Helping Your Kids Deal with Weird Sexual Thoughts

Bryan:
Okay, parents get ready. This is going to be a pretty frank conversation because I’m joined by Tracy and Tracy today. We’re going to talk about actually a topic that we have at pursue God.org in our student section. The conversation is called dealing with weird sexual thoughts. And it’s a little bit shocking even that we have to talk about this kind of stuff. But the reason we want to, we wanted to put an episode on our family podcast about this and in our family section. in the library, the parenting section is because we want to make sure that parents think through having this conversation with their students. Okay. So let’s just start with that. Did your parents ever have to have a conversation like this with you dealing with weird sexual thoughts when you were in junior high or high school?

Tracy:
You know, I remember more in elementary school. I was a pretty curious kid. I do remember a few times asking my mom questions about something I heard or saw, like on

Bryan:
Hmm.

Tracy:
a TV show. And I remember my mom did a pretty good job. She wasn’t horrified by my questions, but I think she was maybe a little bit, I mean, I could tell she was a little bit uncomfortable. But I do remember having a few of those conversations as I was just wrestling with things that were like, rattling around in my head.

Bryan:
Now we’re going to parents, we’re going to put the link. What I would encourage you to do is after you listen to this podcast episode, follow the link. We’ll put it down below in the show notes, or you can just head right over to pursue.gov.org to the student category and search for the conversation title, dealing with weird sexual thoughts. Again, it’s a, it’s a topic with about a five minute video that you can sit down and watch with your students. so that you can have the conversation. And we’re going to be walking through the talking points from the vantage point of a parent. Because Tracy, we just did this recently with our staff at church. Some of the pastors at church are dealing with this with their kids at the age of their kids, what probably junior high age, early high school age. And it’s a hard one to know how to navigate. And we live in a culture that it’s so. I can’t believe how far and how fast it’s gone our culture when it comes to like, you know, in our day, it was, it was probably just weird sex, heterosexual thoughts,

Tracy:
Mm-hmm.

Bryan:
maybe some homosexual thoughts. But today it’s like even it’s like the, who knows what people, what young people are thinking anymore because our culture has just gone so crazy. And I think a lot of parents might be buying the lie that we just, we shouldn’t talk about this. We should let our kids explore their sexuality and figure out what they want to believe about it. Parents, if you’re a Christian parent, I hope that’s not your perspective. You should, scripture says, train up your child in the way they should go. And in the end, they won’t depart. So parents, you should be willing to have these kinds of hard, awkward conversations. Because if you don’t, if you don’t have these conversations about… trans and about about I don’t even know what’s some of the words anymore Tracy honestly, if you’re not willing to have these conversations parents, they’re going to get their informations from At best, they’re teachers who might not be thinking about it biblically. At worst, they’re friends or social media or whatever. And so it’s so important for us to broach these conversations early and often. I know it’s hard. I know it can be awkward. So that’s why we want to have this conversation on our podcast because we want parents to start thinking about it. So mom and dad. If you’re together, parents, co-parenting in the home, sit down and have, listen to this podcast, have this conversation and get ready to have a more suitable student centered conversation with your kids.

Tracy:
Well, and the thing that makes us so tricky now is because of the way our culture has gone, that there is really no truth, and whatever you feel, whatever you think, is your truth, and so you should explore that, and you should express that. And then kids being raised in a Christian home are like, okay, you know, I’ve learned that the Bible is… true, I’ve learned that I have this sin nature. So how do I reconcile thoughts and feelings? And what does that mean about me? If I have a thought? If I have a feeling about a thought, does that mean it’s true? Does that mean I should seek that out and express that, you know, whether it’s the gender identity stuff, or a sexual thing, or even violence or something. And I think that’s why parents, we need to give our kids kind of a framework. for understanding what thoughts are and what they’re not, what they mean and what they don’t mean and what we can do with them, rather than just feeling like as soon as a thought comes into our kid’s mind, they adopt it like that must be true of me. And that’s what creates a lot of internal angst that we need to create an environment where our kids feel like they can come and tell us without us freaking out or being like, you know, horrified by what they share. that we can meet them in that place and help them understand and make sense of all this information coming at them all the time.

