What's in Your Heart?

I don't know about your kids, but my kids are all about the Silly Bandz craze. They leave the house for school every morning with so many of them on their arms that you can hardly see their wrists. For whatever reason, these little rubber bracelets shaped like things have become an important part of my kids' lives. I can motivate them to do almost anything by promising to buy them a pack of Silly Bandz.

Yesterday, we talked about how rules are an extension of our values. We want our kids to follow rules so they can learn the values behind them. Today, I want to extend that conversation and talk about how our values are guided by our hearts. Just like my kids can be motivated by a pack of Silly Bandz, what we seek in our hearts creates our values. We need to be sure that our hearts are set on the right things or our values, and thus our rules will be out of whack.

Matthew 6:19-21 says "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Our actions are always guided by that on which we set our hearts. The Bible is clear that our hearts should be set on God. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God.

We want God to be the first thing that our hearts are set on. When we put other things in God's place, our values become skewed. If we love money more than God, our priorities will be on the things that will make us more money. If we love our friends more than God, our priorities will be on things that bring us more popularity. Any time we put something in front of God, we make it an idol. Our heart becomes set on it, and it begins to have control in our lives.

Before you look to teach this concept to your kids, examine your own life to see if you have put anything in front of God in your life. Are you seeking after Him or has your heart led you down a different path than the one that follows God? Are you letting some other "thing" take God's rightful place in your heart? Do you have rules in place that reflect values that aren't important to God? If so, examine the reasons for those rules and see if you really want to enforce them.

You can use a quick demonstration to show your kids the importance of keeping your heart focused on God.

• Have your kids choose a point in the distance -- a tree, a fencepost, etc. You choose a point in the opposite direction. Have them walk toward the point you chose while looking at the point they chose. It will be really difficult for them to get to the point you chose in any sort of straight line. Talk with them about how hard it is to go in one direction when your sights are set on something else. Share Matthew 6:21 with them and talk with them about how when we set our hearts on something, that thing will guide our actions.
• Offer your kids a small prize for doing some action. Make them do something crazy that they wouldn't normally do. After you give them their prize ask them if they would have chosen to do that crazy thing on their own. Talk about how because their heart was set on the prize, they chose to do something outside the norm. While that's not always a bad thing, when our hearts our set on the wrong things, we can end up doing wrong things that we wouldn't normally do.
• Talk with your kids about setting their hearts on God. Explain that when we put God first, we are more likely to do things that are pleasing to God. Ask your kids what types of things they think they will be more likely to do if their main goal is to please God. Help them list off the types of actions that God finds pleasing.

Keeping our hearts fixed on God keeps us moving forward in the process of becoming more like Jesus. It directs our values, our rules and the atmosphere of our homes. This week, work to keep God in His rightful place in your life: first.

Memory Monday: Matthew 22:37-39

Does it honor God? Does it help others? These two simple questions can help you teach your kids values. Everything Jesus did, and everything found in the Old Testament law is summed up in these two questions.

Our church is doing a sermon series on Raising G-rated Kids in an R-rated World. Yesterday's sermon focused on teaching your kids values. Our pastor yesterday suggested that the best way to teach values to your kids, which is what this blog is all about, is to reduce all the rules you have to these two questions. That's what Jesus did in today's Memory Monday verse. In Matthew 22:37-39, he says "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Jesus took thousands of years of tradition and law and distilled them into two simple commands -- love God and love your neighbor. He kept the commands simple and easy to remember. And He based those commands on a value.

While rules are important and set limits for our kids, we need to follow Jesus' example and remember to focus on the values behind the rules. We need to know what the most important values are in our life and base the rules in our households on those values. As our children learn the values, we'll find that they need fewer rules.

If it sounds like I'm advocating that you have no rules, I'm not, but remember that if children only follow rules because they have to, they will just be rules. They won't learn anything from them and will just see them as restrictive. If you use the rules to teach values, eventually your children will rely on the value to guide their behavior. Use these ideas to set up rules in your home that reflect the values you want to teach.

