006 Rules Without Roots - Developing the Inner Moral Compass in Your Child

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So imagine your twelve year old comes home from school
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and tells you that his or her teacher asked the
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class a question, not a math question, not a history question,
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not an English question, not a science question, but a
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values question. Maybe in the classroom some topic came up
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and you had this right versus wrong response. You know,
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is that right to do? Is that wrong to do?
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Maybe it came up in a history lesson. So the
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question that's asked is what do you believe about this event?
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Was it right or was it wrong? What do you
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believe about right and wrong? Like what determines whether something
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is right or wrong? When asked, that question just sits
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there quiet. Because your child's entire life, he or she
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has known what to believe, what they believe. They've heard
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the rules, they've been to church, they've been to Sunday school.
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They're a rule follower. Maybe even your child has bowed
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their head at dinner and they've been the one to pray,
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and they nod when you explain all the family standards.
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But then when someone outside your home looks them straight
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in the eye and asks why your child had nothing,
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it's not because your child's a bad kid. And listen
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my kids went through the same thing as well. And
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it's not because you're a bad parent. It's because somewhere
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in the business of raising our kids, we have forgotten
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that our children need to be moved from what to why.
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The rules that we establish in our house are good
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and they have a purpose, but they never we never
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moved the why or the reason for those rules into
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the hearts of our kids. And you know, there's something
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that nobody tells you about this particular moment that comes
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up with your kids. And this is what they don't
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tell you. You don't get to prepare for it. Like nobody
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tells you when it's going to happen. It doesn't announce
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itself ahead of time. It doesn't come with a warning label.
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It typically comes in a quiet classroom, in a locker room,
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in a group chat at when your children are first
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in work at work, maybe at Chick fil A or
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whatever company they work for, and culture pushes back on
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your kids and asks the question why. And I'll tell
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you right now, if your child doesn't have an ant
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to the why question, Babylon is more than happy to
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teach our own children. To teach your children what it
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believes the why is it has its own answers. Today,
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we're going to talk about one of the most critical
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transitions in your child's entire development of faith. It's that
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switch from external compliance to internal conviction. That it's when
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they make that change from a borrowed faith, you know,
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understanding as your kids are growing up, they are learning
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and they are seeing the world the faith around them
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from when that becomes an owned faith. When the rules
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on the wall at your house, you know, let's say
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you have your list of rules, when instead of that
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just being a list of rules, they now have an
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inner compass that guides them. So that's what we're going
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to talk about today, developing the inner compass. And I
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truly think this conversation may be one of the most
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important conversations we've had yet on this podcast. Welcome to
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the Daniel Project. Welcome back to the Daniel Project. I'm
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Dennis Harry, pastor, author, and I am also a father
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who has walked this road with four children of my own.
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They're now all adults serving the Lord, you know. In
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the last two episodes, I think we've talked about the
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early years of development, ages zero to five, when parental
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authority is developing then we've talked about some of the
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other ages when our child is watching us and developing
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and sort of filing everything away. Today we move into
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that next stage of life. Really, when kids our ages
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ten through fifteen, it's those years when questions can get harder,
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the peer pressure that our kids feel gets louder and stronger.
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It's when faith that is built entirely on mom and
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dad's faith will start to show its cracks, unless, of course,
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something has been intentionally transferred to the heart of your children.
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So in this episode, we're really looking at this topic.
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How do you move biblical truth into the hearts of
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your children so that they will have an answer to
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why questions? And I really think the answer to this
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is hiding in one of the most familiar passages of
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all of Scripture when it comes to parenting. It's Deuteronomy
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chapter six. Moses is speaking to the nation of Israel
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before they cross into the Promised Land. He knows what's
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waiting for them on the other side. It's a culture
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that is filled and saturated with compeding gods and competing values,
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and really a competing narrative about what makes life worth living.
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Does this sound familiar? Moms? And dads. I mean, our
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kids are living in Canaan land. You know, they're living
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in Babylon. It's a world with competing gods and competing values.
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And he tells them in Deuteronomy chapter six, verses six
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and seven, he says, and these words which I command
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thee this day, shall be in thy heart, And thou
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shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk
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of them when thou sittest in thy house, when thou
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walk us by the way, when they'll lie us down,
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and when they'll rise us up. Now, I want you
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to notice something that is super easy to read right past,
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and I don't want us to miss it. Moses does
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not say at the beginning of this verse, teach these
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words to your children. That's not the first command. The
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first command or the first general recommndation within this passage
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is these words shall be in thine heart. In other words,
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parents first, And I'm not talking about some sort of
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a selfish parents first. I'm saying parents, your inner compass
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has to be calibrated, truly, genuinely personally calibrated to biblical truth.
