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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back to our series about parenting sorrowing children. If you are new to Truth.Love.Parent., I hope you will subscribe to the show.
My name is Aaron Brewster. I’m a biblical family counselor, the president of Truth.Love.Family., and author of “Quit: How to Stop Family Strife for Good.” The vast majority of our over 500 episodes come complete with free episode notes, transcripts, and carefully curated resources to help you dive deeper into the truths we’re learning together. Also, be sure to work through the series from beginning to end as each episode builds on the ones that come before it. Two episodes ago we introduced the biblical roots of suffering, loss, and sorrow, and last time we looked at Daily Sorrow with a brief introduction to Deceived Sorrow. And today we’re going to talk about how to parent our kids through Discontented Sorrow. So, let’s jump right in. Topic
Let’s start with . . .
1. The experience of Children with Discontented Sorrow. First of all—and this is very important to identify—the emotional experience of Discontented Sorrow is the same as other forms of sorrow. There is sadness and potential crying and the feeling of heaviness, and the other feelings-words used to describe the experience. But even though they may feel the same, and even though the external “look” of the sorrow is the same, the roots are are very dissimilar. Second, Discontented Sorrow can grow out of Daily Sorrow, or it can appear all on its own. Third, as you can tell from the name, this is a sorrow motivated by discontentment that leads to grumbling, murmuring, and complaining. It’s similar to Daily Sorrow in that the person is often sad about the circumstances, the loss, the trials and the testings, but instead of resting in the provision and promises of God, they reject or neglect God’s will for their lives. This leads to complaining and protesting about the situation. These individuals are not accepting what He’s allowed for the reasons He’s allowed it. Let’s consider I Corinthians 10:10, “Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.” In this passage Paul is referencing the Israelites grumbling against the Lord in Numbers 16 and 17. Numbers 16:41 reads, “But on the next day all the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘You are the ones who have caused the death of the Lord’s people.” There definitely was Daily Sorrow involved because the “death of the Lord’s people” they’re referencing is when God caused the ground to open up and swallow a number of their friends and relatives. But these discontented sorrowers were also mad at God for doing it. They didn’t acknowledge that those people had received the just condemnation of God, and they weren’t seeking to grow and mature from the loss. Two people can experience the exact same Daily Sorrow, but one can take it to a level that the first does not. For example, two children can be displaced because of flooding from Hurricane Helene. One of the children appropriately mourns the loss of his home and bed and toys and sense of security, and yet the child acknowledges the trustworthiness of the Lord and what He desires to do in this situation. On the other hand, his sister complains and grumbles. She says things like, “This isn’t fair” or “Why did this have to happen to me” or “I hate this” or “I wish I had never been born” or any other versions of complaining and grumbling and whining and murmuring. Similar experience, different response. And here’s an interesting note about the difference between Daily and Discontented Sorrow. There is no sin in Daily Sorrow. It’s an appropriate sorrow over a legitimate loss, but it also acknowledges the God of sorrow. On the other hand, Discontented Sorrow always involves sin. Sin ruins everything . . . even our sorrow. Why do I say that? Well, if Daily Sorrow is an appropriate—albeit difficult experience—adding sin into the mix is going to stain that experience, thus making it harder to bear. Let me put it this way: felt sorrow is made deeper and stronger by the fact that we are sinning while we experience it. Remember this, sin doesn’t add to our sorrow, it multiplies our sorrow exponentially. This happens because now we’re inviting other types of sorrow into our lives. You see, we’re not merely adding discontentment to our Daily Sorrow. The sin of discontentment makes all of the pain I’m already feeling grow by factors because now each individual pang of sorrow is being viewed as wrong and bad, and that casts God’s goodness and sovereignty into question. Discontentment is a sin that grows from not trusting God. It lacks gratitude. It’s devoid of peace and joy. It’s self-focused, and it dares to suggest that God messed up by allowing things to be as they are. A person experiencing Discontented Sorrow is always going to carry a much heavier and painful burden because of the poison of