Hey friends, we are diving into the book of Colossians today and discussing how you can help your kids know who they are and what to wear according to what Paul teaches in Colossians 3. Author Catherine Parks is joining me inside of today’s episode to share this wonderful wisdom with you.
Catherine is the author of several books, including two middle grade biography collections, Strong and Empowered. She also serves as an acquisitions editor for Moody Publishers. Catherine and her husband, Erik, live in the Nashville, TN area with their children, Sophie and Micah. In her free time, she loves hiking, playing volleyball, and serving on her church’s worship team.
A New Resource for Middle-Grade Kids
I love that Catherine wrote this book, because I feel like it is so needed with everything going on in our world, we need to be pouring into our kids more than ever. She didn’t intend to have her book published, but back in the spring of 2020, when everything shut down, she had her kids at home who were 12 and nine at the time, and they all had extra time on their hands. Catherine realized that it was a great opportunity to spend more time in God’s word. She loves the book of Colossians, particularly chapter three, and so over the course of a few weeks, they looked at the commands that Paul writes about for the church at Colossae, and they looked at how Jesus exhibited those things, and she had her kids draw some pictures and talk about different scenarios. It was just a sweet time with her kids when there were more moments of togetherness.
Catherine mentioned that there are a lot of great resources for younger kids such as storybook Bibles and picture books, but she didn’t find a lot of resources for middle-grade kids. She wanted her kids to be reading God’s word and engaging with it, asking questions, and giving them the opportunity to see God for themselves instead of just accepting what someone else tells them. It was through their time at home going through Colossians that she got to see them start engaging with Scripture and she ended up writing up their study and sharing it with people, which led to her friend at Moody asking if she would be interested in publishing it. Now, it’s actually part of a series that their developing at Moody of these middle grade Bible studies for kids this age to really start diving into scripture for themselves. The study is interactive, there are great questions and things to get kids really thinking. I just love the way it’s written and feel it’s such a great way to help our kids grow inside of the Bible study.
Identity in Christ
Now more than ever, it’s so important for kids to find their identity in Christ. In Colossians 3, the group of believers is so diverse from Jewish backgrounds, to Gentile backgrounds, and they get to come together and have their identity be the same as the people around them. One of the things that we forget when we study something like this is that it’s written to a church or a group of people and not just individuals, and there is such comfort in knowing our children are part of it. They’re not on their own, they’re part of our family, but they’re also a part of God’s family. And so there are times when they will struggle with identity, they will struggle with feeling like they do not fit in and wondering who they should identify with. And that’s the beauty of the local church and having some kind of grounding that they can come back to and say, Okay, I’m not completely weird, because all of these other people are the same.
Fundamentally, kids have always identified themselves by all sorts of things and sometimes they are really silly like brand names, which ones to like and which ones not to. But they become important to us, especially in this formative age. But today, it’s politics, gender identity, and gender confusion, and the world is coming at them at such a rapid pace. And so to be able to take a step back and say, I don’t identify myself by my feelings, I don’t identify myself by what other people say about me, my identity is found in Christ and who He is and what He has done for me and the fact that He has proclaimed me righteous and justified. And that’s so important, and it can feel a little bit heavy and fuzzy for kids, and so it’s important that we show them how we can live that out. And so in Catherine’s book, she uses kind of the metaphor of clothing because that’s what Paul is using. But the idea is, if you are a superhero, your clothing needs to match your identity like Spiderman wears something that allows him to do the job of Spiderman. And the same is true for us. If our identity is in Christ, then the way that we live should fit that identity and reflect it.
The identity piece is foundational, and it also matters who we’re hanging out with. The community that they are being surrounded by, that just hits home so much for me personally, with my daughter, in those teenage years, which can be really tough, and us having moved from public school to homeschool. My kids have been plugging even more into the friends in our homeschool group and in their youth group at church, and sometimes those environments and the people in those environments can look really different. But it’s meant so much to my kids to have the support from Christian friends like that who are also wanting to follow Jesus and wanting to walk in their identity in Christ. And I think as parents, we really need to have some deep conversations with our kids and really examine who they’re hanging out with, honestly. And sometimes that means making some changes, even if it’s hard. The Holy Spirit gives us that discernment, that wisdom, and it’s okay sometimes to be the bad person in that situation. But I think that also stays with our kids, and they start to pick up on things as we’ve kind of laid that groundwork of just asking those kinds of discerning questions so that they start to realize maybe this isn’t the right person for me.
You are Chosen, Holy, and Loved
As we take a look at Colossians 3:12, it says, “Therefore God’s Chosen ones, holy and loved,” why is it so important for kids to believe and know that they are chosen, holy, and loved? And how can we help them to understand that or to begin to understand that as part of their identity? It’s one of those things that you write and you talk about, and then you realize, there are so many days that we, ourselves, don’t believe that. And so how much more difficult is it for our kids to believe that?
Well, a lot of it is just starting with preaching it to ourselves and reminding ourselves of what Scripture says about us, and kind of living that out in front of our kids. And then speaking those words over them on the days that they do feel left out or misunderstood, or on the days that they aren’t chosen. God has already chosen you on the days that you’ve messed up and sinned and are feeling guilt and shame. God has called you holy, and on the days that you just feel like no one loves you, God says you are dearly loved. And I think part of it goes back to our theology; Are we creating an environment in the home where God’s opinion matters, and has authority and value over their lives? Because if we aren’t, then God saying I’m chosen, holy, and loved doesn’t mean anything. But when we have laid that groundwork of who God is and what his character is, then hearing those words should be something that really penetrates our hearts and hopefully does for our kids as well. We all have pain and sorrow but at the end of the day, they can go back to that foundational truth and hopefully remind themselves of it as they go throughout their days. I know as moms, we get so busy, and there are a million things on our plate. But it goes back to it being really important, and again, foundational that we are spending time in God’s word, that we know it, that we can then live it so that it is bottled to our kids. We’ve got to know and believe what God says about our identity so that it is then passed down to our kids.