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Really before there's anything that you can transfer. You can't
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give away what you don't possess yourself. If the Word
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of God lives in your house just as a set
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of rules, you know it's a behavioral management system for
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raising polite children. Your kids will feel it, they will
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know it, and that's all that will transfer. They will
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know that they have a parent who believes that they
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are managing their children with religion, and when pressure comes,
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they will quickly abandon the rules without a second thought,
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because the rules were never theirs to begin with. But
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if the Word of God, moms and dads, is alive
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in you, when your child has watched you make hard
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decisions and cry out during times of hardship and trial
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and sacrifice because of your faith, now you have something
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you can transfer to them. Now that teaching has real roots.
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Look at what God himself does to his own people
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as they mature in the Book of Exodus. First, God
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gives them the law, the commandments, the statutes, the ordinances. Yes,
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it's the dus and the don'ts. It's very similar to
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the earliest stages of our children's development. Is a lot
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of dues and don'ts. But the nation at that point
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was young. They were just freshly delivered out of Egypt
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not really capable of understanding and carrying the full weight
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behind every command that God was given. So God gives
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him structure. But as Israel matures, that's like by the
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time we reach the Book of Proverbs, which is written
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for young men and women on the threshold of adult life,
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the entire approach is shifted. Solomon doesn't hand his sons
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a list of rules that he reasons with them. He
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explains the consequences of life choices. He walks with his
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son through the cause and effect, and he says in
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Proverbs four verse seven, wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore,
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get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding. Don't
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just comply, don't just obey. It's not a list of
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dos and don'ts. No, no, no, it's understanding. See. The
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goal has always been, and with our parentings should always be,
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to have sons and daughters who grasp the why behind
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the what. We want children with understanding so that they
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can navigate situations really that we will never have anticipated.
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In fact, I was just telling my church this last week,
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the reality is the world that my children grew up
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in is much different than the world that I grew
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up in, and the world that my grandchildren will grow
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up in is vastly different than the world that my
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children have grown in. So we're not teaching our children
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a list of dos and don'ts and rules, because there
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are gonna be times when those rules just don't make it,
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they don't cut it. What we've got to do is
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teach our children to understand biblical truth. You know, Jesus
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himself modeled the same progression with his disciples, and John
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fifteen he says to his disciples, henceforth, I call you
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not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth.
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But I have called you friends, for all things that
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I've heard of my father I have made known unto you. See,
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a servant obeys what he's told to do, because that's
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his job. But a friend is brought into the circle
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of reasoning. See, as the disciples matured, Jesus moved them
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from servants to friends. He didn't abandon his authority, but
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Jesus brought them into the why circle. They were able
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to understand what was going on and why it was happening.
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And that's exactly the move that God calls parents to
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make with their maturing children. The rules don't disappear, the
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authority doesn't just vanish away. But the relationship has to
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get deeper, and with it comes the explanation. And it's
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only then that Moses says, teach it diligently. So talk
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about it when you sit in the house, when you walk,
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when you lie down, when you rise up. I absolutely
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love that passage. It's literally describing every aspect of our life,
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every time of our life. It's not a formal classroom.
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This is life on life teaching. This is faith that
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bleeds into every ordinary moment of your life, every hard conversation,
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every dinner time conversation, every drive time conversation, and every
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decision that is a real decision that costs something, real
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decisions in life. We need to bring our kids at
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that point into the circle to where they begin to understand. Hey,
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let me bring in two supporting passages that I think
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even strengthen this a little bit more. In Proverbs chapter four,
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Solomon says, in verse twenty three and twenty four, keep
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thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are
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the issues of life. Put away from the froward mouth
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and perverse lips, put far from thee see Solomon is
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telling his son guard, what's in your heart? Because out
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of it flows life. The compass is internal. It governs
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our mouth, it governs our decisions, it governs our directions
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of life. And this is exactly what we are trying
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to build in our children really during that age ten
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to fifteen window, a guarded, cultivated, internally governed heart where
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they have the self discipline to apply biblical truth to
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every situation of their life, or there learning to do that,
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you know. In Luke chapter two, a passage that we
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actually covered in Sunday school this last week, describes Jesus's
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maturing process, and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature
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and in favor with God and Man. Four dimensions of
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growth wisdom, physical stature, spiritual favor, and relational favor. But
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notice that wisdom is listed first. And Jesus increased in wisdom,
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not in obedience, not in compliance. Jesus increased in wisdom,
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the internal capacity to be able to navigate the confusing
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pathways of life. And this is the goal of the
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development process with our children. Not kids who just know
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how to follow rules when we're watching, but really a
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child who has grown in wisdom. Hey, let me bring
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this home for us personally, for me and my wife,
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And I want to tell you about a moment in
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my home that changed the way I understood this transition.
