This post is the ninth in a series titled “Transformation Workbook“.
Review
God created us to glorify Him by expressing His character through our lives. He made us to be like Him, in His image and likeness so that we would be compatible for relationship with Him, complete only in Him and able to communicate with Him. He made us to be relational beings so that we could interact with Him and with one another. Interaction requires an exchange of ideas and the ability to build and process these ideas. Our hunger for relationship moves us to trust and bond with others. When we bond, we form a dependence and open ourselves to be influenced by the beliefs of the person we trust. It is through our most intimate relationships that we build our own ideas as we grow from childhood to mature adults. These relationships are experienced at different stages of life and the ideas we gain at each stage are the building blocks of our beliefs and behaviors. It is the first of these stages leading to adulthood that interest us in this article.
BUILDING BLOCKS – STAGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
We grow from birth to adulthood all the way to death, in stages. These stages are experienced at different ages. Normally these stages correspond loosely to age brackets, like 0-2 years old, 2-5 years old and so forth. Each stage has its own developmental tasks that challenge us, like learning to walk and talk. The purpose of each stage is to develop the skills necessary to master these tasks before we move on to the next one. The first stages of human development deal primarily with motor skills and physical growth. As we enter into the training phases of life, it is our ideas that take center stage as developmental tasks.
Biblical Termonology
The writers of the bible recognized these stages and used different Greek words to describe children of different ages. Modern day psychologists have also studied these stages and have written about the different developmental tasks that challenge us at each stage. It is the challenge of these growth tasks that motivate us to grow and build our own beliefs and behavior systems. These stages are briefly described so that we might recall some type of influence, either positive or negative, that occurred in one of these stages, that still impacts our behavior today. It is especially the negative experiences and influences of our youth that motivate us to hold on to false beliefs and behaviors that can hinder our intimacy with Christ. The following chart gives a brief description of each stages of human development up to adulthood.
BIBLICAL TERM AGE DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS
BREPHOS-NEPIOS 0-2 yrs Develop senses & motor skills – sucking, grasping, looking, listening, crawling, walking, comprehension, talking, self-awareness, attachment, trust. Infants use their senses and motor skills to relate to their world. They begin to develop basic categories of concrete objects in memory (hard, soft, color). None or light discipline advised. Secure mother attachment and constant care is necessary to form a healthy sense of self
PAIS 2-5 yrs Development of symbols-language to understand & relate to the world. All thinking is concrete and the child is not yet capable to conceive in the abstract. Imagination flourishes and language becomes the primary means of influencing their world. Light and immediate discipline is effective. Short-term mother separation and exploration is normal (mother’s day out) and healthy. All day, Daycare creates insecure bond with mother and can result in habitual anxiety and feelings of abandonment.
TEKNON 6-11 yrs Development of logic and examples (parables). Learning about classification of categories & numbers. Sharing & sympathy can be taught; Age where planned training & discipline based on rules is effective. Choices & consequences. All day school is appropriate with nurturing teacher (mother figure). Public socialization begins, bringing social pressure to conform & compete; Fear of social rejection & being different; Need for parental reassurance & training about peer pressure to protect against discouragement from social competition.
HUIOS – 12-Adult Development of abstract thought and hypothetical concepts. Understanding of ethics, law, morality, social issues, theoretical concepts. Focus on adaptations to society and how the person fits into the world. Able to understand concepts without concrete examples. Focus on choices & consequences as the person interacts in relationships. Puberty, sexuality & preparation for marriage. Pressures of developing sexuality and interaction with opposite sex. Personal attractiveness issues; Need for ongoing parental training to maintain perspective about self-concept related to attractiveness. Reminded that God has a plan for sex and marriage.
Principles
1. Each stage of human development opens new challenges that motivate the child to grow and develop new skills to accomplish the mission of each stage
2. Each stage requires new beliefs to build an overall life view. Beliefs are formed in small and simple pieces that combine to form more complex and abstract ideas.
3. The child’s environment in each stage influences what the child believes about self, others and life in general.
4. Beliefs are adopted in response to environmental pressures and based on how adequately or inadequately the child’s needs are supplied.
5. Parental care influences a child’s beliefs about security, self-esteem, love, belonging, trust and personal ability.
6. The security of early attachment & bonding is necessary for a child to build positive beliefs about himself and his worth in relation to others.
7. Security as a person is the foundation to accept eternal security in Christ and to think of God as a loving parent.
Summary
The early stages of growth are focused on building security that comes from the stability of parental love and nurturance. At each successive stage, children grow more independent and their ideas become more abstract and complex. Even into the adult stages, children need parental interest, guidance, support and availability. The latter stages still require supervision and structure that guides a child into healthy activities and peer groups. As God is ever present and available to us, so we can be to our children. As God has a plan for each of us based on our gifting, so we can help our children see their own abilities and steer them into healthy areas of growth.
The discussion above describes healthy growth and good parenting. Educated and attentive parents have a chance to produce healthy children who make good choices in adult life.
