Help! My Kid is Struggling with Stealing

Read the Bible Passage: 

“Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” Ephesians 4:28 (ESV)

Bible Passage Overview: 

In Ephesians 4, Paul is challenging believers to live differently, specifically to not live as if they were not saved. In the immediate verses surrounding verse 28, he further insists, that part of what will change about the believer is their one-anothering, how they treat others, how they relate to people. 

That brings us to our verse, 28, where he confronts the thief to put off his/her stealing ways. Notice that there is no neutral behavior as a believer and that do not steal is not the end goal. God holds us to a higher standard than Christians being non stealers. In fact, Paul gives us the next right steps, if we struggle with stealing. First, we are to become an honest or useful and happy laborer. This takes time to become someone who works diligently and happily. This work ethic is character building. Building character take intentionality and sincere effort. Notice that while this type of character building is important and good, it is not simply a matter of replacing the bad behavior of stealing with the good behavior of working hard. It’s not simply a matter of stop stealing, be a hard worker and then spend your money on whatever you want—just don’t steal. Rather, after we have come to understand the value of hard work and earning money from it, we are urged to be givers. Our giving should look like us being aware of the needs of others and sharing what we have. So, at the heart of the issue of the one who steals is someone who doesn’t understand the value of hard work or sharing. This requires a change of attitude in the heart of the thief to one of discipline & diligence in their personal actions and compassion as they interact with others. The end goal is heart change that results in behavioral change. Ideally, we work hard and happily, we earn and honest wage, and we are aware of the needs of those around us and joyfully share from our earnings. God desires for the thief to be transformed into a compassionate, cheerful giver. This is what he wants for the heart of your child that struggles with stealing too.

Young Hearts Knowing Truth:

1. Read/have child read Ephesians 4:28 to you. 

2. Talk through the meaning of the passage as explained above, having your child answer these key comprehension questions:

   1. What does God tell us in this verse that He does NOT want us to do? (“steal”)

   2. What does God tell us in this verse that He DOES want us to do? (work & share what we earned from working)

   3. What is our work supposed to look like? (honest-this can also be translated useful, pleasant, happy, good and shows that what is going on in the heart of the individual matters)

Young Hearts Applying Truth:

1. Talk through these key application questions:

   1. Did you steal? 

   2. When you stole ______ was that wrong? (If they don’t know or don’t think it was wrong read Exodus 20:15 to clarify this/help them admit their wrongdoing).

   3. What did your stealing look like? (Have them explain the events that took place, do not interrupt or correct at this time. This will give you and your child insight into what circumstances are tempting to your child and will allow them to know they can talk to you freely and be heard).

   4. What were you feeling when you stole? What did you want/were hoping for in your heart and why did you want/hope for it? (This will give you and your child insight into the inner working of your child’s heart motivations).

   5. Did you get what you wanted? (Talk through the results of what actually happened vs. their perception—Was someone hurt (physically or feelings)? Was there an argument? Was any property harmed? This will enable your child to process that s/he may/may not have gotten what they wanted, but at what expense? This would be the time when you would make corrections regarding their side of the story so that they may face the reality of the situation).

2. Pray together. Have the child ask for forgiveness of the sin of stealing and any harm s/he may have done to any individuals involved. Have the child ask for help to change. Thank God for the forgiveness of this sin through Jesus’ death on the cross.

3. Have the child seek forgiveness from the individual s/he stole from.

Young Hearts Training in Righteousness:

1. Explain that you will work together to help your child with this struggle of stealing in the next week. Explain that just as athlete (pick a sport your child knows/loves) has to practice, build muscle and eat healthy to be good at their sport. We have to practice to be more and more like Jesus. This is called training in righteousness. Read 1 Corinthians 9:25 with your child.

   1. Have your child do an extra chore (different from any regular chores the child has in your family life). This is NOT a punishment. The child is learning how to be a good worker. Have the child do the work a few times over a week paying them for working diligently and with the right attitude.

   2. At the end of the week of completing this chore efficiently, have the child talk through their feelings and thoughts about the chore, and receiving wages.

   3. Ask your child what are some of the things money is used for (to pay bills, buy our needs and wants, give to others).

   4. Then talk through some charities (your church, etc.), or a person that is in need. Allow your child to pick the need and give a percentage of their earnings toward it. As much as possible, let your child be the one who literally gives—putting the money in the offering or donation jar or being the one to move and click the mouse over the buttons to donate online.