Bryan:
Right, because so many, I mean, think about it, parents, let’s be honest, we have this conversation with pastors and we had a very frank conversation. So parents, I hope you’ll be willing to be honest with your kids. I remember when our son years ago, we actually wrote this topic in the student section for kind of to address what our son was dealing with. And I remember when he talked about some of his weird sexual thoughts. It was so important for me to normalize it for him to say, and I don’t mean like make say it’s okay, like, you know, follow those thoughts. That’s not what I mean by normalizing, but just saying like not reacting to him. With like the, with shock and awe on our faces, like how dare you think that because, because parents, if that’s how you respond to your kids, being honest with you about some of their questions, maybe. then they’re never going to come to you again for it. And then they’re going to go to the world or their friends or someone who’s going to be less equipped to have the conversation. So your re that’s why I think it’s important mom and dad to have this conversation. Or maybe you’re talking about this with a mentor or in a parenting group. It’s so important to have this conversation first, like get it all, get it all out of your system, kind of the shock and the awe and all that kind of stuff. And then like, really be ready to be honest with your kids and say, Hey, I remember some weird thoughts I had when I was in junior high. And I remember saying that to my son, to AJ Trace. I said, Hey, I had these and I was fairly specific. I wasn’t like overly specific, but I said, I remember having weird thoughts about a teacher when

Tracy:
Mm-hmm.

Bryan:
I was in junior high. And that was, I think that was such a relief for AJ to hear that. It’s not like you’re so weird and you, there must be something really wrong with you.

Tracy:
Mm-hmm.

Bryan:
And so that’s really where we’re going with this. In fact, Tracy, why don’t we, why don’t we kind of overview the talking points that, that parents will find in the student section. If you go to pursue God and you find this, it’s called how to handle weird sexual thoughts. Again, we’ll put a link to it below. Here are the three basic talking points. And then we’ll spend some time kind of unpacking these a little bit just for parents. Number one, let God’s truth define you. Don’t look to the world to tell you how to interpret these thoughts, right? So. We’re really pointing our kids to God’s Word first and foremost. We always have to be doing that. Okay, we’ll talk more about that in a second. Number two, take the wrong thoughts captive and force them into submission to Jesus. We’ll talk about the verse that comes from 2 Corinthians 10.5 in just a little bit. And then number three, get serious about reading the Bible every day. Throw scripture at every lie that you hear, which is what Jesus actually did when he was tempted by Satan. He threw scripture at every lie. going to land with your kids is you’re going to challenge them to read their Bible every day. And you’re going to challenge them to get into the habit of reading God’s Word. And the reason for that is because if, I mean, think about how much our kids are getting in social media or whatever all the time, every day. Or from their friends or whatever if if you’d if you don’t teach your kids the discipline of reading the Bible On their own not just when not just when you’re doing it for family devotionals. Hopefully you do that But also just on their own Establish a discipline at a young age of reading the Bible if you don’t teach them to do that Then really you’ve lost the battle before you even started it Because they’re not gonna have the tools for when they grow up and get older and move out of your home They’re not gonna have the tools to fight this on on their own So Tracy, you know, maybe we could start with that first talking point about letting God’s truth define you. Don’t look to the world to tell you how to interpret these thoughts. Maybe you can help us, because some parents might not even know what is the world saying to our kids? What is the secular world saying to our kids about these thoughts?

