If the contents of my first post seemed too idealistic, this post may seem too realistic. Many parents or teachers may not feel like the language of the previous chapter- blessing and privilege and joy- describes their current experience with kids. These words are true of children, as we saw in Psalm 127,  but other words may also describe the reality of raising them: frustration, impatience, and difficulty. Why is this so? Because the serenity of the first chapter of Genesis quickly turns into chaos a few chapters later. And we live (and have kids) in the aftermath of the latter.

God’s first mandate to be fruitful and multiply was given before the fall, before sin entered the world. Thus, being fruitful and multiplying would have naturally led to filling the earth with children who grew up to be adults who walked with God in perfect harmony like Adam and Eve did. That was the ideal.

Raising children in a pre-fall environment would have been relatively uncomplicated. Imagine raising a toddler who isn’t filled with impassioned rage when you give him the wrong color cereal bowl or teenager who doesn’t struggle with pride or self-image. Unfortunately, no child was ever born into that environment.

When Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, they sinned against God. They declared themselves to be the masters of their lives instead of submitting to God’s lordship and authority. They fractured the relationship they previously enjoyed by rebelling against their Creator. Instead of looking to, worshiping, and following the One who made them, they looked to, worshiped, and followed their own selfish desires. As a result, the serpent’s promise came true: their eyes were opened and they knew good and evil. But their newfound experiential knowledge of evil came with a great cost.

Everything Is Broken

The primary effect of Adam and Eve’s sin was the fracture in their relationship with God. The innocence and intimacy they enjoyed with him was broken. The ripple effect of that fracture spilled over into every aspect of their lives. Everything about life became more difficult, because everything in life was broken because of sin. That’s what theologians call “the curse of sin.”

There are several aspects to this curse. First, Adam and Eve recognize that they are naked and make clothes (Gen 3:7). A lot more difficult than wearing your birthday suit every day. Second, they hide from God (Gen 3:8). Their relationship with him is now hindered by shame and guilt. Third, there is enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen 3:15). We see the difficulty of their warfare all throughout the Bible and around us still today.

Fourth, the woman’s pain in childbearing is increased (Gen 3:16). The blessing of giving birth now comes with hardship and pain from the moment of conception until the moment of birth. Many women may struggle to get pregnant or stay pregnant, both of which are effects of child birth in a fallen world. Even those who do carry to full term experience discomfort and pain, and many mothers give their lives in child birth.

Fifth, the relationship between husband and wife will be difficult due to contrary desires (Gen 3:16). Sixth, all work will be more difficult, plagued by the effects of sin (symbolized by thorns, Gen 3:17). Finally, mankind will return to dust. They will die because death now reigns (Gen 3:19). All of life will be a struggle all the way up until the final struggle of death. Everything is more difficult now.

This is the environment that children are born into. In fact, it begins before they’re even born. Couples may struggle to get pregnant, experience miscarriages, or give birth to stillborn babies. And once they’re born, it doesn’t get any easier, because parents, who are sinners themselves, are tasked with raising other sinners in a world plagued by the deadly effects of sin.

Dysfunctional Families

Many parents struggle when they first have children or when their begin to exhibit sinful behavior because of unrealistic expectations. They thought that their children would make them happy. They thought that their children would listen and obey. Before they had kids, they said things like, “my kids will never do anything like that,” and now their kids are doing a lot of stuff like that. I’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. I can laugh about it now, but it hasn’t been a painless experience.

Thankfully, the Bible gives us realistic expectations for how sin will affect our families. Though it paints a beautiful picture of the blessing of children (Psalm 127), it also paints another picture of the ugly reality of sin and its effects. To see this full picture, let’s consider some of the families that are immediately affected by the Fall.

The first family that is affected is Adam and Eve’s own family. As we saw in Genesis 3, their relationship would not have moments of tension due to contrary desires. The idol of self has crept into the human heart, always wanting to put itself first, seek its own desires, and consider itself more important than others. The effects of Adam and Eve’s broken relationship with God spilled over into their own relationship, and it affected every relationship that comes after them, including the relationship between their children.

It is important to note that Eve viewed her children as a gift from the Lord. When she gives birth to Cain, she says, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen 4:1). She rightly attributes the gift of a child to the help of the Lord. Children are still a blessing. But everything is now affected by sin. And this child that the Lord gave her will give her much heartache and grief as he also succumbs to sin and temptation.