discontentment. Now, before we transition into how we can practically parent our kids when they’ve crossed the line from Daily Sorrow to Discontented Sorrow, I want to encourage you to get a good night’s sleep. That’s right, MyPillow is sponsoring this series. I got my own MyPillow last year, and I don’t know why I waited so long. Not only is it so much more comfortable than my previous pillow, it also was so deeply discounted that it cost far less than my old pillow cost. And you can get an even better deal right now if you use the code EVERMIND at checkout. Just visit MyPillow.com to get your standard MyPillow for only $14.98. My personal favorite, the MyPillow 2.0 usually cost $80, but when you use the code EVERMIND at checkout, you can get it for only $39.99. They also have amazing deals on towels, kitchen gear, sheets, mattress toppers, and even full mattresses. I personally have my eyes on the mattress topper. Visit MyPillow.com or use the link in the description which will automatically enter the promo code EVERMIND for you. Thank you for supporting MyPillow as it supports this show . . . and all of our sleeping heads. Now, let’s talk about . . . 2. Parenting Children with Discontented Sorrow It’s hard to watch our kids suffer. It’s painful to see them sorrow, but we have to be wise when we discover that our kids are sorrowing for all the wrong reasons. That’s why the first step is . . . A. Identify the discontentment. So far in this process, you should have helped your child identify the loss that’s at the root of their sorrow. When it becomes clear—through their bad attitudes, complaining, and biblically false statements—that they’re experiencing discontentment, identify that about which they’re discontent. Yes, their bike may have a flat tire which means they can’t go riding with their friends today. That’s a practical loss that will lead to an appropriate Daily Sorrow. But if they’re complaining, they’re not merely sorrowing over the flat tire. Their discontentment is lodged somewhere else. Maybe she’s upset her friend won’t let her borrow her friend’s other bike. Maybe she’s upset because her father said he was going to fix the tire before the ride. But even then, there’s more to unpack. Each of those realities might be experienced as Daily Sorrow with no discontentment associated with it. I encourage you to listen to our 2-part episode about Parenting Complainers because it goes into more detail, but the kernel we need to recognize is that discontentment grows out of the idea that “I deserve better.” It’s a prideful response that not only inflates the view of self, but it also deflates God’s glory. It rejects the notion that what God has allowed into my life—including the Daily Sorrow—is for my best. The events don’t produce discontentment. If that were true, Jesus would have been discontent because of all the unfair, wicked things that were done to Him. But the reality is that discontentment grows from a lie . . . not an experience. The lie is that I deserve better. It may sound like “God hates me,” or “This isn’t fair,” or “Yeah, but she . . . ,” “I hate this,” or “This isn’t right,” but it all comes back to the belief that I shouldn’t have to experience what is happening. And that lie flies in the face of what the Scriptures tell us concerning the divine purpose of suffering. So, you need to understand why the child is discontent, but so do they. And much of this teaching is going to overlap with . . . B. Utilize all previous parenting strategies we’ve discussed. Your child needs to understand what emotions, sorrow, suffering, and loss are. They need to be equipped with the truth concerning the God of suffering. They need to submit to God’s expectations for our suffering. But—unlike Daily Sorrow—there’s a new poison that’s been injected that has to be addressed. C. Reprove them by showing how their response is a sin. This is where we mustn’t weep with those who weep. Your child may be sad about the flat tire, but they’re sinning in their discontentment because they’re believing a lie. And that discontentment is resulting in them feeling much more sad than they otherwise had to feel. They need to be reproved about their complaining. Philippians 2:14 says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.” In John 6:41-43 we read, “So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ 42 They said, ’Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?’ 