Your Child’s Development: Godward Orientation

As a college student, I received my first exposure to sailing. I recall my amazement to learn that the direction of the craft is not determined by the direction of the breeze, but by the trim of the sail. In a sense, Godward orientation is like the set of the sail in a child’s life. Whatever the shaping influences of life, it is the child’s Godward orientation that determines his response to those shaping influences. Proverbs  contrasts the mocker’s and the wise man’s responses to rebuke and instruction: “Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse. Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Verse 10 helps us see what ultimately determines whether a child responds as a mocker or a wise man. It is the fear of the Lord that makes one wise and it is that wisdom that determines how he responds to the correction.

Godward Orientation

The figure below represents the child as a covenantal being. I use that expression to remind us that all human beings have a Godward orientation. Everyone is essentially religious.

Children are worshipers. Either they worship Jehovah or idols. They are never neutral. Your children filter the experiences of life through a religious grid.

Romans says: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”All people have God’s clear revelation of truth, but wicked people suppress that truth. They refuse to acknowledge and submit to the things God has made plain. Paul goes on to say that although they know God they do not glorify him, but become futile in their thinking and eventually worship idols.

In the language of Romans, your children either respond to God by faith or they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. If they respond to God by faith, they find fulfillment in knowing and serving God. If they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, they will ultimately worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator. This is the sense in which I use the term “Godward orientation.”

Choosing Between Two Ways The upper left segment of the chart shows a person who is a worshiper of the one true God. The arrow pointing from God represents God, who is good and kind and holy. He has made all things for his glory. It is he under whose initiating and sustaining kindness all creatures dwell. To know him is to know life. The arrow pointing toward God indicates the Godward orientation of the heart.

The person responds to God’s goodness and kindness with love, delight, and worship. He wants to know and serve God better. The lower right division shows one who has exchanged the truth for a lie and is worshiping and serving created things rather than the Creator.

He is involved in idolatry. He bows before things that are not God andthat cannot satisfy.

To be sure, the young child may not be conscious of his religious commitment, but he is never neutral. Made in the image of God, he is designed with a worship orientation. Even as a young child, he is either worshiping and serving God or idols.

David reminds us of this in Psalm: “Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.”

The words of Psalm are even more familiar: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” These verses are very instructive. Even a child in the womb and coming from the womb is wayward and sinful. We often are taught that man becomes a sinner when he sins. The Bible teaches that man sins because he is a sinner. Your children are never morally neutral, not even from the womb.

One of the justifications for spanking children is that “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15). The point of the proverb is that something is wrong in the heart of the child that requires correction.

The remedy is not solely changing the structure of the home; it is addressing the heart.

The Heart Is Not Neutral

Since there is no such thing as a place of childhood neutrality, your children either worship God or idols. These idols are not small wooden or stone statuary. They are the subtle idols of the heart. The Bible describes such idols using terminology such as fear of man, evil desires, lusts, and pride. The idols include conformity to the world, embracing earthly mindsets, and “setting the affections on things below.” What we have in view are any manner of motives, desires, wants, goals, hopes, and expectations that rule the heart of a child.

Remember, these things do not have to be articulated to be present. As your children interact with their childhood experience, they interact based on their Godward orientation. Either they respond tolife as children of faith who know, love, and serve Jehovah, or they respond as children of foolishness, and unbelief, who neither know him nor serve him. 

The point is this: They do respond. They are not neutral. They are not simply the sum total of what you and I put into them; They interact with life either out of a true covenant of faith or out of an idolatrous covenant of unbelief.

Whom Will the Child Worship?

It is imperative to be clear on this issue. Parenting is not just providing good input. It is not just creating a constructive home atmosphere and positive interaction between a child and his parent.

There is another dimension. The child is interacting with the living God. He is either worshiping and serving and growing inunderstanding of the implications of who God is, or he is seeking to make sense of life without a relationship with God.

If he is living as a fool who says in his heart there is no God, he doesn’t cease to be a worshiper—he simply worships what is not God. Part of the parent’s task is to shepherd him as a creature who worships, pointing him to the One who alone is worthy of his worship. The question is not “will he worship?” It is always “whom will he worship?”

Implications for Childrearing

This issue of Godward orientation separates what you read here from most other books on childrearing. Most parenting books are written to help you do the best possible job of providing constructive shaping influences for your child. All sorts of tips and creative ideas are suggested for producing the best, most biblically consistent shaping influences, in the hope that the child will respond to things well and turn out okay. I am not only setting forth some ideas about biblical structures for life, but also approaches to shepherding the child by reaching his heart.

Remember Proverbs. Life flows out of the heart. Parenting cannot be concerned only with positive shaping influences; it must shepherd the heart. Life gushes forth from the heart. I am interested in helping parents engage in hand-to-hand combat on the world’s smallest battlefield, the child’s heart. You need to engage your children as creatures made in the image of God. They can find fulfillment and happiness only as they know and serve the living God.