Tracy:
Yeah, I mean, that’s what I was saying earlier. Our culture would say there is no absolute truth. What’s true to you, what feels good to you, what feels right to you, then is true for you. And it may not be true for someone else. And so as we’ve let that idea of watering down truth, kind of take center stage, what’s happened then is our kids are like, okay, well, so then how do I know if maybe I am born in the wrong body? Like, you know, in our generation, that wasn’t even a thought any of us had. That was nothing that anyone was talking about or discussing or wondering. There was no question about gender. There were two, it was boys and girls. And now we’re living in a culture where it’s like there’s Multiple genders there’s a difference between what you were biologically born out to what you view yourself Sociologically and emotionally and relationally and it’s so confusing for our kids that then when they have a thought They might be wrestling when their selves like okay. Well if I have had a thought like sometimes I think it might be fun to Wear a dress if I’m a boy or or I liked to play with trucks and I’m a girl So what does that mean does that mean that I’m actually a boy or I’m actually a girl And so all of these thoughts are kind of swirling around in there. And so what we as parents need to be able to do is bring our kids back to the biblical worldview that clearly combats, no, there is absolute truth. We live in a society that might be watering it down and saying you can define your own truth. But trust me, the day is coming. And I think we already see it in some ways where people are going to realize this doesn’t work. because now my truth might butt up against your truth, and now what? Now what do we do? So as Christian parents, we need to create that biblical worldview for our kids that we say to them, God determines who we are. You know, from the moment of conception, you were either created as a boy or a girl. In the Bible, it talks about that it’s between, sex is between a man and a woman, right? Some of these ideas that are… in our culture today that our kids might have thoughts about, what does the Bible say? I love what it says in John 8 32, where it says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. See, our culture is trying to sell the idea that Christianity, biblical truth, you know, that’s confining you, that’s holding you in this prison of not letting you be who you really are. And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s forceful and it’s controlling. And the truth is what Jesus says is, No, you’re going to know the truth and the truth is going to set you free. We actually are free when we are living out God’s best for us because he created us. He created this world. He created each one of us. He knows how it all works and should fit together. And our kids need to know that that just because culture saying something just because maybe us us classmate comes dressed as a different gender all of a sudden. does not mean our kids need to panic and think, okay, well, I’ve had a thought about that before, should I be expressing myself that way? No, thoughts are just thoughts. Thoughts are not things that we need to drill down on and say those are absolutely true for us. And that’s, to me, that’s the heart behind the beginning of a conversation with your kids, is to understand what thoughts are and what they’re not, and how to understand them, and how not to drill down on them and make them something more than they need to be.

Bryan:
Yeah. And so again, let me, let me remind parents what this first talking point is. Let God’s truth define you. And maybe Tracy, we need to go back and talk to the parents for a second, because some parents might come to this episode and be wrestling with this themselves, not necessarily with their sexuality, but with what they believe about this. And so let me, let’s just back up a second. Because parents, I think you need to make sure that you know how to defend a biblical worldview on gender and sexuality. Again, we’ll put some information down here below. But God’s Word says, and I know that it’s almost like we’re hesitant to even say this anymore, but we’re not hesitant. And parents, you’re not a hater. You’re not a hater if you say this definitively to your kids. And you need to learn how to say this in a loving but clear way. There are two genders, male and female. And the gender that God made you at birth is the gender you should embrace. That’s the biblical perspective on it. Now, maybe some couples listening to this are going to debate that. Maybe one or the other of you might need to debate that. So then before you have this conversation with your kids, you better get that straight. You better understand what God’s Word has to say about it. what God’s Word says about homosexuality, because there’s just a lot of gaslighting out there, even people saying God’s Word says something it doesn’t say. Scripture is very, very clear. Now, when I say this, I’m not trying to say transgender and homosexuality, that those sins are worse than other sins. There’s heterosexual sin as well, so let’s not make any mistake about it. In fact, if you want a great book on this, parents, if you’re wrestling with this, the book by What’s the author’s name, Tracy?

Tracy:
UN, UN,

Bryan:
Michael Yuan?

Tracy:
yeah, Nuan,

Bryan:
Michael

Tracy:
holy

Bryan:
Yuan,

Tracy:
sexuality.

Bryan:
the book is titled Holy Sexuality. If you need to still wrestle with the biblical perspective on this, I think it’s important mom and dad to get on the same page because even though you understand it biblically, it still can be a challenge to express it to your 12 year old who’s heard other information at school. So you have to walk that balance where you’re saying, look, God’s word is clear and we’re going to let God tell me what gender means and doesn’t mean, what sexuality means and doesn’t mean. We’re not going to let the world tell me. So it’s important first of all to help your kids understand that, embrace that. And that doesn’t mean that they should go back to school with that person who might be wrestling with their gender and sexuality and be hateful and be mean and use their words in a divisive way with those kids at school. I think it’s important to be able to have both of those conversations to say this is what God’s word says. But that doesn’t mean you need to go point fingers at the person at school I just want to make sure you understand this,

Tracy:
Mm-hmm.

