Unwinding in the Bible
Parenting for Faith's third key tool is 'Unwinding': giving children and teens a broad and balanced view of God and helping them unwind any wrong views they have acquired along the way.
It can be easy to build a picture of God that is unbalanced or a bit off. The Bible is clear that God is just too big for us to fully understand this side of heaven (see, for example Isaiah 55:8-9 and 1 Corinthians 13:8-12) But it is also clear that having an incomplete or wrong view of God is unhelpful – Paul likens this to being a boat, tossed here and there by the wind and waves. and Jesus notes that there are people who read the scriptures but don’t recognise they point to him. In order to avoid this, believers should endeavour to learn more about who God is. Key ways to do this are by reading and understanding the bible, listening to God, and learning from others.
We all form our own view of God. Much will be based on what we learn from the Bible – from the stories, God’s names, the teaching contained in the prophets, seeing who Jesus is, and in the New Testament. But there are other things that influence our views of God. We may hear ideas from other people that are inaccurate, wrong or incomplete. We may have experiences that shape our ideas about him: for example, prayers weren’t answered in the way we expected or bad things happening to us. We may struggle with questions about why God ordered Joshua to destroy Jericho or why he asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. Kids and teens are building their views about God all the time, and sometimes will misunderstand things or get their ideas muddled up. The big problem with this is that a wonky view of God might affect how you feel about and relate to him. If you believe that he doesn’t have time for small prayers, then you’ll probably not bother praying. If you think God gets angry with people who sin, you might want to walk away from him.
The Key Tool of Unwinding helps parents and carers spot and unwind misconceptions and help kids and teens grow a broad and balanced understanding of who God is.
The Bible contains many examples of people both unwinding wrong views of God and learning more about him as they develop a broad and balanced view of God’s character.
Unwinding wrong views
Here are a few examples of unwinding wrong views from the Bible:
- Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath: an example of Jesus giving the Pharisees understand that their interpretation of God’s priorities were wrong
- Gideon believes God has abandoned them, but the Lord explains differently
- God realises Jonah has misunderstood his heart for the Ninevites and explains it in a way Jonah can understand.
- Paul explains to the Galatians that they no longer need to keep the old law on circumcision
- Jesus counters a generally held view that illness or disability is linked to sin
Developing a broad and balanced view
It’s also important to proactively help children and young people develop a big view of God – while we’ll never understand him completely, we can understand him better and better.
- Priscilla and Aquila teach Apollos more of God
- Josiah discovers the scriptures which had been lost and responds urgently
- Jesus explains God’s saving plan to the teacher Nicodemus
- Moses teaches the Israelites all that God had shown him on Mount Sinai
You might also be interested in:
- Unwinding and additional needs: FAQS
- Unwinding wrong views of God at Christmas
- Coaching our children’s view of God in the midst of bullying
- Helping under 5s grow a balanced view of God
- Explaining the Father when that’s not helpful