The Whole Truth
By Jasmine Wilson
I feel like I woke up one morning and found myself smack in the middle of a war called “Raising My Teens” and in order to survive I had to rummage around for a weapon like a Fortnite character in Battle Royale.
It took me a minute to get my bearings and fight to keep my head above the mire. And while the battle is still raging one thing I have learned is that teens provide opportunities for speaking truth. They are in a time of life where they are learning to think, trying to figure out what they believe, and making good and bad choices. It's the perfect environment to plant some truth and walk with them as they mull it over in their developing minds - seeking to apply it to their lives.
This “planting of truth and walking with them as they mull it over and apply it” is what is better known as ministering to and discipling teens. The reality of life lived with teens is that caring for them in mind and spirit looks nothing like a plan with measured results, or sophistication.
There is very little time in my household where we are reading a devotional together and discussing a specific element of the gospel. Most of our truth conversations are happening at the spur of the moment as we discuss a current event, in reaction to a behavioral issue, in just talking about our day, or in the fallout of a tremendous lapse in judgment. We have unintentionally become a Deuteronomy 6:7 household as we have found ourselves speaking truth when we are quite literally sitting in our house, walking by the way, lying down, or when we are rising.
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
-Deuteronomy 6:7
I am learning to adjust to the gap between what I wanted to see happen and what is actually happening. I have come to embrace the discipleship opportunity before me and treasure it as good and necessary for my teens. If I'm honest, though, my mind’s ideals haunt me and tell me I am not doing what I should. I feel like I should be buying books, and should throw a bible-reading-plan and a multitude of church activity sign-ups and class attendance into the mix as well. So, when I question my reality and start to feel accusations of failure formulate in my heart and anxious thoughts take root, I remind myself of some strategies I have learned to use in my rummage for the right weapon.
These concepts keep me in the embrace of what I see is life-giving for my teens in this time of truth-planting:
Presence, not plans. My teens need my presence. The act of being present has led us to so many conversations. Being present means finding times that I am intentionally around my teens with no set agenda. Sure, we ask our teens questions and inquire about their thoughts and events of the day, but being present looks like just being around when they are around. I will purposely be downstairs in the living room on the nights all three of my teens come home from their practices. I know it is a time that they come in chattering about this and that and tend to sit down in the living room all together with me before going their separate ways. I don't make them sit and talk to me, it is just a time that they openly do it. So, I am present for it. This presence is where life-giving takes place. It's where randomness leads to the methodical work of the spirit.
Flexibility, not annoyance. When I crawl into bed ready to shut down and my teen walks in and starts talking my ear off, I don't get annoyed. Or when I have grand plans to read a family devotion at the dinner table and the kids start arguing about something, I don’t get annoyed. Or when my Saturday afternoon offers a couple hours of quiet and I plan to read but a basic conversation with a teen suddenly turns to a fight, I don't get annoyed. All of these situations offer me the choice to be flexible and pivot with the needs of the moment. What would seem as just an annoyance could lead to one more exploration into what is true.
Opportunity, not failure. Teens make mistakes. Sometimes lots of them and sometimes very big ones. This is not a failure in the discipleship process. It's an opportunity to learn deeper truths and grow in spite of, and because of, the mistake. When helping a teen navigate the mess left in the wake of a poor choice, there is tremendous opportunity to show grace and lead in truth. I see it as such. I do not dwell on the failure of the action, but move forward in presenting a very different and lasting worldview than the one which compelled the poor choice.
Continuous contemplation, not immediate results. The fruit of my labor in discipleship may never be seen by my own eyes. I see my job as a server presenting them with a well-plated meal. They may nibble or devour the food, but either way I do not visibly see the nourishment my plate provides. But it does provide nourishment, of that we can be certain. Sometimes the same meal has to be presented in different forms and at different times, but the nourishment is the same. The hope is that the truth presented takes root and causes great flourishing, but it is a continuous process and not typically one with immediate results.
Hope, not control-taking. When it seems my teen has never heard an ounce of truth and I realize their thinking is so heavily informed by culture rather than all the words I have lovingly been speaking, I resist the impulse to grab the reins and lay the hammer down in the form of cramming Christianity down their throats. And when they make a choice that laughs in the face of truth, I resist the urge to do whatever I can to take control and keep another bad thing from happening. Control-taking only feeds anxiety. Hope is our recourse; hope in the power of the Spirit and the work of Christ. Hope in the fact that we aren't in control, and no amount of right-parenting or a certain way of discipling will change their hearts. Only Jesus does that!
I pray that as you seek to love and care for the teens in your life, that you will be compelled, not by an ideal or standard you have created or that you see in others or in the culture around you, but by love for God. And that your sole aim would be to talk of this love and the truth written on your heart wherever you find yourself in your relationship with a teen - whether that is in your sitting, walking, lying or rising. These are the moments when truth is planted and where the mulling-over happens, may they bind it on their hearts.