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So my daughter, Caitlin, who is now in her late twenties,
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her and her husband are on staff at Pensacola Christian
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College and Pensacola Christian Academy in the music department. She
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was in fifth grade at the time. She was enrolled
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in a school where I served on pastoral staff and
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I coached. We were deeply connected both in the church
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and the school community, lots of friends, professionally connected, spiritually connected.
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This was not a casual commitment in the school setting,
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like this was our life. Every aspect of who we
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are was tied to our connection to that ministry, both
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the church and the school. But there was an issue
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that had come up in her classroom, and my wife
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and I, after prayer and really thinking hard about it,
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we made the decision to pull Caitlin out and to
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homeschool her. And let me tell you, I felt an
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incredible wait from that. This was probably one of the
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more difficult decisions I made in parenting, because there were
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other relationships that were at stake. I knew that there
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possibly were there were ministry implications. I was pulling my
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daughter out of the very school that I was teaching at,
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coaching at I was the youth pastor at the church,
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and we were deciding to homeschool. There were people who
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were not going to ask questions but were just going
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to form opinions about what happened. And we knew that
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there were going to be people that would not understand
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that decision. But here's what I remember the most when
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we sat down with Caitlin and we explained our reasoning,
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not just what we had decided, but we really she
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needed to understand why. She needed to know the value
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underneath the conviction that drove us to that conclusion, and
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she understood it. She trusted us, and it wasn't blind trust.
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And it wasn't because she was too young to push back,
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because by fifth grade she definitely could have, you know,
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resisted that and really pushed hard. But here's the thing.
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She had watched us long enough to know that when
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we made hard calls, it came from a depth of reality,
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like there was a realness to our faith, a depth
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of faith, our personal moral compass was visible to her
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day in and day out. She could see it, and
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she was developing her own And so when we sat
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down and talked with her about her being homeschooled, though
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she didn't like it, you know, obviously she enjoyed being
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in school. She understood it, and she was she was
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willing to trust us. Now here's where I think we
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need to talk about two ditches that can come up
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in this road, because I think parents, when it comes
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to transferring the our faith to our kids and teaching
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them the why, I think there are two mistakes that
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we can make on both sides of the road. Ditch
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Number one is explaining the why too early, you know,
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to a six or seven year old that is not
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ready to develop, that is not developmentally ready to process
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the why. Then when you when you overexplain that you
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are actually inadvertently undermining your ownthority, you are signaling to
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a six or seven year old that your decisions require
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the child's agreement in order to stand and listen. They don't.
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It is enough for you as a parent to say
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because I said so, now listen, I'm going to warn
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you that is that is not a reason that you
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need to use when your kids are older, and it's
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probably one of the weakest reasons for a child to
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obey because I said so. But in the end, your
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what you say stands. Young children just need the what.
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They need it delivered consistently. They need it delivered clearly.
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The why comes later. They're not ready to carry that
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as a six or a seven year old. So let
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me encourage you stop trying to explain to your six
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or seven year old the why behind every choice. They don't.
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Not only do they not need to understand it, they
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can't understand it, which means as you're trying to explain it,
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you're simply undermining your own biblical authority. The second ditch, though,
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is never making the switch. It's continuing to parent a thirteen, fourteen,
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fifteen year old child the same way that you parent
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a seven year old with just the whats, with commands
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and consequences and forced compliance, but never inviting them in
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to understand the why behind your convictions and your choices.
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And when you do this it produces a couple of
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different things. It can produce a child who performs perfectly
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inside the home, and then the moment they step outside,
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they just absolutely collapse, or you can develop a child
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who simply stops performing because that's all you're asking them
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to do at that point, and they just say, hey, listen,
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you can just I'll just what you see is what
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you get, and you see all the rebellion that's been
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building up quietly for years, and you've never won their heart.
