After conversing with some of my readers, I wanted to add the reflections we came up with together.
When you find yourself in a Babel-type power struggle. It doesn't help much to try to figure out who is to blame for moving the boundaries with new definitions or who is grasping for power wrongly. It could be either the parents or the teens. In the heat of the moment, no one is going to admit to either thing.
The healing action will be to call all parties to stop addressing the power struggle, to realize that they are not actually struggling against each other for supremacy. Instead they have been substituting their own agenda for God's call on their lives at that moment. Restoration will come when parties to the struggle again address God, returning to the place where they knew what God had commanded them to do and asking for His commission. Ask for His definitions.
In terms of Biblical imagery, leave Babel. What you invested in that tower will be a ruin. But as you seek God's commission, His empowerment to live in His way, you will find yourself in the same place as the disciples at Pentecost. Waiting, praying, refusing to take action or to continue in the action that engaged the power struggle until you receive His clear direction. Anyone who is in that prayer room will receive healing. Parents, teens or both. You don't have to agree together. At that place, the Holy Spirit is promised. He will come.
He will come, restoring understanding to those who "speak different languages", bringing a burning commission and joyful empowerment to move on.
Pentecost is often viewed as Babel Reversed. In both stories, there was a divine send-off, but what contrasts! Where at Pentecost God brought understanding to His people regardless of their language, at Babel (Gen 11) God confused the rebel's understanding by dividing the languages. Where at Pentecost the result was gathering and fellowship, at Babel the result was dispersion and alienation.
What made the difference? And can we learn from these examples to transform the experience of releasing our young adults into the gateway for renewed fellowship?
Notice first, that a dispersion for the purpose of extending God's rule in the world was God's aim both at Babel and at Pentecost. Whether He was dealing with rebels or with true sons, the send-out was non-optional. So it's clear that the progress both of individuals' maturity and the advancement of Christ's cause depends on a certain amount of healthy distance that will give scope to each person's activity. If we have been training our children to transform the world, they aren't going to be able to do that forever from our living rooms - under normal circumstances.
Our choices, both as parents and as children, seem to be: separating with alienation and confusion or separating with deeper unity and understanding.
At Babel, God addressed rebel sons. Their sin was that typical adolescent attitude, "I'm and adult now. I can do whatever I want!" They said, "Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us make a tower whose top reaches to heaven." They were grasping for power and independence without a commission, without reference to their responsibilities, without reference to their calling as sons of God.
It is difficult for young adults, as they come into adult-sized capacities, to wait to exercise those powers on their own. What they usually fail to realize is that larger capacities mean larger risks and responsibilities, not just more power. The true test of maturity is whether those young people will rein in those plunging stallions-within long enough to master them. Young adults must ask themselves: will I master the possibilities or will I be mastered by them instead? Will I determine to use my emerging power only at the command of God or will I use it up on my own agendas?
The result of racing out without a commission is alienation and confusion. You can see this in families when parents and teens are using the same words, but meaning different things. Or perhaps the definitions for rebellion or for forbidden activities and attitudes begin to morph. Whoever is changing the definitions is trying to control the situation. But the best they will be able to do is to limit the damage that those ungoverned powers can do.
If this is happening in your family, mourn, but not without hope. As God is gracious, there can be a Pentecost for you and yours beyond the separations.
Stay tuned for the flip side...
Considering Pentecost as a model for sending out adult children, we should take note of the particulars of how God set it up.
First and foremost, God initiated it. His people had just witnessed His unfathomable sacrifice for them at the Cross, and they were His, heart and soul. He gave them something mysterious to consider and time to think (but not much - remember there were only 10 days between Jesus' ascension and Pentecost. See Acts 1:1-3).
Pentecost was a notable event. There was no doubt that there had been some real ending and beginning. God did it with heavenly pomp and circumstance. His people were inspired, empowered & sent out.
Both of these characteristics of God's send-off should inform our send-offs. It is vitally important that parents initiate the send-off. There should be nothing of sons seizing power before their time, or usurping parental prerogatives. Release must not be a forbidden fruit; if it is, the road to healthy cooperation between the generations will continue to be a rocky one for many years.