Bryan:
right? And the younger your kid is, maybe the more you’re going to have to, I don’t know, Tracy, encourage them to be kind with their words to someone who doesn’t believe in the biblical way.

Tracy:
Well, and honestly, that’s that would be a podcast even for another day of just how do we how do we communicate in a loving but clear way with people that might see things differently. But this conversation today is really about parents being confident to have conversations with their kids regarding these things. And if your kid comes to you and says, you know, my friends are talking about something on the bus. And so I’ve kind of had that image in my mind or I had a dream the other night about this and I don’t. know what to do with it, that as parents that we don’t freak out and, and put more value or meaning to that thought and be like, Oh my gosh, what are you talking about? You can’t think that way or that’s awful or that’s disgusting that as a parent, you should be like, okay, let’s talk about that. You know, let’s talk about what you heard. Let’s talk about your dream. You know, our thoughts and our dreams are just the way our brain is processing tons of information that we’re taking in. In fact, they would say we have over 6,000 thoughts in a day. So our thoughts are just our brain’s way of working out information that we’re taking in. It doesn’t mean because I had the thought that that means that it’s true or something that I need to act on. So for your kids even to have the space to be like, oh, okay, that’s good. Cause that was kind of a weird thought and it made me uncomfortable and I wasn’t sure what to do with that. Or like you said, having a conversation with our son about a thought you had about a teacher for our son, like, oh, okay, good. I’m not the only one that does that. or has felt that or thought that because I think that’s what we need to reclaim really as parents, Christian parents is thoughts and feelings aren’t necessarily true. In fact, oftentimes they’re not going to be. So even though it might seem loving in a moment to be like, well, if my kids coming to me and saying, I feel like I’m, I’m the wrong in the wrong body and that the more loving thing to do is to explore that with them without starting to say, okay, well, because you had that thought, that means like, we’ll go buy you clothes of the opposite sex or whatever and just assume that that’s true. Like, no, let’s dig down on that and see what that really might be about. That’s not really about the gender thing or a sexual thing. It’s just our kids are being inundated with all sorts of stuff and they’re going to have thoughts, weird thoughts, crazy thoughts.

Bryan:
Mm-hmm.

Tracy:
But how do we help them process it and know what to do with them? And that’s That’s what we’re trying to get at today and to just to start with that biblical worldview that God’s truth is what defines us. The Bible tells us what how God set it all up. So we need to start from there.

Bryan:
Yeah, my heart breaks for the people we see this on sometimes on, you know, specials on TV or whatever these families that are, that are trying to help their kids become transgender and, and these, these parents who don’t have any moorings in scripture, they don’t have any foundation for thinking any other way. Well, obviously most of those parents are going to just follow what the psychologists, the secular psychologists say, or what, what what the culture, the prevailing culture has to say about it. And it breaks my heart for them because, because they’re, they don’t realize, I mean, they love their kids and they, they feel like that this is loving to their kids. But for biblical parents, parents who want to raise your kids to be followers of Jesus, this is not loving. It’s not loving parents to affirm. Your kid’s confusion. It’s not loving It’s the opposite of that. In fact the way we define the way we talk about sin at pursue god is sin is Is trusting and acting on my own feelings my own opinions and feelings instead of on god’s truth That’s what sin is i’ll say that again sin is trusting and acting on my own opinions and feelings Instead of on god’s truth And so, if you’re affirming, parents, if you’re affirming that your kids’ confusion about their gender, then you’re actually encouraging them to sin. And the scripture verse I started with was from Proverbs. It says, train up a child in the way they should go, and in the end, they won’t turn from it. Again, parents today would, the secular world today would say, what a terrible verse. How dare you say there’s a way your kids should go? No, there is a way your kids should go. And parents, your job is to train them up in that way. Again, we’re going to get a lot of hate for this podcast. I don’t care. I’m going to answer to, we’re going to answer to Jesus for this and nobody else. And parents, you’re going to do the same thing. You’re going to answer to Jesus for this and nobody else. And so I challenge, I really challenge you. This is why I think that again, parents that don’t really understand what God’s word says, that’s really the first thing you need to do is make sure that you understand what God’s word says about this. so that you can train your kids up in the way that they should go. And so

Tracy:
Well.