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And both ditches produce the same outcome. Finally, and that
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is a young adult who was never given a compass
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of their own and they step into the furnace of
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affliction and Babylon with nothing but you know, borrowed rules
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moms and dad's rules. And as a result, they step
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out into Babylon and they really can't explain or understand
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why they believe what they believe. And you know, the
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culture knows that this is a window of opportunity. It's,
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in fact, it's counting on parents to fall into one
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of these two ditches, to either undermine their own authority
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too early, or to never tell your children why and
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invite them into that conversation, because the moment your teenagers
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starts asking why and they're going to they're going to
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ask it. If you're not ready to give an answer,
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Babylon is more than happy to step in and give
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an answer. And believe me, it's been rehearsing its answers
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for years, and those answers sound like well, because it
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feels right to you, or you deserve to be happy,
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or nobody else gets to define your truth. You know,
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every one of those answers which explain a why, is
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a counterfeit moral compass, and they are being handed to
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your child day in and day out through their earbuds,
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their their Facebook feeds, their classroom, their Instagram, their friend groups,
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and the only way to counter to counteract that counterfeit
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is to put the real thing in their hands. First,
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you have to be the first ones to calibrate their
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moral compass to biblical truth. So let's talk about three
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concrete things that you can do this week to begin
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developing that inner moral compass in your ten to fifteen
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year old. All right, Number one, you need to calibrate
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your own compass first. I have a small Dji drone
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that I like to fly, and it's interesting sometimes, especially
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if I've not flown it for a month or two,
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and there are times when that happens. I'll take it out,
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put the battery and turn it on. And as soon
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as I turn it on, I'll get the notification. You
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need to calibrate your compass. And there's a process that
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you have to do in order to calibrate the internal
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compass of the drone so that it knows what's up
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and what's down, and what's east and what's west. Listen,
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Before you you can sit down with your child and
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have the deep conversations that we're going to talk about
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in a moment, you have to start by asking yourself, honestly,
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are these words in my heart? Remember Deuteronomy six, Moses
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said these words should be in your heart before you
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teach them to your kids. They have to be in
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your art, not just household rules, not just on a
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Sunday morning routine. But do I actually believe this? Does
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it govern my decisions when it cost me something? And listen,
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your child is going to know the answer before you
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say one single word to them. So start by calibrating
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your own inner moral compass every day in God's word,
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calibrating your compass to the absolute truth of Scripture number two,
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invite your kids into a why into quote unquote the
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why of a real decision. So this week, think about
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a decision or five, the decision that your family is
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having to navigate something not not made up, like something real,
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something with some actual stakes to your family, to your job,
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to you know, something in your community. Instead of just
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announcing the conclusion of your decision, sit down and walk
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your ten to fifteen year old through the reasoning behind it.
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It's not a lecture time, it's a conversation. Tell them
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you know what you're weighing out, what scripture or conviction
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is informing you, know what you're thinking, and ultimately what
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you believe God is calling your family do ask them,
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ask them what they think, ask them to apply scripture
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to that particular situation. And when you're doing that, you're
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not surrendering authority. You're actually calibrating the compass of your child.
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You're inviting them to step into the process of taking
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God's word of absolute truth and applying it to their life.
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So then that leads us to number three. When you're
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having that conversation number three, ask the question, ask this
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one question that starts that transfer of the innermorl compass.
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And the question is not what do you think? The
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question is what do you think God thinks about that?
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What does God think about that not what does the
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church say, not what have we taught in the past,
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or what do you think mom and Dad think? It's
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what does God say about this? And you're training them
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to run every situation through a biblical lens independently, like
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they have to learn to do this, And so start small,
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you know, ask about a movie. Hey, we're going to
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see a movie, or we're going to watch a movie
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on TV. Let's do a little quick let's do a
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quick search on Google. Let's find out some information about
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this movie. Let's find out some information about this event
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that we're going to and then take that conversation and
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begin applying scripture to it. If maybe it's a news
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story or something that's happening in culture, and say, hey, okay,
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let's let's talk through this and let's apply scripture to
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understand what's happening in our community or what's happening globally
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or this this national news that is taking place, and hey,
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make it a habit. Do it, you know, do it
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once a week. And I think what you'll find over
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time is it it becomes just a natural reflex to parenting.