Abel is born next. We are told that he is a keeper of the sheep, while Cain is a worker of the ground (Gen 4:2). Each of them bring an offering to the Lord. Abel brings the firstborn of his flock and the Lord accepted Abel’s offering. However, he does not accept Cain’s. Why? The author of Genesis doesn’t give us a clear answer, but I tend to think it was because his heart was not in it. He likely brought a very half-hearted offering because he felt like he had to. Not because he wanted to. God doesn’t delight in offerings themselves, but in hearts that are yielded to him (Hosea 6:6).

Even though God “has no regard” for Cain’s sacrifice, he does offer him encouragement. “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” But he also warns him, “If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it” (Gen 4:6-7). The language of contrary desires is used again here. In Genesis 3 it was used to describe Eve’s relationship with Adam. But here it is used to describe sin’s desire for Cain. It is “crouching at the door,” ready to consume him. Everyone must now battle these contrary desires.

Cain gives into the contrary desire of sin and murders his brother Abel (Gen 4:8). The brokenness caused by sin is now on full display. If it were not for the Fall, these brothers would have carried on the heritage of imaging God perfectly and exercising dominion over the earth. But because of the Fall, their relationship is infected and devoured by the plague of sin.

After cursing Cain and sending him away from his presences, God gives Eve another son named Seth. Once again, she praises God for the gift of Seth’s life, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him” (Gen 4:25). There’s an important point here. God blesses us with children. Yet they are born into a world of sin and will themselves have sinful desires contrary to God’s will. When they fail (and they will fail), we do not put the blame on God. His gift of children are still a blessing. Why? Because of the hope promised in Genesis 3:15. Sin won’t always reign. Death will eventually be done away with. But we are getting ahead of ourselves!

As Genesis concludes the story of Cain and Abel, we might naively think that things will get better from here. They don’t. They were the first dysfunctional family in a line of dysfunctional families. Genesis 6 tells us that all the families of the earth had become so corrupt that God planned to start over. He saves a righteous man named Noah and his family, but even his family experiences dysfunction.

After the flood, Noah’s son Ham dishonors him by drawing attention to his nakedness after Noah had a little too much wine. When Noah wakes up, he pronounces a curse on Ham’s son, Canaan, Noah’s grandson. Grandfathers cursing grandchildren. Even grandparent relationships are affected!

The biblical story continues, and with it the proliferation of imperfect families. Abraham and Sarah try to speed up God’s promise of offspring by Abraham sleeping with their servant. They end up having two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, who must go their separate ways. Isaac’s son Jacob famously cheats his brother Esau out of his rightful inheritance and blessing, aided by his mother, who also plays favorites, and must flee from his brother’s wrath. In exile he encounters a deceitful uncle who tricks Jacob into taking both of his daughters as wives, who compete for Jacob’s affection through a child-bearing competition. Jacob’s son Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers out of jealousy prompted by Jacob’s favoritism.

Needless to say, the mandate set forth in Genesis 1 to multiply image bearers on the earth is much more difficult than it would have been in a world without the brokenness caused by sin. However, God did not stop working because of sin. He continued his work through the same dysfunctional families mentioned above- Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are the patriarchs of the Old Testament, the founders of the nation of Israel, the men and women who knew and walked with God. They were imperfect, and yes- dysfunctional, but God was working to create something beautiful out of their messy family lives. And he does the same in ours.

No matter how difficult or broken your family situation may be, God can use it. In fact, he will use it. He is in the business of using broken vessels to display his treasures of grace, mercy, and goodness. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4:7).

While They Are Still Sinners

To summarize, children are born into a world broken by sin. The effects of that brokenness can be seen at the individual level, the relational level, and the societal level. Sin will come naturally, but the world will also teach them how to sin. Sinful attitudes and actions are both innate and learned. A child may have the propensity to lie, but the world will teach them how to lie.

This is where the concept of realistic expectations becomes important. Our kids can fool us for the first couple of months. They seem rather good. They smile at us. They want to be with us. Sure they cry, but that’s just because they’re hungry, need to be changed, or miss us, right? However, I have been suspicious at times that my newborns knew what they were doing when they cried for the fourth or fifth time during the night (i.e. keeping us awake to entertain and feed them without regard for the fact that we too need sleep!). I am kidding, of course.

Things start to change once they begin to form words, especially the word, “NO.” After that they begin to learn how to throw tantrums, steal toys, aggravate siblings, say hurtful things, and deliberately disobey. Don’t get me wrong, kids bring an unimaginable joy to your life. And I mean that. Unimaginable joy. Because of God’s common grace, there is so much good in them (don’t forget all the blessing language in Psalm 127).

