Discipleship: It Starts Here

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The stubborn, unflinchingly angry face only a six-year old going through a developmental phase that’s pulled the worst of her enneagram 8 harshness to the surface can muster—and I am unwound, incredulous at the vicious insults hurled at her highly sensitive older sister, who is a 4 on the enneagram. Parenting is hard, and the battles fought, and the ground won seem insignificant when the here and now presses in hard. I breath hard, drawing the air into my lungs, filling my heart with resolve, and pull her in close. We sit down on the stairs to talk, her trying to twist her way out of the closeness. I pause, and then speak soft and low—I am learning, and practice this here. How did that make you sister feel? I try to press gently, open the door for her to process on her own. She does not like to be controlled, characteristic of her fellow enneagram 8s. I don’t know! She insists. I don’t know what you are talking about!

Haven’t I been there too—the one filling my vocal chords with these words, the one not understanding? I can’t shake the words I read in Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, that “the parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-preach, because who can bring peace unless they’ve held their own peace?” (124). Self-parent first. I must start with me. I can’t disciple well if I am not willing to myself be rewired on the inside.

How often do I let Him inside me, un-blanket the stuff I simply don’t want to clean, the stuff I’ve shoved under the bed? On a similar day, our same daughter chose the consequence of cleaning her room when she chose to not ease the hurt she’d inflicted with an apology. She needed time to think, and the aloneness of being in her room gave her that opportunity. How often do I welcome Him into the places in my heart that need a good cleaning?

Our words matter. Oh, how much they matter. Proverbs 18:21 cautions that “[our] words are so powerful that they will kill or give life, and the talkative person will reap the consequences (TPT). I need to learn this before I can teach it, know myself the pain of the consequence.

But it’s so much easier to judge than to rightly see ourselves. We can see the snarly, snarky remarks of a child we are committed to raising well yet become deaf to the sound of our own voices that these little voices sometimes mimic. Sometimes I do hear myself in a short, cursory, annoyed reply, and it sounds ugly.

Perhaps we are always discipling. The thought stops me still, then holds me steady. I keep processing: we are always setting an example, instilling messages about who our kids are, whether or not we are trying to. The question, then, is what we are discipling our kids in, not whether we are discipling them.

Discipleship starts with me. It really starts with me.

Tricia Goyer, in Calming Angry Kids, makes the same claim. She writes, “And it all started with my heart. In order to help my child, I first needed to focus on myself” (69). Tricia continues unpacking this in the following chapter:

Yet we parents win when we stay controlled. When we stay calm, our kids are able to calm down more quickly. When we stay calm, we can think clearly. We maintain control, and we make good choices about how we act, what we say, and how we discipline. More than that, by remaining calm, we are positive role models for our kids, After all, how can we tell our kids to control themselves when we’re not willing to do the same? 84

Unless I am myself teachable, I have no authority to teach. I must first be led before I can lead, first know to Whom I lead, because discipling has a destination, and it’s a Person.

It starts with me, but it doesn’t end with me. If discipleship is to be a ripple effect—a disciple who disciples another, who then disciples another, who in turn disciples yet another—there is no way around this starting with a look inward, at yours truly. A ripple has a center, a beginning point, but then it moves outward, circles moving across the water.

If you are struggling to see yourself as capable of discipling others, here are three truths to cling to:

I start with me.

I let His gaze pierce me, see me through. I open, I surrender, I offer all of me to all the work He wants to do in me. I choose to not let it be said of me that I “[honor God] with [my] lips, but [my] heart is far from [him]” (Matthew 15:8, CSB).

I practice in my own home.

I am already discipling my kids, so I get to choose what I am discipling them in. Especially if you are a SAHM, you get all the hours to practice discipling. See this training ground as a blessing. When I practice consistency in the way I disciple my kids, I find I am better equipped to share life and hope in the middle of other conversations. If I am not gently discipling my kids, raising them up in an atmosphere of love and grace, speaking into their hearts their identity in Christ, and humbly serving them as Christ does for us, I will be hard pressed to faithfully disciple anyone else.

I disciple through living a life worth imitating.

Discipling outside my home, as it is within, is more about the life you are living than the words you are speaking. Amber Adrian, a Hope*Writer friend, says it well:

I truly feel that this is the way we should “tell” people about our faith—through the way we just are in the world. Few people are compelled to change something in their lives or beliefs by speech; most are compelled when they see happy, joyful, authentic people and wonder what their deal is. (“Introverts and “Telling People About Jesus’”)

Discipling others in not about getting all the words right, and sometimes not even about using words at all—it’s who we are, how our identity is grounded in Him, how we are growing to look like Him, that gives us our testimony.

Are you ready to create a ripple effect of discipleship? Friend, may I pray for you in the process?

Father, thank you that you are a gentle and kind teacher. You don’t condemn us or push us away when we fail to look like you. Give us eyes to see You rightly so we may be drawn to your beauty and long to be near You. Cultivate Your character within our hearts so our lives reflect You. Guide us into a life worth imitating as we give You our devotion and let You speak into us the identity we have in You.

Adrian, Amber. “introverts and ‘telling people about Jesus’.” alternative grace, 26 July 2019, www.alternativegrace.com/introverts-and-telling-people-about-jesus/

Goyer, Tricia. Calming Angry Kids: help and hope for parents in the whirlwind. David C. Cook, 2018.

Voskamp, Ann. One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. Zondervan, 2010.

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