by Michael & Debi Pearl
$8 CAD each
No Greater Joy series are newsletter of No Greater Joy ministry before 1999. Newsletter since 1999 till now can be downloaded at www.NoGreaterJoy.org for free. Featured many practical Q&As and great articles.
From the back of the book
In 1994, Michael and Debi Pearl published To Train Up A Child. The book became the “handbook on child training” for many homeschool families. The Pearls received so many child-training questions in the mail that they began publishing a free newsletter to answer them–No Greater Joy. As the mailing list grew into the thousands, subscribers
kept asking for back issue, thus the publication of No Greater Joy Volume One.
We have since published Volume Two and Three–each book representing about two years of articles from back issues of the newsletter. If you have read To Train Up A Child and you have questions, chances are you will find the answers in the No Greater Joy series.
An article from No Greater Joy Volume One by Michael Pearl
Carnal Husbands, Cranky Wives, and Cantankerous Kids
In our child training seminars there is always a time for questions and answers. It is during these times that we gain a grasp of your needs. As parents begin sharing their different experiences, I am amazed at the similarities. The testimonies go something like this: “We are a family of more than average discipline. We home school, are active in church, and have family devotions. We have trained and discipline the children from their youth, and I thought we were having good results until they got in their early teens.”
Continuing, they tell us of the different ways their children have manifested their disrespect and dishonor. How can this happen? How can a parent do everything right and still suffer rebellion in their teenagers? Does that verse mean, Train up a Child in the way he should go and when he is a teen he will be disrespectful, but when he is old will come back?
Over the years, as I have listened to these mothers tell of their similar experiences, the source of their problem has become clear to me. If they could be objective for just a moment, they too would be able to see the solution. To get to the root, I ask these mothers, “Does your husband do anything on a regular basis that you feel might be detrimental to the family?” Invariably they answer something like this: “YES, and I always knew it would weaken the family, and now this proves it.” Then I ask, “How do you react? Do you meet eyes with the children and silently communicate your disappointment? Are they in any way aware of your martyrdom as you willing “die to yourself” in resignation to your husband’s clumsy spirituality? Do you in any way indicate that you are praying he will assume his role as spiritual leader?”
When I ask such questions the atmosphere of the room suddenly changes. The “strong spiritual women” look as if they lost their unction. How do they feel? Probably the same way they make their husbands feel—like a second class Christian.
Over the years I have heard many women speak in front of their husbands about how they are praying God will have His way in their families. Or they will brag about what a wonderful sermon that was and how they want that in their home. As I stand there listening, I am embarrassingly aware that their husbands are being reduced to carnal nincompoops.
The man can’t complain that his wife doesn’t obey him, because she does. He can’t say she speaks evil toward him, because she doesn’t. He can’t fault her in anyway. But he is often angry; he feels he is not respected and honored; he feels the fool. And somehow for all her years of faithful prayer, he never becomes a mighty man of God. In front of the children, she patronizes him. She doesn’t know it, and he can’t explain it, but the kids grow up feeling it all the same. It reaps anger, frustration, belligerence, irritation in the dad, dislike among siblings, and, in teens, disrespect for their mother. The Scripture tells us “Every wise woman buildeth her house; but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”
The children are subtly being persuaded that the head of the house is not really the spiritual leader, and therefore not to be highly regarded—in fact he is a detriment to the growth of the family. No wonder when they become teens they treat their dad like the burden you have contrived him to be. Of course, when the children are young, Mom seems like a strong spiritual woman, but as they mature they look at her with the same critical eyes of judgment she has used on Dad. Every look of irreverence toward Dad is now multiplied and sent back her direction (Matt. 7:1-5). She has trained her children well in the folly of disrespect and irreverence. They might obey, because she has obeyed, but what is obedience without honor?
Mother, if you have a reputation as a fine Christian woman yet lose your children to bitterness, what have you gained? Will it be satisfaction enough to be able to blame your husband?
The first and the most important thing you will ever do as a mother in training your children is to reverence your husband, delight yourself in him, love to obey him, feel honored to be married to him, joy in his presence. In doing so, you are building up your house, you are creating a home, you are establishing a foundation. It is this first and most important ingredient in raising happy, obedient, creative, respectful children, children delighted to be part of the family. This kind of atmosphere in the home causes your children to love each other, to enjoy being with their own brothers and sisters.
Oh, your teens might see that you are not Mr. and Mrs. Perfect, but they will delight in the fact that their parents really like each other. It makes for a very happy, peaceful home life. It makes the promises found in the Bible become a reality. It is the reason some parents who seem to do everything wrong are still able to raise good teens, while other parents who do everything right raise sour young people.
Ladies, we have in our grasp the opportunity to reverence our husbands, thus teaching our children how to reverence God. I can change eternity by choosing to delight myself in my husband, obeying him, loving him and causing him to stand before God free from the shackles of domestic condemnation. As Mike once said, “When a wife suggests that a husband take the lead, any leading he does after that is just following her suggestion.” When you decide what course the family should take and then seek to bring your husband into compliance, you will not only spoil your marriage but your children as well.
If your husband is a 20% father and you make the children aware of you dissatisfaction, you will have 20% kids; but if you respect and honor your 20% husband, causing the kids to think you see him as 100%, you may have 100% kids. And a husband and father who is treated with honor and respect will rise to the calling and be more of the man he needs to be.