You might want to compare the Fall with Pentecost. Scripture indicates that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was to be a sort of graduation present for when mankind had come to maturity. It wasn't going to be forbidden forever. The problem was that Adam seized it before both the maturity and the commissioning. Satan introduced the temptation long before Adam would have thought of it and long before he had enough experience to cope with it. So instead of a glorious commissioning, Adam received a curse in the very area where he sought independence and his relationship with God was broken past repair.
But Jesus makes everything new. He made a radically new relationship with us, and gave us a second chance to come into maturity and into full partnership with God. In fact we do see God at Pentecost sending out the young Church a little before her full maturity. At Pentecost, were those disciples able to face persecution and martyrdom? Did they really understand how to build a lasting organization? Or how to sculpt an appeal to the barbarians of Gaul or the philosophers of India? Probably not. But because of the ongoing relationship with the Spirit established at Pentecost, that group was able to succeed in all of those areas.
So we mustn't delay release indefinitely. Better far to send out a young adult a little before he is totally ready to whup the world, while he still maintains a good relationship with his parents, than to delay release until he has checked every box and has developed a resentment toward his parents that will cripple him in years to come. The relationship will supply the youth with the resources and perspectives that will help him fill out the deficits as he works. But a resentment leaves the youth only with the checked boxes and no ongoing inspiration.
So we release them. And it feels like we will lose most of our vital connections to them. Life will never be the same. It's true. But after they fly away, full of the joy of their youthful strength with the wind of our blessings under their wings, a mysterious new chemistry begins to operate.
At Pentecost, the disciples burst out of their prayer meeting aflame with the power and blessing of God's blessing, into the streets of Jerusalem. The result was an enormous ingathering of new sons. Not only did those 'children' who were sent out return, they continually, habitually, delightedly brought more into the family of God.
So it will be with us and ours. When our children know they have our blessing in their launch out, they return to us bringing many new sons. Not just in-laws. They bring fellow students, co-workers, Sunday school waifs, the isolated, the lonely. Your opportunities to influence and to help young people will greatly increase as your children leave.
So it's not time to sell the house and move to a 'sensible' apartment. It's time to enlarge the borders of your tent. God will be filling it with all kinds of new people, laughter, significance, relationship, usefulness. You will understand how deeply God rejoices when one of His sons brings others to Him. You will enter into His joy and a deeper partnership with Him as you (after all, one of His sons) join in filling His reunions with many new sons.
We will dream dreams. We will speak His words. We will dance.
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Hear Kim's lecture on transitional parenting on Quests & Homecomings
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Next time: Babel Reversed
Is there a role for parents after their children's high school graduations? A role beyond "hands off!" and "get out your checkbook"? Yes! You are joining us in the midst of a series of posts exploring Pentecost as a model for parenting through the launching-out phase of family life. The thesis is that our role in our children's lives in their adulthood becomes more like the role of the Holy Spirit and less like a physically present Lord.
Caveat: The idea here is not that we take the place of the one, true Holy Spirit for our children, but that we can pattern our interactions with our adult children after the model of the Holy Spirit's work.
It is interesting to linger a moment considering the characteristics of fire, particularly if we are using it as a model.
- Fire is glorious. My mother often said that as an adult, what she desired and admired most in her parents was dignity. When our children become adults, they want to look back and see that they had glorious beginnings. You represent that beginning. And because they expect to be following you, your children will see your dignity, your glory as their future as well.
- Fire gives light. As such, it has been a symbol of truth, knowledge and wisdom. Your example, your teachings through the years and your wise perspective in the future all give light to your child as he ventures into the dusky unknown. Note that fire's light is not knowledge itself, but is that which shows what knowledge is. Fire is what illumines the page, but it is not the words on the page. As parents, we are no longer plain teachers; we are coaches who ask the questions that lead our youth to seize the truth for themselves.
- Fire is the first power source, our first incorporeal tool. Fire is heat, light, cooking, smelting, protection. As parents of adults, we move increasingly from being the initiators of projects with our children toward being the power source for the things they are called to do. Sometimes that does involve the checkbook, but it is so much more. They need encouragement if they are to slay the dragon. They need to be reminded of the heat of their passion to sustain them through the long, cold days slogging ahead to that glorious goal they set for themselves.
Next time: Biblical sightings and inspirations from the Spirit.