• Sit down with your spouse and decide what big values you want to emphasize. Start with the two that Jesus taught in this verse. You may want to distill those values down into smaller chunks like respect for others, helping others, telling the truth, etc. Decide what rules you need to have in place to reflect those values. Try to keep your list of rules as short as possible, depending on the age of your kids. Younger kids will need more rules because they don't already have a grasp on the value. Remember, the goal of having rules is to teach children a value. If you have rules in your home that don't reflect a certain value, it might be time to examine why you have that rule and whether it's worth enforcing.
• Draw up a contract for your family. Have it clearly state the values in your home. It can be a simple document that simply lists the things you as a family value. For example, it might read something like this, "We, the Fairchild family, promise to: treat others with respect, honor our parents, refrain from lying, help others, play fairly, honor God and love each other." Have everyone sign the document and hang it somewhere where everyone can see it. When your kids break a rule based on a value in the contract, remind them of the action they agreed to in the contract. Having them sign the contract places responsibility for their actions on your kids and lets them know up front the values that your family thinks are important.
• Use the questions "Does it honor God? Does it help others?" frequently. When your children are trying to make choices or they have made a poor choice, use these questions to help them understand why certain behaviors are wrong. This takes the emphasis off of the rule they broke and puts it squarely on the underlying value you want them to learn.

As you learn this verse this week, don't forget to apply those questions to the things you are doing in your life. Do your actions honor God and help others? If they don't, you can talk until you're blue in the face about those values to your kids, but your own actions will undermine your teaching. Give your kids a good example to follow as you work to move from just enforcing rules to teaching them the values behind the rules.

Prioritizing Life

My oldest daughter has our family embarking into the world of competitive soccer this year. Before we signed up, we sat down with her and talked about the time and money commitment it takes for her to play. We made sure she understood that this was a year-long commitment, so she needed to be sure she wanted to make it a priority in her life. She decided to play, and she loves every minute of it. She never wants to be late to practice, she likes to practice her skills and she loves playing in the games (even when it's 104 degrees outside). She knows that to play, she has to work hard in school and have all her homework done before practice. She's made it a priority to play soccer.

Priorities in your family are based on your values. If you value something, you will put a priority on it. My oldest values soccer because it lets her be active, make friends and play on a team. She prioritizes it by making sure her homework is done, practicing her skills and being on time to practice.

Too often, our family's schedules are dictated by what is urgent and not necessarily what is important. Today, I want you to take a hard look at your schedules and decide what is on your schedule that you truly value and what is on your schedule that doesn't emphasize your values. Start by looking at the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"


"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Martha had let the urgent take the place of the important, and Jesus called her on it. He pointed out that Mary had put a priority on the more important thing -- spending time with Him. When we let all the urgent things in our lives push out the things that we say we value -- time with God, time with family, creating strong relationships with friends -- then we're really saying that we don't value those things at all.

I'm not here to tell you to not let your kids play sports or do dance or take piano or take swim lessons. I am saying, make sure whatever your family is involved in reflects what you value. For example, as you know, my youngest daughter plays ice hockey. That may not seem like it reflects a value in our family, but it does. Hockey has taught my daughter that sometimes you have to work really hard to get what you want. Hockey is a tough sport to learn. Not only do you have to be quick, smart and agile, you have to do it all on ice skates. In learning to play, she has learned valuable lessons about character qualities on which we, as a family, place value.

Make it a family process to decide on what things your family places the most value. Your kids need to learn that everything in life has a place, and sometimes we have to pass on good things so we can focus on better things. Don't make all their decisions for them. Even young children have an opinion about what is important to them.

• Have a family meeting where you have listed out all the activities in which members of your family are involved. Lay out a piece of posterboard and work with your family to come up with four or five values on which you are going to judge your activities. Your values will be unique to your family, but they might include things like: Friendships, God, Family or Health.
• Look at your list of activities. Put each activity under the value to which it relates. You may have some that don't fit a category. Set these aside. If an activity fits under more than one category, write it down under each one.
• Prioritize your values. Does God come before friendship? Does family come before health? Direct the conversation but include your kids. Ask for their opinions.
• Look at the activities that don't fit under a value. Talk about why you are doing that activity. Decide together whether that is an activity that needs to be on the schedule.
• Explain to your kids that these are the values on which your family will be basing its decisions about activities. The priority goes to whichever value your family has decided is the most important one.
• Set limits. There are so many good activities out there, that even when you have set your priorities there can be too much on the schedule. Limit your kids (and even the adults) to whatever number of activities fits your family. In our house, our kids can do one sport and one activity per season. Right now my oldest is in Girl Scouts and soccer, and my youngest is just playing hockey.

When you decide on your values and priorities as a family, everyone is moving in the same direction when making decisions. When a birthday party conflicts with a planned family event, you can simply point out that you all decided together that family is a higher priority than friends. Specific situations may require game-day decisions, but your values provide you with a place to start. Not all decisions are easy, and some require sacrifice on the part of each family member, but in the end, you know you're all moving toward the same target.