.  That is the graduate school of life right there.  Simple, straight forward and oh so hard in the moment.

It's one thing for me to wrestle with that in my relationship with God, but entirely another when I apply it to my relationship with my kids.  Am I a respecter of free will with my kids?  I really don't want to be.  I want them to let me make the right decisions for them.  I want to save them the wasted time and resources that come from making foolish decisions.  They know their Bibles too well, and I have taught them to see God in the stories lived out around them.  They know God can redeem terrible situations, and that it brings Him glory.  Do I trust Him?

I have spent the last several years living with a lot of rules.  A lot of you may not until you are 18 kind of rules.  As if at 18 they will suddenly have the wisdom and self control to make all the right choices.  Actually it just buys me some time, and then I can shrug and say they were 18 what was I to do?  I am to teach them what is right and what is wrong and what is a suit yourself category.  I am to tell them the stories of what God has done in the world, and what He has done in my life.  I am to love them and live out godliness before them.  And to be honest, I stink at that.  I want to control them which is not godly. I want to look good and wise and sweet and I am not.  Fortunately God has been extremely kind and allowed my experience to be a good teacher.  As we have allowed our kids more freedom to make friends outside of our school and church circles I have been able to talk them through scenarios that come up.  Funny how they are always surprised that I know how things are going to go down.  There is nothing new under the sun kids, except the Internet that allows the same gossip to fly further faster.  I have to trust that God is with my kids.

I know He is.  I know.  But when I see them post thing,s there are times my stomach turns and know I am heading up the roller coaster.  I know I need to let them figure it out and that if I say anything it will only make it worse.  When friends pick them up on the weekend I know that I may get a call that I don't want to get, but I need to let them go.  I am very, very thankful that so far they have trusted me enough to avoid the big scrapes, and realized that I had kept them out of a big mess.  They keep themselves busy with good things, like home work and jobs which minimizes opportunities to get into hot water.  This is a good life lesson.  Too much time on your hands is never good.  God gave me nine children to keep me out of trouble.  Respecting their free will is not really an option.  I can shape their will only so much, and then they have to practice using it.  Different kids have different personalities and test it in different ways.  We also have the blessing of lots of people around to learn from.  Older siblings are great guides, and mentors.  God is good.  Parenting gives me a stomach ache on many days, but I know that we are still very early in the story.  We have a lot more lessons to learn together.

I am grateful in many ways for the strange story of my life.  I am far from perfect.  I did learn some things about life that have been very helpful.  I can warn my kids of danger up ahead.  They may not slow down for every curve, and I need to trust God in all of it.  He gave them free will, He gave me free will, He loves them more than I do.  They are in His hand for better or for worse and my prayer is that they will give Him all the glory for how the story unfolds.  I want them to choose God because they know that He is, and that He loved them first.  They have to learn that for themselves, just like I did.  I want their faith to be real and solid, and that takes testing.  God gave us an incredible gift and grace enough to let us try it out.  Lord I pray that I will trust you to do for them what you did for me.