The task you undertake in childrearing is always concerned with both issues depicted in these charts. You want to provide the best possible shaping influences for your children. You want the structure of your home to furnish the stability and security that they need. You want the quality of relationships in your home to reflect the grace of God and the mercy for failing sinners that God’s character demonstrates. You want the punishments meted out to be appropriate and to reflect a holy God’s view of sin. You want the values of your home to be scripturally informed. You want to control the flow of events so that your home is not chaotic, but well-structured. You want to provide a healthy, constructive atmosphere for your child.

When all is said and done, those things, important as they are, will never be the total story. Your child is not just a product of those shaping influences. He interacts with all these things. He interacts according to the nature of the covenantal choices he is making. Either he responds to the goodness and mercy of God in faith or he responds in unbelief. Either he grows to love and trust the living God, or he turns more fully to various forms of idolatry and self-reliance. The story is not just the nature of the shaping influences of his life, but how he has responded to God in the context of those shaping influences.

Since it is the Godward orientation of your child’s heart that determines his response to life, you may never conclude that his problems are simply a lack of maturity. Selfishness is not outgrown. Rebellion against authority is not outgrown. These things are not outgrown because they are not reflective of immaturity but rather of the idolatry of your child’s heart.

Young Albert was a deceitful child. He sneaked around behind his father’s back. He lied even when it was not advantageous. Often he would steal money from his parents. His father insisted on interpreting his behavior as immaturity. Albert was immature, but that was not the reason he was untrustworthy. The reason he could not be trusted was that he was a sinner. Al was trying to make sense out of life without God. In the idolatry of his rebellion against God’s authority and his determination to be his own authority, he had become untrustworthy. Albert’s dad was unable to help his son until he began to see that Al’s behavior reflected a heart that had defected from God.

The Importance of Godward Orientation

Biblical stories show that shaping influences are not the whole story. Think of Joseph. His childhood experience was far from ideal. His mother died while he was young. He was his father’s favorite. His dreams inflamed his brothers’ hatred. He was further alienated from them by his father’s gift of a coat that set him apart as their authority.

His brothers betrayed him. He was thrown into a pit. Opportunistic slave traders bought him to profit from his resale value. He was double-crossed in Potiphar’s house despite his honor and integrity. He was imprisoned. Even there he was forsaken by those whom he had helped. Here was a man you would expect to be bitter, cynical, resentful, and angry. If man is only the sum total of influences that shape him, that would have been the result. Instead, what do we find?

When his brothers threw themselves on the ground, begging for mercy, Joseph said to them, “‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” .

How do we explain Joseph? He had a lens through which he viewed all the events of life. In the midst of difficult shaping influences, he entrusted himself to God. God made him a man who responded out of a living relationship with God. He loved God and found his orientation not in the shaping influences of his life but in the unfailing love and covenant mercies of God.

What about the servant girl to Naaman’s wife? Enemy soldiers ripped her from her home in Israel and made her a house girl to an Aramean soldier. She was part of the plunder of war. The shaping influences in her life were far from ideal, yet she was faithful to Jehovah. When her master needed healing, this young girl knew God’s power, and what is more, she knew where the prophet was in Israel. The King of Israel did not know the prophet or have deep faith in the power of God. He responded to the emergency with fear and unbelief (see 2 Kings 5:6–7). Why did this girl respond differently?

Clearly, there is more to the person than shaping influences. Here is a girl who was given faith in Jehovah and retained it in spite of the difficult circumstances in which she was reared.

Summary

This is the point. There are two issues that feed into the persons your children become: 1) the shaping influences of life, and 2) their Godward orientation. Therefore, your parenting must be addressed to both of these issues. You must be concerned about how you structure the shaping influences of life that are under your control (many things are not, e.g. death, and so forth). Secondly, you must be actively shepherding the Godward orientation of your children. In all of this you must pray that God will work in and around your efforts and the responses of your children to make them people who know and honor God.

Figures 2 and 3 will provide direction and orientation as you seek to understand your task as parents. While you are concerned with biblical shaping influences, you must also shepherd the hearts of your children in the direction of knowing and serving God.

In the next chapter we will examine the foundational issues ofparenting. What does it mean for the parent to function as God’s agent? What is the nature of your task? What is the function of discipline and correction?

Application Questions

1. Do you tend to be a determinist in the way you look at childrearing? Are you able to see that your children are active responders to the shaping influences in their lives? How do you see them responding?

2.What do you think is the Godward orientation of your children? Are their lives and responses organized around God as a Father, Shepherd, Lord, Sovereign, and King? Or do you see them living for some sort of pleasure, approval, acceptance, or some other false god?

3.How can you design winsome and attractive ways of challenging the idolatry you may see within your child?

4. How can you make your focus in correction the deeper issues of Godward orientation? How can you help your child see how he is investing himself in things that cannot satisfy?

5. Are you and your spouse spending time in prayer for God to reveal himself to your children? Ultimately, God initiates any work in your children’s hearts.