43 Jesus answered them, ‘Do not grumble among yourselves.’” James 5:9 commands, “Do not grumble against one another.” I Corinthians 10:9-10 reads, “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” Lord willing, when confronted with this biblical truth, they may ask, “But how am I supposed to respond?” And that’s where you take them back to the fundamental truths that need to reveal the lie they’re believing. I Thessalonians 5:18 says, “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” God wants us to always be thankful. When they ask how they could possibly be thankful about their tire being flat and missing the bike ride, we can deepen the conversation by looping back around to the lessons we’ve previously taught them. We can show they using Romans 8:28-29, James 1:2-4, II Corinthians 4:7-18, I Peter 1:6-7, and Romans 5:3-5 how God desires to use the suffering in their lives. Now, here’s the cool thing. In addition to rehearsing the wondrous truths about God, suffering, sorrow, and loss, you also get to reprove your child. You get to expose their faulty thinking and help them interpret the situation correctly in light of the truth. I dig into this idea of reinterpreting our kids’ thoughts in The Parent’s 5 Jobs Series. You should definitely check it out if you haven’t before. Reproving our kids is one of the most important jobs a parent has. In fact, it’s one of the biblical parenting essentials. But here’s the other very interesting part about parenting a discontented sorrower. Part of your job is going to be to . . . D. Introduce them to another form of sorrow. That’s right, you heard me. In order to help someone who is sinning with their Discontented Sorrow, you need to introduce them to another form of sorrow and invite them to experience it. “Wow, Aaron, that sounds counterintuitive. Didn’t you just say that sin multiplies sorrow? Is that what we’re doing? Are we multiplying sorrow?” Good question, but no. We’re hopefully exchanging sorrow. We want them to give up their Discontented Sorrow which multiples sorrow for another sorrow that will decrease the sorrow they’re experiencing by “dividing out” all the inappropriate sorrow that was added because of their discontentment. “Okay,” you say, “I’m following you, but what is this other kind of sorrow?” Another good question, but that answer will have to wait until next week because it’s the third type of sorrow we’re going to discuss. So, yes, I will answer your question in grand detail next time. But before we end, I want to revisit the concept I established last time . . . 3. The Relationship between Deceived Sorrow and Discontented Sorrow Last time we talked about Deceived Sorrow and Daily Sorrow. Daily Sorrow is the result of a correct response to Practical Loss. But Deceived Sorrow was when someone was experiencing Perceived Loss. They hadn’t actually lost anything, but they were sorrowing as if they had. Well, as we talked about it last time, and I mentioned that I might include a bonus episode at the end all about Deceived Sorrow, I started to consider the fact that Deceived Sorrow may really be a completely unique concept. And as I gave that some extra thought, I realized that Deceived Sorrow actually interacts differently with all of the other kinds of sorrow. It interacts with Daily Sorrow in that it lies to the sorrower that their Perceived Loss is a Practical Loss. But it interacts with Discontented Sorrow differently. And I’m sure you can see where I’m going. The individual experiencing Discontented Sorrow is only doing so because they’re believing a lie. Therefore, we could argue that the Discontented Sorrow actually is a consequence of the Deceived Sorrow. The child was sad because they believed a lie about the situation. It was more than the bike ride, it was more the fact that the child doesn’t deserve to miss out on what they so badly wanted. Of course, that’s not true. That’s a Perceived Loss. The child didn’t miss out on what they deserved. The child actually was presently experiencing far better than they deserve. Their sin means they deserve eternal separation from God. But God not only allows them to go on bike rides, He graciously makes opportunities for their spiritual growth in the midst of suffering. But they believed the lie anyway, and so that sorrow gave way to grumbling and complaining. Deceived Sorrow laid the groundwork for Discontented Sorrow to flourish. And I think we’re going to see that Deceived Sorrow will try to rear it’s ugly head in relationship to every single one of the other 5 sorrows we’re going to study. Thank you, Rebecca Dittman, for planting the seed and helping me verbalize the idea of Delusional Sorrow. That interaction has given rise to my deep dive into this concept in Scripture, and it’s giving me . . . and—hopefully—all of you . . . a far better understanding of the sorrow in our homes. Conclusion
So, be sure to join us next time as we investigate this 3rd type of sorrow, and share this series with your friends so our parenting communities can all be on the same page.
Of course, if you need help with the Discontented Sorrow in your home, please email us at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (828) 423-0894. I look forward to continuing this study with you next time. Until then, parent in truth, weep with your children in their Daily Sorrow, but teach and reprove them in their Discontented Sorrow. See you next time.
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