What to Wear
The Bible also talks about in Colossians, some things that we need to take off. So let’s dive into that. Colossians 3:8-10 includes a list of things to take off, things like anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language. With how our culture exhibits those things, how can we help our kids to stand firm when those things are surrounding them? Sin is everywhere, right? And we can do our best to kind of shield them from certain things but the sin that’s in our hearts is in every environment. And sometimes we’re the problem, right? Maybe you struggle with anger, guilt, shame, or dishonesty. And so I think part of what we want to do is help our kids to realize that they’re going to encounter this out there, but they’re also going to encounter it in here because this was our former identity and it takes work. It takes the work of the Holy Spirit to take those things off. It doesn’t just happen overnight because we’ve trusted Christ. Our struggles will continue in a lot of ways but a lot of what it takes for us as parents is casting a better vision so that when they go out and they see their peers demonstrating some of these things, it doesn’t look attractive to them because they’re sheltered in an environment, in the home where people aren’t yelling at each other, and we aren’t dishonest with each other, and we aren’t using dirty language. So a lot of that work of combating it and standing firm against it has to take place in our own homes. The Holy Spirit is going to help to convict them in situations like that, and it’s going to feel uncomfortable and wrong when they’re in those types of situations. We’re called to protect our kids, and even pulling my kids out of public school, and homeschool, I can’t, and I shouldn’t even shelter them away from the whole wide world, because eventually they’re going to be out there in it. And so we’ve got to just equip them to know what’s good and pure and true and right from wrong so that they can stand firm when they’re in situations like that, and even go so far as to shine a light. They’re just standing in their faith, and they’re choosing what’s good, pure and true, instead of participating in those other things. Some people don’t have anyone else demonstrating that, and so even just the smallest light is going to shine so brightly and some of that darkness.
Compassion and Conviction
Colossians 3 also tells us things to put on, but the one thing I really want to hone in on with you today is compassion because I think it’s really important. And I think that the line can get a little blurred as we are trying to show compassion, yet also stand for what is right, and not be condoning sin. If we look back on when Jesus fed the 5000 people, it says that he looked on the crowd, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He goes on and teaches them for hours until they need to eat and then he feeds them so that he can continue teaching them. So his compassion was being able to see them, to see their true condition and what was really going on in their lives, and then the answer to that was not to just give them all a big hug and pat them on the back. It was to teach them, to give them what they needed, the words of life that only He could offer, and the path to walk in. And so I think that’s what we have to do with our kids is first help them to see the true condition of our own hearts, and the condition of everyone else.
When we look at examples of things in the news that just cause us to get so outraged, if we can have the mind of Christ and look at people to see their true condition, it reorients us to have that sense of compassion that says, it must be so sad to live this way, it must be so empty to live this way. And when our kids have that righteous indignation, we don’t want to crush that. But we want to say Yeah, can you imagine what it’s like to live without Jesus and without hope, and without all of these things? And so we’re not saying, it’s okay that they do that, because they’re not Christians. But we want everyone to know the Gospel and to believe in Christ, and we also want our kids to be able to see the sadness that’s inherent and those who don’t. So it is tricky, but I think Christ gives us the example that we need to follow to show both compassion and conviction.
I think sometimes as Christians, we also struggle with self-righteousness. It’s just a hard line to walk because you do have some that veer more towards justice, like this is wrong, and I’m living right. I think we can really wrestle with that and just balance compassion with loving people through their sin. But looking at it through the lens of Christ is the answer, and we’re human so it can be tough.
Opportunities for Growth
There are several other things that we’re called to put on in Colossians 3. Catherine mentioned that one that stands out to her is bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, as Christ has forgiven us. There are things that we should bear with, and then there are things that we shouldn’t, and to make sure that kids know that there are some things that you’re not called to bear with, and you are called to get help with. And again, this is the justice aspect of it, where God is the God of justice, and He does not desire for suffering to be happening, or, for our kids to feel any kind of pain. And at the same time, though, when we look at Jesus, we see His example, especially as He was being led to the cross, of bearing with unimaginable suffering, and pain and ridicule, and betrayal, and all of these things that on a much smaller scale, our kids are going to experience. They’re going to experience being betrayed by people who they thought were their friends, and they’re going to be made fun of, and I think one of the strongest testimonies our kids can have is to bear with and forgive wrongdoing. And the nice thing about that is that most of the time, the best practice they’re going to get is in their own home. And it’s convicting as a parent because there are so many opportunities for them to grow, that we want to rescue them from. I don’t want my kid to suffer. But then they may not have to learn forbearance and forgiveness. I don’t want to be inconvenienced, and so I take away that opportunity for sanctification that the Lord might be wanting to do in their lives. So that’s been just like a personal conviction that I have had to wrestle with over the past year, but it’s been really sweet of the Lord to teach me that.
If you have kids that fall in that middle-age range, then I definitely want you to go grab a copy of Catherine’s book. It is wonderful and it’s going to leave a great impact on your kids as they study God’s word and get to really dig in and reflect on that and glean the wisdom from the book. You can find it at moodypublishers.com, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and pretty much anywhere books are sold!
Connect with Catherine!