Bryan:
number one, let God’s, sorry Trace, I’ll mark that and you go ahead and say that.

Tracy:
No, I forgot.

Bryan:
Okay, I’ll just keep going. And so number one, let God’s truth define you. All right, that’s the first thing. Number two, that means you take wrong thoughts captive and force them into submission to Jesus. Let’s do a quick little Bible study on 2 Corinthians 10.5. It says there, we destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. So I like that. That’s a great, we taught both of our kids this when they were young. It’s a fun verse for kids to think about is you’re capturing those thoughts. And really the sense of the word teach them to obey Christ is to force them into submission to Christ. So you’re not tiptoeing around these thoughts. You’re not afraid of these thoughts. You’re showing your thoughts who’s boss. And so. So when your kids have weird thoughts, they don’t define, make sure your kids know that that thought didn’t define you. Everyone has weird thoughts. It’s, I mean, as you age, your, your brain develops and you have fewer and fewer of these weird thoughts. So don’t let that weird thought define you instead. Take it captive and show it who’s boss and who’s boss Jesus, show it that Jesus is boss, and then don’t let those thoughts dominate your life.

Tracy:
Yeah, so I think parents, as you’re thinking about, if you’re creating an environment where your kids can come to you and say, hey, here’s some things that have been swirling around in my mind. Okay, let’s talk about it. Let’s look at that, let’s analyze that a little bit. Maybe where’d you hear that from? What have you seen? I mean, again, thoughts don’t mean that they’re true. Okay, so then, now like you’re saying, it’s kind of like, they’re very strong and active words. as Christians, and we want to train our kids to understand this from an early age, that we’re not passive and we’re not dismissive of thoughts that aren’t God-honoring. We need to do something with them. So we don’t panic and say, okay, that thought must define me and must mean something about me, but we also don’t want to dwell on those thoughts that aren’t good because we’re running them through the grid of what the Bible says about us, right? If God’s truth is what defines us, then we’re going to run it through that. So when we… capture that thought we teach our kids to be like, take the thought. Don’t, don’t, don’t hide it. Don’t keep it in secret, right? Don’t remove any proud obstacle. Like we’re going to have weird thoughts. That’s okay. Everybody has them. But what do we do with them when they come? We’re going to submit them to God. We’re going to destroy, we’re going to destroy any pride that would want us to hide what we think. We’re going to capture the thought that does not honor God. We’re going to take hold of it. like a fish on its hook, and we’re going to pull it and we’re going to yank it and we’re going to pull it in and we’re going to submit it to God and say that thought isn’t honoring to God, that isn’t true of me. And what is true? What is true is that I’m a precious creation of God and God doesn’t make mistakes and God has a design for how sex should work or our gender and all of that. And so I’m going to submit it to Jesus, all of it. And that gives our kids some action steps so that the enemy who’s always looking, always looking to deceive, to kill, to destroy, that we give our kids, like you said, Brian, the game on, like we have weapons to fight thoughts that are not God-honoring, and that’s how we do it, and to teach our kids how to do it every time.

Bryan:
And so maybe a good exercise parents as you, you know, hopefully you’ll have this conversation with your kids and then it’ll, it’ll establish some language for you the next day, the next week that it’s a really easy conversation to be able to say, Hey, did you have to capture any thoughts this today or this week? Did you have to force any, maybe that’s a good verse to even memorize with your kids? Let’s memorize 2 Corinthians 10, 5, and put it up on the fridge. And remind you, I remember Trace, my mom had certain scripture verses on plaques around the home, and I to this day have those scripture verses memorized. So this is probably a good one. You don’t even have to have it on a plaque, but put it on an index card, put it on your fridge. After you have this conversation. And encourage your kids to memorize it and then use it as a conversation starter. Hey, did you have any thoughts you had to capture? And even parents, I would say, be honest about your thoughts, be vulnerable about this. And dads with your son say, I had to capture some thoughts, share those thoughts with your kids. Because, you know, Tracy, isn’t it true? This isn’t just… This isn’t just one conversation, like one and done, you had the conversation and whoo, I’m glad we had that conversation. That’s over now.

Tracy:
Mm-hmm.