Tips & Clarifications:

• Remember this is not a punishment. This is training in righteousness. Use that terminology when you interact with your child. 

• Prayer and time are your friends in parenting. You will, likely, experience resistance on the part of your child. Pray with your child, asking God to change their heart attitude to desire to be like Jesus. Encourage them to pray too, asking God for help. Give them some time/a break to think and come back and try again, if you need to. Thank God together in prayer when their heart seems to soften, giving Jesus the credit for that softening.

• Training in righteousness is not about forcing a child’s heart to change. It may not. There will, likely, be much repetition. Our job is not changing the hearts of our children. Our responsibility is faithful planting and watering, and let God do the work of growing the good seed of the gospel in our children. (For more on this, see article: Parenting is Planting and Growing). 

• For older children, this may be a good time to discuss the concept of restitution (replacing someone’s lost or stolen property) especially if the stolen item is lost, harmed or ruined in some way. Also, you may want have the chore be that of the sibling (whom they stole from) to illustrate that our one-anothering (how we are to live in community together) should look like serving (Mark 10:43-45) not interacting with others as means of selfish gain, like stealing (Philippians 2:3-4).

• Expect to revisit this verse and exercises. Training isn’t a one-time deal. Parenting looks like telling the truth to our kids over and over again. Each repetition of the truth will encourage more understanding as their development continues.

*Resources used for reference: www.blueletterbible.org (Including, Strong’s, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).

A Review of the Deep Dive Scripture Journal by Eva Kubasiak

OUR NEED:

Within the last year, my husband and I had been encouraging our 12 and 15-year-old girls to be more faithful readers of their Bibles. They each had a Bible app and were doing short term, sporadic Bible reading plans. At first, we simply encouraged them verbally each morning to be in God’s word. Then we signed up for a reading plan on the same app together to read through the New Testament by the time summer was finished. Taking this step to both model and walk through a longer Bible reading plan with them was key. It provided a lot of insight into what they were getting into their minds with a simple daily reading of scripture, especially as we would each provide a few comments on that day’s text. We realized they now needed to be challenged to dig deeper. Several months went by with no solution. We wanted to allow them to study which ever book of the Bible they desired but couldn’t find a tool that was simple enough to complete each morning before school, and flexible enough for any passage of scripture. 

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION:

Eva Kubasiak recently published her Deep Dive Scripture Journal, and I was aware of it as we both belong to the same writing group. I ordered two copies from Amazon for $14.99 each. I handed the journals over to my girls with very little explanation, simply stating that I ordered them to help them dig a little deeper in their daily Bible reading. The next morning, both girls had completed a daily scripture journal entry with ease. My younger daughter had one question about a biblical literacy term that she had not learned yet. I explained to her the term and why it was important when reading the Bible. Both girls have been faithfully using their scripture journals most mornings. 

WHAT IS IT:

The Deep Dive Scripture Journal is comprised of 2-page, daily, journal entries. Those two pages are then divided into the four categories of “Background”, “Observation”, “Reflection & Application” and “Prayer” with corresponding discerning questions to encourage those studying the Bible to dig for wisdom.  Those studying a passage can choose any length passage of any book of the Bible. There are a few pages that describe how to use the journal and the purposes of each category. The journal is 7in.x10in. and has room for about 100 daily studies of scripture.

REVIEW:

My middle school and high school children were able to complete their daily journal entries with ease and minimal help. They, now, not just read, but study their Bibles regularly. Because of their success, I began using the journal myself (instead of my boring, old-fashioned spiral notebook) for my Bible study time as well and bought extra copies to hand out to those I minister to in my local community. This journal is simple enough to implement easily, flexible for missed days of study or for studying any portion of scripture you choose. It asks key questions to aid in your understanding of scripture more thoroughly. I would recommend it for those studying the Bible who are middle school and higher. This journal is a great next step for taking your daily reading of the Bible into daily studying of the Bible. Most of all, when I ask my girls what they read in scripture today, I have observed more insight and we have had good discussions on what God is teaching their hearts in His word. This journal would especially be an asset for those learning to study the Bible for the first time or for those who need a simple format to become more consistent at daily study. 