But your little bundle of joy will also have moments where he treats you as if you’re his arch nemesis. My wife and I intentionally did not use the phrase “terrible twos” to describe our toddler years, opting instead to use the more positive phrase “terrific twos,” but there were plenty of moments where “terrible” more accurately described some toddler behaviors.

These early years of sin-expression is when many parents begin to question what they’ve done wrong. By this time in a child’s life, they’ve probably done countless things wrong, but probably nothing in particular that can explain why the child has become more adept at sin. That can be explained by one thing: they are still sinners, just like us. Many parents will also wonder if their child is uniquely gifted in the area of sin. Perhaps. But it is more likely that all the other kids you see are just as good at sinning as your kid is. You just don’t see it as much.

Stay with me here, I’m almost done with the bad news. But the rest of the bad news is this: sin progresses and matures. The temper tantrums stop, but in their place comes all sorts of sins: lying, deceitful behavior, pride, selfishness, laziness, jealousy, hurtful words, disrespect, greed, lust, and anger, just to name a few. And as kids become pre-teens and teens, their sin matures and becomes more complex. Helping a teen navigate relationship issues or identity crises is much more difficult than teaching little Johnny to share.

Here’s the question: Is their sin a reason not to love them or lay down our lives for them? The question may sound ridiculous, but I think many of us subconsciously believe that people, including our children, must earn our love. They must be thankful for it or act in some way to continue receiving it.

Let me ask you this: was our sin a reason for God not to love us? Of course not! Romans 5:8 says that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This was certainly true for those reading Paul’s letter. They were literally alive, as sinners, on the actual day that Christ died for them. God didn’t wait for them to clean themselves up before he died for them.

For those of us reading Paul’s words today, the message is still the same. God didn’t wait for us to rid ourselves of sin (which is impossible, by the way) before he sent his Son to die for us. He sent his Son out love for us before we were even born, knowing that we would be sinners in need of a Savior.

We are called to love the kids in our lives in the same way. We don’t demand perfection and withhold our love until they attain it. I know that no parent thinks they are doing this. But I also know that I have been guilty of withholding love or grace in the little moments.

Over and over again I have to remind myself that God calls me to love them as he has loved me: sacrificially and unconditionally. Not waiting for them to become perfect or earn my love. They never will. God calls me to love them right where they are, as they are, as Christ has loved me, so that one day, they might know the God who loved them unconditionally too.

When we love our kids despite their sin, we become more like Jesus. When we forgive them time and time again (often for the same things), we become more like Jesus. When we continue to show grace and mercy despite their failures, we become more like Jesus.

We also to show our kids Jesus. We get to be “Jesus with skin on” as we show our children unconditional love and grace. We get to image the God to our kids who casts our sins into the depths of the sea and has new mercies every morning (Micah 7:19; Lam 3:22-23). We get to be their first experience of God’s grace, with the goal of it being natural for them to believe God loves them and offers his grace to them, because they’ve seen it offered time and time again through us.

This is ultimately what our kids need. Or rather, who they need. They need Jesus, the One who came as the last Adam to undo what the first Adam did in the garden. Jesus came to take the curse of the fall, the curse of sin, upon himself,  and to progressively purge its effects from the earth. As we follow him, we begin to regain that which was lost, chiefly our relationship with God. And we get to help our kids learn what that relationship looks like and how to walk with him. And little by little, the brokenness is undone, and the kingdom of God is built through our families.

God has not abandoned us. He has met us right where we are, in our sin, through the person and work of his Son. Our job is to raise children in an environment of such grace. That means being parents who do not hold their children’s sin against them. Parents who are ready to forgive because they’ve been forgiven. Parents who expect their kids to sin because they are sinners, and who live their lives demonstrating the grace, love, and forgiveness that can ultimately be found in Jesus, the Savior of sinners.

That’s discipleship. And it’s not easy. Its difficult. But it is what God has called us to and what he equips us for by his Spirit. We live our lives pursuing Jesus ourselves and helping others to walk with him as well. It comes in the little moments more than the big moments. It happens in the mundane aspects of life, where your kids are watching and learning. It can happen when you succeed or when you fail, as long as you’re always honest about our need for God’s grace and the abundance we are given in Christ. That’s the role of a parent.

Application:

1. Recognize that the Fall introduced sin and brokenness into every aspect of society, including the family. Don’t expect your family to be immune.
2. Allow the families in the Bible to encourage you that there is no perfect family.
3. Remind yourself that while there is no perfect family, there is a perfect God who can bring beauty from our messy lives.
4. Resolve to love the children in your life as God has loved you in Christ.