Bryan:
Never have to talk about weird sexual thoughts again. That’s not going to be how it is. I mean, with AJ, our son’s 20 now, and we still have these kinds of conversations with him, not maybe not in depth like we did when he was little, but we still talk with him, he still needs to process this parents, your kids need to process this. It’s not a one and done thing. person that your kids can process this with.

Tracy:
Yeah, and again, I like we said, you know, this is going to be an ongoing battle, but we have we have the ability to have victory over thoughts that aren’t good for us through Jesus. And that and that isn’t even just about sexuality or gender identity or any of that. It can be about anger. It can be bitterness. It can be all sorts of things that thoughts that are not helpful for us, that bring us to a bad place, that make us bitter and angry and resentful or or cause us to use our words to be really hurtful or mean to someone. Like those are thoughts that we wanna capture too. Just teaching our kids, understand what thoughts are and what they’re not, and then what do we do with the ones that we need to throw away?

Bryan:
Yeah. And let’s get to this third thing. And this, you know, I want to, we want to make sure to give parents really practical steps. So we’ve encouraged you to have this conversation. We’ve got the student version of it. This podcast will help you prepare for that. You know, I think it’s important to share some of these passages. Maybe you’re memorizing 2 Corinthians 10-5 with your kids. But there’s one last thing I think it’s really important, a spiritual discipline, a habit that the sooner you can get this established in your kids’ lives, the better. Build your foundation on the Bible. Encourage, incentivize, challenge your kids to get serious about reading the Bible every day. And when they do that, and we’ll talk about some ways to do that today, let’s get really practical Tracy, but when they do that, what’s happening is you’re teaching them how to think biblically. You’re teaching them how to throw scripture at every lie, which is what Jesus did. Go maybe on your own time, parents, go read Matthew 4, the temptation of Christ. He goes out into the wilderness. He’s preparing for his public ministry. He’s hungry, he’s tired, it’s been 40 days of fasting. And that’s when Satan tempts him, which is just how Satan works. He’s going to get us at our weakest point. And let’s admit it, parents, our junior highers and high schoolers are at a weak point in their life. And so what Jesus did, go back and read Matthew 4, what Jesus did every time Satan tempted him, tested him three different times, notice what Jesus does. He throws scripture, in his case, the Old Testament, he throws scripture at every one of those lies. And that’s such a great example. So help your kids identify lies about gender, transgender, homosexuality, whatever. These are lies. Help your kids determine and identify lies and then help them maybe even come up with a list, throw scripture at those lies. But if they don’t get in the habit of reading scripture for themselves every day, then they’re not going to be able to discern truth from lie.

Tracy:
Well, and to me, really, with our kids, when you talk about the practicality piece, you know, for a lot of junior high high schoolers, they’re starting to say the Bible is an old book. Does it really apply today? Is it really true? Does it really speak to my life? And I think the more we train our kids from a young age, like with our kids, when they would come home from school with an issue with a friend or a movie they saw or a thought that they had. we would go to Scripture as the basis for our conversation, right, to show them that the Bible is living and active, to show them that the Bible does speak today, to show them that God’s truth is their instruction manual for life, that they can trust it and they can live by it. And so, the more your kids can understand that and learn the habit of reading it, it is the bread of life, right? It’s the feeding on something that’s gonna… change their heart and strengthen them and give them a worldview with which to then process all this information that’s coming at them culturally that’s very um much of it is very much against what the bible teaches but if our kids are bible illiterate they don’t even know that so then they what do they have to go by well truth then is defined by the thoughts that i’m having truth is defined by how i feel or what my friends are saying or what my social media influencers are saying so parents i think You know, start with your own spiritual discipline of reading the Bible and model that for your kids. For us, we would do a lot of topics on pursuegod.org in the student section when our kids were late elementary through high school and created a conversational culture in the home where we would talk about things and the Bible, the scripture then was applied to situations. We would encourage our kids to do Bible reading plans. There’s a ton of them out there. and just kind of getting them used to making Bible reading a part of their life and different rewards that we did for our kids in that. But that is an endeavor worth encouraging in our kids because they need to be able to combat truth from lies that are coming out of them every day.