For more information on how to study the Bible you can find Eva at www.evakubasiak.com. She has terrific tips, informative YouTube videos and courses available on how to get the most out of God’s word.

Anticipating a Season of Suffering: My Testimony

Fall. The word itself makes me smile. It’s the season when verdant trees trade their play clothes for vibrant gowns of flaming foliage. The warmth and heat of sun has poured itself into every leaf, leaving the air cool and refreshing as we pull on extra layers. Our sight, instead of our skin is dazzled by the sun’s touch. I can never get my fill of pumpkins on front steps, spiced baked goods, and seasonal coffees, of crunching through trails lined with leaves giving off their last beauty before melting into the soil. This is the time of year that my kids pull on pants for the first time in many months underscoring just how much their legs have grown over the summer. They head to school full of enthusiasm, ready to learn new things and fill up a clean slate with who they are becoming.  This is fall to me: lovely, comforting, and exciting. I anticipate the arrival every year as sweltering August slides into nipping September. 

Fall is different this year. What is spread out across the horizon are ugly words like cancer and chemotherapy. While many are planning school shopping, apple picking, and homecoming, I am looking through our family calendar trying to figure out if I will be wretchedly sick during three of our six immediate family member’s birthdays. Instead of lovely, comforting and exciting, I am dreading the fall, something I have never done. It’s a heavy burden that I do not want to carry. It’s a load that I don’t want my loved ones to shoulder, even if only in part.

What can I possibly do about the ugly, hard, dark things that seem to overshadow the simple joys of the season? How can I let the delicious remain exquisite while being honest about our current reality? I cannot help but admit that I am tempted to be bitter as I ask all the normal questions. Why me? Why our family? Why now? However, I have allowed pain to grow bitter roots inside of me before and I know that it is like rotting from the inside out. The physical picture of how cancer can do the same, I want none of that. I want the opposite. I want growth. I want growing even if it is slow and laborious. God is pretty explicit in His word that this is what He wants for me too. What He wants for each of His children is to be moving toward something better than ourselves.

I grow in hardship when I begin with joy. This seems contrary to what I am internally experiencing. My antennae are up because I don’t want to be one of those Christians who moves past the hard things too quickly. I don’t want to candy coat or tie hard things up in neat packages. The book of James says this, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” At first glance, I want to incredulously ask, “What?!?! You want me to consider trials a joy?” The reality is that the joy is not found in the trial itself. God does not ask us to call the sad, happy or the painful, pain- free. He shows us pain and grief throughout the Bible. He admits our trials will test our faith. That they are not easy. Instead, He is calling me to see that my hardship is producing something in me that is pulling me toward Christlikeness. This molding to be more like my Jesus, is this not what I truly want, even if it hurts? This is what I find joy in. When the surgery that removed my tumor forces me to learn how to rebuild muscles and nerves so that I may walk again, when I suffer the sickness, weakness, and loss of so many things while chemo kills both the healthy cells and the cancerous ones, God is producing something in me. He promises it in these verses and many others. I get the uncomfortable, gracious privilege of developing into someone who resembles Jesus more and more. I become steadfast and more complete. I have not arrived, but my pain allows me to arrive one day at the feet of Jesus more like Him. So that when I say I am a Christian, I may actually look like Christ! The joy is realized when my eyes are open to see that what I would normally consider a burden is an opportunity. Isn’t this just like God? He uses people and circumstances to accomplish things in ways that we would never choose. He is the ultimate transformer. The ugly becomes beautiful, the hurtful is reshaped to be useful, and the sinful is made holy. 

I will grieve; I will doubt at times, and if I am honest, there will be sincere misery. I will think how wretched this body of mine is, how I want to be done with this trial, and how I desire to be with Him in heaven. I will long for the mountain top after this steep, aching climb. However, I will not lose hope. He promises that there is purpose in my pain.

(This article first appeared on vintageandsoul.com, November 2nd, 2018 as “Anticipating a Hard Season” and was edited by Janet Marie Kibler.)