Unhealthy Development
Many of us didn’t have healthy parents who provided a positive environment or who were interested in our daily struggles. Many, especially in latter day USA, were raised in single parent homes by mothers who were overworked and overstressed. Many that I have spoken with felt abandoned and cut adrift in their early years. They were allowed to form unhealthy love relationships and peer groups that led them into early sexuality and adult life. Some were even abused by a member of their own family at an early age destroying their ability to trust. Many of us bonded with very unhealthy parents who were so occupied with themselves that they had no heart to give much to us. They were so busy trying to overcome their own hurtful childhood that they had little love left to share with their children. If you will be honest, you will find yourself somewhere in this description. There are no perfect parents but some parents give more than others and some are wiser than others.
Unhealthy Ideas
It was during these stages of growth that we built our false ideas. Our need met with disappointing circumstances and we reacted to pain by building false ideas. Even when parents have the best intentions and parent well, children become overwhelmed by life in the devil’s world. We misunderstand, reach false conclusions and build false ideas about our self and our life. The old man belief and behavior system is built by human viewpoint developed during the stages of human growth. It is these false ideas that we built growing up without God that block our ability to apply the word of God. It is these false ideas that we must detach from our faith so that we can reattach our faith to the truth. Let’s look at an example of a man that I counseled:
Example
JD’s parents fought often and loudly until he was 6 years old when they divorced. His father came home unexpectedly one day and found his wife in bed with a mutual friend. JD’s dad became violent and sent his soon to be ex-wife to the hospital. She filed charges and his dad went to prison and JD was never allowed to visit him. When he was released from prison, rather than visiting his son, he left for parts unknown. JD didn’t see or hear from his father until he was 24 years old and then he received a birthday card in the mail.
For JD it all happened fast. One morning he said bye to his dad on his way to the school bus and then he never saw him again. Not only that, but his mother was never the same again. The new “dads” she brought home for brief periods had not been kind to him. JD was confused to say the least. In fact, JD was very angry. Angry at his dad for leaving him, at his mom for becoming a basket case and at the new dads for resenting his very existence. Inside, JD was still a 6-year-old boy who came home from school and his whole world had been taken away. How many times had he wished that he could do that day over? He wouldn’t go to school. He would stay home and change how everything had happened. He would control his world to be more to his liking. Who could blame him for wanting to take control away from God and recreate his world and life experience. Many of us would like to change what happened in our lives.
JD seemed to be a normal young man, well adjusted and moving ahead in his career. Looks quite often are deceiving. We even can deceive ourselves. Inside JD was needy and angry but he didn’t know it. He had forgotten his pain. He had buried it with repression so that he no longer felt it. He didn’t feel mad, or sad, or much of anything really. In fact, JD had ceased to feel at all, except when his team won or lost or sometimes when he ran out of things to keep him occupied. When that happened and he had a chance to reflect, which was seldom, he would grow frantic and quickly find something to keep him from feeling his pain, like food, alcohol or TV.
One day, JD heard the gospel, believed it and was given eternal life. When he went down to the stage, the counselor congratulated him and told him that God was now his Father. Talk about conflicted inside, he was so confused. What did this mean? If God was his father, would He now abandon him or abuse him unfairly like all of his other fathers? This was supposed to be good news but to JD it was horrible. His belief system told him that fathers were only good for letting you down or treating you unfairly.
It was with this inner turmoil after many years of bible study that JD came to counseling. It took some time for him to turn his feelings back on so that he was no longer numb. It took even more time for him to recognize that he was still in pain over what had happened in his life. He thought that because he had repressed his pain and was no longer aware of it, that he had resolved the issue in his heart. When JD was able to feel his pain again, he was able to see what he had believed as a reaction to the events of his life. He had believed that it was somehow his fault and he was angry with himself for not being able to control the will of other people. He believed that he was not worth loving and that anyone who told him that they did love him was either a liar or crazy. He had believed that men in general were unfaithful and cruel, causing him to question whether he would ever have children of his own. Most importantly, he thought that all fathers either left or treated you unfairly and he was unable to trust and accept God’s love as a reality in his heart. He knew the concept and agreed that it was probably true that God loved him, but God’s love was not real to him.
When I last heard from JD, he was still struggling with these issues but struggling with hope. He had come to understand that his earlier conclusions about fathers and himself were false and was prayerfully looking to God to change his heart. He had made good progress with his numbness and was able to feel passion for the truth and compassion for the lost. JD is on the journey to spiritual maturity and health. I am glad for him and even more grateful to have been allowed to help him on his way.
Look at Yourself
Look at your own development and review the events of your life. If there was great turmoil then it stands to reason there is great pain hidden in your heart. I am not suggesting that you go looking for trouble, just go looking for the truth. If you are also unfeeling as a rule, then realize that you are most likely numb as a defense from hurt and pain. If you know God loves you but do not experience His love as a reality in your life, then realize you are only experiencing a small part of what God wants for you. Be courageous, look into your heart and see if your old beliefs are hindering you from fully experiencing the truth of God. If you find that they are, keep reading, Christ will lead the way out of this place that Adam took us.
Questions
1. Do you know truth from God’s word that you don’t experience as reality?
2. Are you numb to pain and sadness as well as joy and peace?
3. Did you have a difficult time as a child?
4. Did your parents divorce? Remarry?
5. Were you raised in a home with a step-parent?
6. Did one of your parents leave and stay gone for a long time?
7. Do you blame yourself for things that are not your fault?
8. Do you believe that you are not worthy to be loved?
View all posts in the Transformation Workbook series
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