Today’s kids face new challenges and ask questions our kids didn’t have to two decades ago. But God has provided every answer and truth to help them have a positive mindset and turn adversity into an adventure.
Twenty years ago, my children were young. But it feels like yesterday they were hitting major milestones and asking a million questions. All their milestones, questions, challenges, achievements, and fears feel near and relevant to who they are today — and to who I am. Like a present prick in the heart, I can still feel the acute pains of sharing in their hurts and disappointments. I can sense the familiar helplessness that parents feel when helping their kids grapple with stress or anxiety. I remember how difficult it was at times to help them have a positive mindset.
Looking back affords me a more complete perspective than I had when my kids were little. I can see the well-worn paths of where my children’s thoughts took them. I can also observe intentional reroutes where my wife and I stepped in to lend guidance. Of course, we knew we couldn’t ever overhaul their thoughts or tell them what to think — kids generally don’t take well to that.
But what we did know was this: when directing their thoughts to God’s promises and truth, they would “taste and see that the Lord is good,” as we read in Psalm 34:8. They would discover He is enough for every question, concern, and fear. More powerful than society’s shallow “You can do it” catchphrases, God’s promises pave the way for a positive mindset founded in unshakeable and timeless truth.
Perhaps now, more than ever, kids are susceptible to anxiety. Along with the age-old worries around school, friends, relationships, and family life, our society has in recent years introduced new stressors. The increase of technology and peer pressure, uncertainties about the future, and the instability of the world around us build a serious case against our children’s peace.
And yet, there is more opportunity than ever for us to point our children to Christ.
During the early formative years, we can help them navigate difficult situations at school or with friend groups and even our world’s complex, unanswerable issues. We can help our kids by teaching timeless and unchanging Biblical principles.
My wife and I knew we had to be the ones to forge these principles in their minds. Like a small animal trail, their path would become broader and easier to locate the more we led our children down it. Like every parent, we made plenty of mistakes along the way. Yet my wife and I found if we always returned to God’s truth, we were going in the right direction. God works with our small, faithful steps.
When our children were young, we knew that if we did not take intentional action to protect their minds, their peace was slated toward erosion. We understood that teaching our children from a Biblical perspective and creating healthy thought habits would help our kids prepare for adulthood.
When our preteens were 10, 9, and 7, God woke me in the middle of the night with an idea: peaceful Scripture music to hide God’s Word in their hearts. We launched Scripture Lullabies and our “Hidden In My Heart” music series to deliver the promises of God’s Word through carefully orchestrated music. Later, we knew we needed tools like this to sow Scripture into their spirits, so they could identify lies and hold steadfastly to God’s truth.
Not only are we helping our kids with the living and active power of God’s Word, but they receive it through calming music created to lower anxiety and help them tame their thoughts and reign in their fears. Soothing melodies create a space of peace where their hearts and minds are prepared to absorb God’s promises and assurance.
Meditating on God’s Word day and night rewires our brains and redirects our spirits — much like a waterway system. There are several rivers near our home in Colorado. Most of the water’s current follows the same course and at the same pace. Single droplets tumble over boulders and navigate rapids in the same methods and to the same end.
Some, however, make their break for a tributary creek bed or riverway. They cut away from the main waterway and find a quieter, less-traveled, more peaceful avenue. This is what happens as we equip our children to step away from society’s mainstream thoughts and develop a positive mindset built on Biblical truth.
When sin entered the human heart, we grew more familiar with our weaknesses. Fear was given an open door to our hearts. To pull our attention away from anxious and deceptive thoughts, we can train our minds to dwell on all that is noble, pure, lovely, and true. This is what God’s Word means when it instructs us to renew our minds in Romans 12:2.
Sometimes it takes swimming upriver against the current of society’s thought trends. It can require all our energy to break away from well-worn patterns of thought. But once we do, new habits begin to develop. We carve out fresh riverways of perspective and create a well-traveled, familiar route for our mindsets. As 2 Corinthians 10:5 encourages, we can “take every thought captive…” Our kids can discover the freedom that comes when we take hold of our thoughts and help show our kids where they can and cannot lead.
Our kids hear countless messages every single day. We cannot filter everything that enters their ears or occupies their minds. However, we can help our kids believe sound truth to recognize anything that does not align with God’s best for them. They can learn to identify false messages from the media, peers, or their own minds and measure them against sound arguments from God’s Word.
When our kids hear “You do you” but grow anxious and insecure because they don’t actually know who they are yet, we can point them to their identity in Christ and remind them, “You be who God has made you to be.” We can encourage them with Jeremiah 29:11, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘plans for welfare, and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.’” And, you can listen to “Plans I Have For You.”
When pressures from peer groups leave them fearing they’re not enough, we can assure them we are more than enough in Christ. We can read Galatians 1:10, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Suppose they’re overwhelmed by frightening happenings in our world and feel a lack of control over their lives. In that case, we can point them to God’s sovereignty in Psalm 91:1-2, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.’” We can play for them “Psalm 91 – In You Will I Trust.”
As our kids grow older and become anxious about their futures, we can direct their thoughts to Matthew 6:25-26 and verse 34, “do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on…Look at the birds of the air…your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? … Therefore do not anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”
Today’s kids face new challenges and ask questions my kids didn’t have to two decades ago. The world has certainly changed, but our children’s needs have not. We all need the indescribable peace of Christ — not only to calm our souls but to center our thoughts on God’s limitless power and unfailing love. He has provided every answer and truth to help our kids have a positive mindset that cannot be shaken by this world.
Jay Stocker is the composer of the best-selling “Hidden In My Heart” series and co-founder of Scripture Lullabies, a company bringing the truth of God’s Word through orchestra-score music to hundreds of thousands of listeners worldwide. Jay began his music career with an instrumental album that landed on the Pamplin Music label. He continued writing and producing for various artists as well as Group Publishing and their acclaimed VBS programs. Having written over 300 songs for Group, a new season unfolded in 2008 when he and his wife, Trina, founded Scripture Lullabies and released the first album a year later. The flagship “Hidden In My Heart” series has become the number one seller in multiple categories on Amazon, as have the instrumental piano albums, “Quietly” and “Lighthouse.” Jay now spends his time composing music and stewarding the Scripture Lullabies brand.
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