Parenting is Planting and Watering

His lips slowly transformed into a Cheshire Cat grin the further he pushed his fingers into the damp soil. He pulled his hands out and replanted them again and again. It was Spring and we were weeding a flowerbed behind our garage in the cool Midwest air. For an afternoon, we exhausted our arm strength as the sun on our backs or in our eyes almost allowed us to pretend it was summer. As we kneeled and pulled out the unwanted vegetation our bodies curled into balls like potato bugs do when they are frightened.  We finished weeding and turned up the soil, dug holes, and buried seeds and the roots of seedlings into the ground. He asked so many questions as four-year-old’s often do. I answered, covering the subjects of all the bugs he spotted, how the soil was full of food for the flowers we were planting and what made seeds and plants grow. I reminded him it would take a long time for the seeds to come up. He asked if he could check them every day. I nodded my head and told him he could be the lookout for when the plant stopped hiding in the ground from us. He giggled and said, “Like hide and seek, Momma?” and then proceeded to run through our backyard taunting me to catch him. I tossed my spade on the ground and chased after him.

Parenting is like tending a garden. There are weeds to be pulled, soil to be turned up, gospel seeds to be planted in the hearts of our children. These seeds are watered with the truth that we speak and live out in front of them. Cultivating a home that influences the heart of our children for Jesus requires our faithfulness, discernment and wisdom. We need to consistently speak and live out truth. We need insight as to whether the moment we are living in with our children is a pulling weeds, planting seeds or watering moment. 

How many times have I cried out to God, “Does this child need correction (pulling up weeds), gospel truth (seeds) or reiteration or repetition of gospel truth (water)? Help me to know, what only you know, what their heart needs right now.” The weight of the responsibility of parenting well would weigh me down and I would worry about messing them up. Other times, in frustration, I wouldn’t ask at all, I’d say something like “Suck it up, Christina! Just do your best!”, but my best didn’t feel very good.

I found insight in an unlikely place, a passage in 1 Corinthians 3. In verses 3-9, Paul is addressing a problem in the church at Corinth. Believers have created division in their ranks over what teacher they follow. Some follow Apollos and some claim Paul as their number one teacher. Paul corrects this behavior telling them that they are acting like they aren’t saved, “in the flesh” and then reminds them that both Apollos and he are “servants” that God “assigned to each of them” and “God’s fellow workers.” In doing so, he acknowledges two things. That they really should be claiming Jesus as their number one guy, not His servants and God’s sovereignty was directly involved in how he used both in their lives to draw them to Himself. They had a small view of God and a big view of man.

There, my friends, is where my heart sank with conviction. I, too, had a very small view of God and too large of view of my role as a parent. Of course, I am not stating here that parenting doesn’t matter or isn’t influential in the lives of our children. I am asserting that when my heart gets to a place of exasperation or anxiety, there is something wrong. When I am trudging through hard parenting moments or days trying to pick myself up by my bootstraps as if everything depends on me, there is something wrong. Let’s be clear. Everything does not depend on me. It depends on my number one guy, Jesus. 

My only responsibility, like Apollos and Paul, is to be a servant of God. My only responsibility is to “plant” and “water.” My responsibility is not changing my children. This is God’s responsibility. He “gives the growth.” When attitudes of fear or annoyance pop up, I can usually trace them back to the fact that I am believing the lie that I am responsible for the change in their behavior that really begins with a change in their heart. Let go of that burden—the burden of results-based parenting. Lay your desire to change your kids’ hearts into the very capable, strong hands of our sweet Jesus, who can truly change hearts. 

Faithfulness in “planting” and “watering” seeds into the minds of our children, that’s a heavy enough responsibility to bear as parents. Let’s place our efforts, creativity and influence focusing on that worthy task. May your home be the rich soil for seeds to grow. May your children dance through the garden of gospel truth planted and tended in your home.

Bringing it Home:

• Consider and pray through what lies may be at the heart of your exasperation or fear in parenting. Name the annoyances, and worries, and visualize placing each of them in the hands of God. Verbally surrender each of your children’s growth/change into His capable hands.

• Think of one way you can be faithful to plant and water today. Could you pray with your child addressing a misunderstanding about God? Could you read one verse with your child to show the loveliness of Jesus?

• Plant a flower/vegetation seed of some kind and place it in a prominent place as a daily physical reminder to you of your planting & watering responsibilities as a parent and God’s responsibility to grow your children.

*Resources used for reference: www.blueletterbible.org (Including, Strong’s, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon).