God Is Abba

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Galatians 5:13-14

So much of the Christian walk is wrapped in these two verses. We were called to be free, but we should use this freedom to serve one another, not our sinful desires. And we are to love the people around us the way we love ourselves. Sometimes, it can be easier to apply these principles to our relationships with other adults than it is to apply them to our relationships with our children.

God is the ultimate Abba, Daddy. When Afa and I consider how to parent our children, we look at the way that God parents us, guiding us through this Christian life as His dearly beloved sons and daughters. Imagine sitting down for your quiet time, curling up with your coffee and Bible (my preferred method of Bible reading…), starting to read, and God says “Not now. I’m busy.” Or maybe you are praying and telling God about this incredible place you want to visit or big dream, and God says “No.” Nothing else, just no. Maybe He sounds a little annoyed that you even asked.

That’s crushing, even to my imagination, and then I’m so humbled and devastated when I think about how many times I have done those exact things to my tiny toddlers.

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 4:6

I first learned about the concept of “why not yes?” on the website Living Joyfully by Pam Laricchia. (https://livingjoyfully.ca/articles/why-not-yes/) She writes for unschoolers, but I have applied the concept to my parenting as a disciple with great success. Oleg Sirotkin spoke at the 2018 GLC about parenting not being about rules, and I knew that Why Not Yes was practically helping me implement training and instructing my children rather than imposing rules on them in an exasperating way.

An Explanation

Why Not Yes reverses what can be my automatic response to my children. No, I don’t want to pull the cushions off the couches again or carry the baby on my chest so that you can ride your bikes. No, I can’t play because I have emails and text messages to send. No, you can’t have peanut butter and jelly…again. However, just because something is my first response doesn’t make it the righteous response.

Why Not Yes reverses what can be my automatic response to my children. No, I don’t want to pull the cushions off the couches again or carry the baby on my chest so that you can ride your bikes. No, I can’t play because I have emails and text messages to send. No, you can’t have peanut butter and jelly…again. However, just because something is my first response doesn’t make it the righteous response.

Using Why Not Yes, I consider the underlying reasons that I am saying no. Maybe there are legitimate reasons (safety, time, training), but more often I find that I’m saying no out of my own convenience or out of automatic reaction rather than one of those legitimate ones.

A practical example

My daughter is a creative person and a performer to her core. This is not my strength, so I have to be conscious not to quash her creativity simply because it her requests seem foreign to me. One day we draped a quilt over our small dining room table to build a fort. After she has had enough fort play, she decides that she wants to put on a show. She asks if she can use the table as a stage. What is my first response? No! There is no standing on the table. Then I have to think to myself Why Not Yes?

• The table will get dirty. (But there is already a quilt covering it.)
• She might fall. (But I know how incredibly balanced she is and how infrequently she actually falls.)
• The table might fall. (But our table is sturdy.)
• So maybe, just maybe, it’s okay for her to live out her pint-sized dream and sing her show on our table.
• OR, maybe I can help her meet that desire by providing another item to serve as her stage, but at least I have worked through why I’m saying no rather than stubbornly saying it and refusting to budge.

Another example

We live in the Bay Area and when there are wild fires in Northern California, the air becomes dangerous to breathe. It’s important that we stay indoors, but the children are accustomed to having outside time to burn off lots of energy. When they asked to go outside and ride bikes, the answer was “no.” And for safety reasons, the answer had to stay “no.” But there was an underlying need because we had been inside out apartment for several days, and they needed some gross motor activities.

• I acknowledged the fact that they were disappointed, but that we could not ride our bikes outside until the smoke cleared, which would be several more days.
• But maybe we could pull the cushions off the couches and do lots of indoor jumping.
• Maybe we could move all the furniture as far out of the way as possible and ride bikes inside (Why not, right??).
• Maybe we could build an obstacle course of climbing, hiding, jumping and carrying that would meet those same needs.

The limit didn’t change – we could not go outside and ride bikes, but I could help them meet their need in a way that kept everyone safe.

We see throughout Scriptures and in our lives that God loves us. He wants the best for us, and He gives us wonderful gifts, the most incredible of which is our salvation. He is an amazing Father in that way. I try to keep that in mind when I move from my reactionary no and ask Why Not Yes?