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Our our family, We did it every night at dinner
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and I realized there was a season when we can
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do that, and when we could do that, and then
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there was a season when that became more difficult for
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us because of schedules as our kids were getting older
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and all that. But we we closely guarded and protected
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our dinner meal, especially on days when we didn't have
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anything planned on, you know, sad dinner, when our kids
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weren't working. We always tried to plan and when we
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sat down at dinner, we would we would talk through
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the things that had happened at school, or the things
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that had happened at church, or the things that had
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happened in our community or nationally, and we began building
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in that internal reflex for our kids where they would
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apply reasoning, Biblical reasoning to everything that that they were
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confronted with in life. You know, one of the things
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that I've been doing as an author is trying to
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stir up in children the desire to understand God's word
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deeper and really apply it to situations. And I've done
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that through two tools, and I want to tell you
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about them real quick. The first is a book series
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called The Cedar Hill Boys. It's in a mystery and
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adventure series for boys that are eight to fourteen, following
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four friends in rural North Carolina who solve mysteries. But
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throughout that book, they are being shaped by what I
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call the Council of Twelve. It's twelve men, adult mentors
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and their church and in their community that are constantly
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speaking biblical truth into their life. It's real adventures, real wisdom,
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and in fact it is real locations here on our community.
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And it's not a preaching style book. It is definitely
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an adventure mystery series for young boys to read. That's
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called The Cedar Hill Boys. Books one through through already out.
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Book four is coming out soon. Book five is about
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halfway done. So great series. A second series book series
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that I'm working on is called The Chronicles of Daniel.
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It is a trilogy that follows Daniel from his boyhood
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in Jerusalem through the early death, the early years of
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Daniel in exile and Babylon. It's biblical fiction that is
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absolutely historically grounded, narrated in Daniel's voice. It's biblically rooted,
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and the goal is to wrestle through the same things
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that Daniel would have wrestled through and understanding Daniel's strong
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faith because by the time he gets to Babylon, he
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has that strong faith. So if you want your teenager
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to read about what it cost to stand for the God,
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to stand for God without bowing, let them see that
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through Daniel's eyes. Books one through three are called Jerusalem Sun,
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Babylon's Exile, and Heaven's Prophet. They are they will be
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available this fall, that is fall of twenty twenty six.
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In fact, book number one A Jerusalem's Son is now
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out of editing and is pretty much ready to print.
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So we are excited about that. And if you're interested
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in more information, feel free to go to dj Harry
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dot org. You can sign up there for email information
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and I'll be sending out email updates as those books
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are being released. So let's go back to Deuteronomy six
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where we started. And these words which I command thee
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this day shall be on that heart, and I shall
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teach them diligently unto thy children. And there's a sequence
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that really is everything in this passage. It starts in
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the heart, and then there's the transfer of faith. And
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here's what's at stake for your kids. Somewhere between the
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ages of ten and fifteen, they're going to stand at
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a moment where their faith must cease being a borrowed
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faith of childhood and it has to become the owned
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conviction of a young adult. And our culture knows it,
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and our culture is making its move on our kids
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right now in the classroom, in the friend group, in
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the you know, the travel ball team, social media. The
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question is not whether or not someone is going to
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answer the why for the why question for your child,
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because someone's going to, like the why question is going
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to be answered guaranteed. The question is is it going
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to be you. Are you going to fill their hearts
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with a compass that is calibrated to the word of God,
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or are you going to defer that to Babylon and
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they're going to fill it with a counterfeit That feels
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like freedom, It feels like rational truth, but unfortunately, what
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it will do is it will lead your child to
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the fiery furnace. My daughter Caitlin sat across from me
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in fifth grade and she trusted in a hard decision
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that we made because she trusted the compass that she
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had watched her whole life. She realized that we were
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making a decision based on biblical truth, and it was
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something that was built one conversation at a time, decision
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by decision, year by year. Listen, you have time to
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do it, but the windows is not unlimited. You don't
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have forever to do it. So this week, have one
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of those powerful why conversations with your child, your ten
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to fifteen year old, one honest explanation, one time where
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you dig into scripture, an invitation for them to begin
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engaging in the why behind the what, and you can
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start small, but start to date. Because the goal is
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not a child that just obeys us when we're in
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the room. The goal is a Daniel, a young man
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or a young woman who is who was willing to
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walk into the lion's den, who was willing to walk
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into the fiery furnace with a compass that is set
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in their heart, a compass that fears God, and a
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compass that is willing to trust God no matter the consequences.
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Thanks for listening to the Daniel Project. If you have
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topics for future episodes or questions for me, please send
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me an email to info at Djhirry dot org. We're
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always happy to hear from you. All the books mentioned
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in this podcast are available at Djahirry dot org. Or
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on Amazon