-Colossians 3:21
Many kids today are discouraged because they are exasperated. And the source is their dad. Many dads do not know how important their role is with their kids, and are messing up.
I know from experience, because I am a father and have exasperated my son. When it has happened, it was like, "Wow, there's Colossians 3:21... that exasperation thing... how did that happen and what did I do?"
The "What did I do?" part is oh so important. Hold that thought.
Exasperate means "irritated to anger." Your child is angry with you, and you caused it. We dads, at first, are defensive and say, in our minds or with our lips, "My kid is not supposed to be angry with me, so my child must be wrong, because I am the parent, I am the authority."
Buzzzzz! ------------> That's usually the wrong conclusion.
Exasperate means "irritated to anger." Your child is angry with you, and you caused it. We dads, at first, are defensive and say, in our minds or with our lips, "My kid is not supposed to be angry with me, so my child must be wrong, because I am the parent, I am the authority."
Buzzzzz! ------------> That's usually the wrong conclusion.
This verse says that dads can cause their kids to get angry. Both parents can infuriate their kids and it's the parent's fault. So "listen up" as we say.
To help us with what exasperating is, here are some synonyms:
To help us with what exasperating is, here are some synonyms:
aggravate, anger, annoy, bother, bug, burn (up), chafe, embitter, irritate, gall, grate, harass, irk, make resentful, peeve, persecute, provoke, rile, ruffle, and vex.These are what you, dad or mom, can do to your children. Stop and reflect. Let go of your defenses. Take responsibility. You can create lifelong problems for your kid if you don't get this and let Jesus help you be a good parent.
The first thing to realize is that you are capable of these things, because you are so important to your child. You have a God-given role and function. You, your behavior, words and actions affect your children; so, be careful.
What exactly do we do that is exasperating to our children? Here are a few examples: fault finding, harshness, and unreasonable demands; harassing, being annoying, raging, bugging, and pushing them beyond their young limits.
The big missing ingredient in all these is graciousness.
"No grace" translates to "no love" because love is expressed with gracious actions (1 Cor. 13). And this is how a child ends up saying, "I thought you hated me," and the astonished parent cannot believe these words, because in their mind, they have been a good parent.
Parents are mandated to nurture their kids. That means graciousness. Pushiness, harassing, aggravating, irritating fault-finding, critical, micro-managing, and in-your-face bossy is not nurturing grace.
Kids need a fail-safe environment to explore and learn. Failure is part of learning. Experimenting, within boundaries of safety, is good.
The end result of exasperation is discouragement. Children are naturally playful, curious, experimenters, risk-takers, and trusting. All of these can be crushed by an exasperating father (or mother).
The boy or girl who is discouraged by their over-bearing father (or mother), goes into the world as an adult who does not know how to play, lacks curiosity, does not experiment, fears risk-taking, and does not trust. This sounds like an adult child of an alcoholic, except your parent may have been a "dry-drunk" which is someone with a "jekyll and hyde" personality who did not drink.
How can a dad repent of exasperating his child? If you do this and want to stop, what is the cure? This verse is in the context of a chapter where Paul is writing about the Christian's life.
Being a good father or mother requires good behavior that is the result of the man or woman being in Christ. The admonition to not exasperate your kids comes in the context of Paul's "application section" of his letter to the Colossians. In the preceding chapters and verses, Paul has been expounding on Christ.
The Cosmic Christ
This text, Colossians 3:21, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so they won't become discouraged," has a context of a book and a chapter. The book of Colossians is about the cosmic Christ.
Chapter one has a hymn that Paul wrote about Christ:
He is the image of the invisible God,Christ is head of the universe, the church, the home, and each disciple.
the firstborn over all creation.
For everything was created by Him,
in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions
or rulers or authorities—
all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things,
and by Him all things hold together.
He is also the head of the body, the church;
He is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead,
so that He might come to have
first place in everything.
For God was pleased to have
all His fullness dwell in Him,
and through Him to reconcile
everything to Himself
by making peace
through the blood of His cross—
whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Notice that Christ is creator and sustainer of the cosmos and head of the church. Put out your two hands and consider each of these. It gives you an idea that Christ is a big deal.
We need to have very high Christology, our belief about the importance and power of Christ. The fact that he is head of the church should always give us pause about how we run and conduct our churches. We need to not act like he is the founder who is long gone, but the living head; and there is a huge difference.
Christ holds the universe together and heads up the whole church. He is not working at a distant headquarters, but he is working in all the branches of the living church. On the one hand he created everything and holds it together, and on the other hand he is the head of the church.
Christ reconciles everything. God's fullness dwells in him and he has the power of God to reconcile everything to himself. And he did it through his shed blood on the cross.
That song above, with those points, is the Christ we serve, the Christ who has saved us, the Christ who is redeeming us and making us sanctified. He is the one who dwells in us to live the life, his life. That is the context of my text about not exasperating your child.
You can only live the Christian life in Christ.
You can only obey his commands, the first and highest of which is to love, if you have him living through you. You cannot live the life without being his disciple and he calls his disciples to bear their own crosses and die so that they will live.
You have to die so that you may live.
You have to have death and burial, funeral and grief, in order to have resurrection life. To try to live the life, bypassing your cross, death, and resurrection is to try to live the Christian life without Christ, "in name only" and not the authentic deal.
That is like the Pharisees, having a "form" of godliness, but denying the power of God. It takes God to raise the dead, to have resurrection life, and that is the only life we can have in Christ. It is not the carnal nature obeying God, but the new life in Christ that has been raised from the dead, and there is a massive difference.
Christ the foundation, high Christology, and a powerful Christ, is the center, the key and the door to our lives, including how we talk to our children. Let's look at the preceding twenty verses of Colossians chapter three to get the steps, the building blocks, that lead up to this verse, and give it context.
