Exchanging Love for "Love"
If this is the first blog post in this series that are you reading, please consider clicking here and reading the first couple paragraphs of the first post in the series. In this series, I am not attempting to cast the first stone, but instead attempting to help myself and others avoid as much painful window replacement because we live in glass houses!
As a parent, I love my children. I also “love” them. Not knowing the difference between love and “love”. Is one of the most crucial ways we can harm our children without thinking about it. Here is what I mean:
The Bible defines love in some pretty uncomfortable terms. In the Old Testament it points to a longsuffering 
God who loves His people, but also chastens them. In the New Testament, the Scriptures continually point to Jesus as the embodiment of love. Scriptures say that God is love, and we know God the Father and have seen the Father if we know Jesus. It points to Christ, however, not just as a great friend and wonderful teacher; it points to Him as a sacrificial lamb. Most famously, John the Baptists points to Jesus as He walks by and says, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Biblical love means sacrifice. It involves the pouring out of one’s life for the beloved person. It involves risking the immediate happiness of that person in order to help them become the mature person that God is calling them to be.
Our culture tempts us to parent not in a manner that shows this sacrificial biblical love, but that really aims at a "lite" version of Aristotle’s concepts for happiness. In this post, I will call that thing “love”. Really, this one is not Aristotle’s fault. He said that every human being pursues happiness. By this he meant a full, satisfying form of habituated virtuous living. Thomas Jefferson would be a good picture of Aristotle’s happiness. He was an inventor, philosopher, exceptional dinner guest, smart dresser, obsessive architectural enthusiast, incredible gardener, and a darn good writer. He borrowed from Aristotle this concept of full-grown “happiness” and set us on a path as a nation toward having the freedom to pursue this happiness. Our culture uses the same word, but has downgraded the concept of happiness to whatever makes someone feel good right now. Too often our culture calls this feel-good-right-now-happiness “love”, but this “love” bears little resemblance to the biblical, sacrificial love that we are called show toward our children.
As parents we have to see when we are being tempted to “love” our children but not really love them. To exchange one for the other can tremendously harm our children and keep them from growing toward maturity. Here are three ways where parents are tempted toward this fallacy in our age:
1. Attempting to love without discipline
Discipline is hard. At the moment, it is unpleasant. The Bible even says this (Heb. 12:11). As parents it is so easy to want to avoid the pain of dealing with a young child who has thrown a fit or who has earned some consequence for their behavior. Avoiding the pain, however, is really refusing to love your child. This is “loving” them in a way that protects them from consequences now, but harms them in the long run. Once, one of my daughters who had earned a disciplinary consequence said, “Daddy, if you “loved”, you wouldn’t discipline me.” The answer is, of course, “No, because I love you, I have to discipline you." Failing to follow through on necessary discipline is a giant parenting temptation.
2. Failing to teach patience or delayed gratification
As a culture we have lost patience. It used to be a virtue, but now if I ever lose my wi-fi and the quick access to everything that it brings, I get irritated. This lack of patience brings another temptation: the temptation to make your child happy in the short run instead of helping them to be truly happy in the long run. There is a value in delaying gratification. Helping your child build up that “delayed gratification muscle” takes discipline and a willingness to work through pain, but it’s worth it. Rome was not built in a day, and neither can character be created in a day.
3. Refusing to let go of the steering wheel so that the child can manage their own lives and problems
Love sometimes has to let go. Wise parents start practicing letting go in small ways before they have to let go in giant ways. In today's culture, too often parents want to have control in ways that keep their child from making mistakes. Great parents love their children by coaching them through problems rather than always helping them avoid trouble. Real, biblical, love develops the skill of coaching, advising, and influencing and rejects micromanaging and manipulating.
Remember, in the 23rd Psalm the Lord promises to be with us in trials, not to keep us from them. He promises green pastures along with his faithful rod and staff to lead and guide us.
Our last post in this series, coming next, looks at helpful ways to handle sibling rivalries in order to avoid sabotaging your children's growth and maturity.