Bryan:
Yeah, Tracy, maybe we can finish by addressing the parent. I’m just trying to put myself in the shoes of some of our parents listening and they’re thinking, and we got this at our church all the time. Your kids are perfect. So you had this conversation and it was easy because your kids love Jesus and they read the Bible and they’re perfect. That’s not true. That’s not

Tracy:
Mm-mm.

Bryan:
true at all. Our kids struggled with this and not just with this. You know, I think, I think our kids. both our son and our daughter struggled with, and we’re gonna have them on our podcast in the future, because I think it’ll be important for people to hear it from their perspective. But our kids, both of our kids struggled with, even just they were trying to decide what they believed about the Bible. And parents,

Tracy:
Mm-hmm.

Bryan:
I think it’s important for you to enter this conversation with a sensitivity to that, that your kids are still on a journey of faith. So let’s just assume that your kids are 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years old. And they go to church, they read the Bible a little bit. They call themselves Christians because you’re Christians. But parents, I think it’s important for you to understand the jury is still out for them. They’re really, and that doesn’t make them bad people. That’s just the journey of faith for everybody. They’re still trying to figure out what they believe. So this conversation is important. And it’s important to have this conversation with a sensitivity to that, that you’re trying to help them understand biblical truth in a world that is telling them that biblical truth is, is mean-spirited or judgmental.

Tracy:
Mm-hmm.

Bryan:
And so maybe Tracy, you can help address that a little bit, because that’s my, as we’ve tried to help parents, now that we’ve made it through those years, and our kids are, thank the Lord, our kids are following Jesus and have really owned the faith that we have. And that remember, that’s the fundamental law of parenting is you’re trying to transfer ownership of your values and beliefs from you to your kids so that when they get out of the home, they believe it, not just because you believed it, but they really embrace it. And this is going to be one that it makes me so angry to of how Satan is twisting all of this to make Christians, biblical Christians look like the bad guys. They make biblical Christians look mean or mean-spirited. And so Tracy, what would you say to parents who are preparing to have this conversation and they want to have it in a way where they’re speaking truth, but they’re still doing it in a way that is palatable to kids who are hearing all this other nonsense at school?

Tracy:
Well, to me, what what I had to realize in my own parenting journey is that it all starts with prayer. I mean, to me, I feel like as parents, pray about this conversation before you have it with your kids. Pray for your kids. Pray over your kids every day and every night and pray that God gives you wisdom and wisdom, insight, discernment, things that you need to just be paying attention to. One of the things I feel like God just spoke over my heart and one of my more full of angst with my kids and am I doing parenting right and our kids were struggling with whatever and you’re just worried and upset and I just feel like God just said to me. I love I love them more than you do So they’re God’s special precious creation that we’ve been entrusted to raise and Pray start with prayer parents and be active participants in training up your kids that even though they might say, I don’t want to do that, I don’t care about that, I don’t know if I believe the Bible is true, then find topics on pursuegod.org that show that the Bible is trustworthy, that there’s plenty of evidence to show that it’s the most reliable book we have and then start to bring scripture into the different situations that they’re having and they can see the the wisdom of God’s word and the way he equips us for things. that are happening in the lunch room or on the school bus or in your bedroom when you’re home by yourself. So to me, parents, I think, be engaged entirely in the process and you’re not gonna do it right every time. Your kids may seem uninterested sometimes, but make pursuing God the priority in your home. Cover your kids in prayer, cover your parenting in prayer, and read God’s word and read it as a family. And don’t be afraid to speak God’s truth over your kids, even if our culture is saying something else and it doesn’t seem like a jives or it’s not as popular.

Bryan:
So parents, you have your homework, go find that topic. You can find it at pursuegod.org. Go to the student category. The topic is called, How to Handle Weird Sexual Thoughts. There’s a short video that you can watch with your kids. Again, this is appropriate for, I mean, really, I would say 10 years old up to high school. have the conversation with your kid. There’s discussion questions, talking points, scripture. It’s all right there for you. We’ll put a link to it below so that you can find it more easily and have this conversation with your kids. Pray about it. Be ready for it. We know you can do it. That’s your homework assignment. And if you want to talk more about, if you want to learn more about parenting topics or marriage topics, just like this one, then make sure to subscribe to this podcast and check out all of our resources. You can find them online, pursu.gov.org forward slash family. And we’ll see you next time.