001: Non-Negotiable for Parents

-Transcript-

[00:00:00] Bruce: Welcome and thank you for joining us on our first Unshackled Love podcast. My name is Bruce Payne. I'm sitting here with my wonderful, gorgeous, better half Kaila Payne, my wife Kaila Payne and I, we are both teachers here in the greater Austin area. We are also blessed to be a parents of nine wonderful kids.

Our kids ranged in the age from five to almost 18 years old, and pretty much everything in between and we. Point in life right now where we feel called, to branch out and start a ministry.

Kaila: Yeah. The ministry really started, I think Bruce and I, you know, being teachers and also just being parents of so many kids and even within our life and in our marriage, we've experienced what you would call growing pains.

And I remember being eight years old and having the worst growing pains. I don't know about you. I mean, I, I got 'em

Bruce: Well, real quick. And, and as she sits here and says, when she was eight years old, she was also like five foot eight and a half or something like that. So she was really going through the thickest of growing pains

at that age.

Kaila: I mean, I did grow rather quickly in a short amount of time. Yes. And I remember just laying in so much agony, my legs would ache and hurt. My mom would just look at me and say, "That means you're growing." And her optimism killed me in the moment of. But really, growth is uncomfortable and growth is hard, and growth is challenging.

And you know, as you get older, your growing pains aren't always physical, but they're real emotional, environmental, you know, whether it's work or friends and family. We experience a different type of growing pains and then especially as Christians, you know, life is not guaranteed to be easy. There's definitely growing pains as God molds us and shapes us into who he wants us to be.

And then lastly, as a parent, you start to see your kids go through growing pains. And so, you know, it was nice that our name kind of fit into it. The pains: p-a-y-n-e-s So, here you have it. Here you have the birth of Growing Paynes and it's a, his, hers and ours family ministry.

Bruce: It is. And and I think that the big thing there is, is within a marriage, you know, you have two individuals who come together as a married couple.

And, in our circumstances, we have nine beautiful kids. Like I said before, we know our kids that range from the age of five to almost 18. And over the course of the years, we've done some awesome things as parents, we've done some not so awesome thing as parents, pretty much. I don't even go as far as saying flat out, crappy, you know, we're, we're human beings here on earth.

And, as a result, you know, we have gone through and, and learned, you know, through our mistakes and through growing pains of sorts.

Kaila: Yeah. This podcast is definitely not because we think we're perfect parents.

Bruce: Definitely not. You know, we're, we're still work in progress and I think on the, on the bigger level, Right.

You know, being a teacher, both of us being teachers, not just teachers of our own kids and teaching them how to live life and what it means to be a God-fearing human but being teachers in the public school system where things are broken, you know, from the curriculum where kids are being taught to expectations, put on them by peers to even what schools are putting out there in terms of what is supposed to be normal, what is supposed to be acceptable, or even accepted, right?

You know, we, we are told that, you know, you have a kid who sits there and is going through gender identity crisis and we're we're required to sit there and call them by their new name. Guess what, What if that's not what I feel is right or what I feel comfortable doing? Right? And so, as an adult, that's one thing.

As a teacher, that's one thing, as students having to sit there and live through that, that's not stuff that we had to sit there and live through as kids ourselves. And so, regardless of that, you know, even those kids who were going through things like that, they're hurting. And so how can we sit here and be a difference maker?

And that's where Growing Paynes comes in, is how can we make a difference in these kids'? And it all points back to the cross. It all points back to Jesus. We were sitting there in the car today. Funny side story. I'm sitting in a gas station, one of my favorite gas stations here in Texas called QT

And I'm sitting there and I'm eating healthy today. I'm stoked. I have my un sweet tea and I'm going through and I'm getting my apple and some healthy cashews, when all of a sudden I have somebody squeeze my right butt cheek. Yes. And my wife is laughing because the person who ended up grabbing it was her.

And it scared the daylight out of me. And as she laughs right now, it did. I was like, What's going on? My wife would not approve. And I just happened to realize that it's my wife who happened to be in the neighborhood who saw my car at qt, walked in, surprised me.

Kaila: I couldn't help myself.

Bruce: But as we sit here and laugh about that, the best part was we got in the car and there's a song, and the lyrics was talked about.

One way, Jesus, and it just brought us back to the reason why we're sitting here doing this ministry, which is everything needs to point back to Jesus.

Kaila: Amen. Yeah. Everything, I mean, That's even within parenting. I am only human. I am, you know, only capable of doing so much, and I am guaranteed to fail at times, but it's my responsibility as a parent to raise my child, and it's your responsibility as a parent.

You know, when you step into that role, God ordains you and equips you as a parent. To raise your child until adulthood. And you know, a lot of people look at us as teachers and they say, Oh, but you make such a difference. The reality is, is I can only make so much of a difference during my time at school for that one year that I have them, and then they're off to the next classroom.

And so my impact is, Whereas if we start impacting the home and if we start making changes with parents and we start making that change for our family, we're changing legacies for generations and generations to come. And so I really feel like that's where God put put on our hearts is yes, our love for children and wanting to help them seeing a broken generation, but we come up through that.

Setting the example and leading our children and us first.

Bruce: No, absolutely. But, but in doing so, and, and as we kick off this podcast, it kind of introduce us just a little bit. It's talking about the non-negotiables as us as parents. These are things that have come to and more to, to fruition as time has come.

And it's things that we've seen other people teach us. It's been things that we've learned from the folks who are God fearing human beings. It's from people that we value, right? People who have had an impact in our lives. I think if you sit there and you look at our lives, you know, Kaila and I, our childhoods weren't perfect by any means.

I mean, you can go on growingpaynes.org and sit there and look at our bios a little bit and you can kind of see that, hey, we're just like the person right next to us. We have some parents who love us but didn't really know what they were doing themselves in terms of raid us in a godly household.

And so it's taking trial and error and time. And by the grace of God, we are where we are today. And so, looking at our non-negotiables, the very first non-negotiable that we wanna sit here and talk about,

Kaila: Leading by example. So...,

Bruce: Wait, did you say leading by example? Are, are you sitting here saying that, you can't be a hypocrite?

And I'm, I say that word because my wife has said it to me a thousand times. You can't be a hypocrite. Or I've heard so many times from her this wonderful things that stuff is caught not taught . And so I'm sitting here as she's...

Kaila: You stole my line!

Bruce: I know, but you're gonna go through, I'll let her go through the Bible verse and everything else, but this is an important thing because as a man of a house and what God has called me to do, as the head of the house and then her and I as being equally yolked in our journey of parenting, we have to lead by example. And what honey, what does the Bible say about leading by example?

Kaila: So the first that I really like that always just sticks out to me, and you've probably heard it before, but we're gonna dive in a little deeper, is Proverbs 22:6.

and in the New Living Translation says, "Direct your children onto the right path. And when they're older, they will not leave it". And what I love about this verse is, you know, it says direct your children onto the right path. But there's an assumption there that we know what the right path is. And so if you don't know what the right path is, and I think this is also, you kind of mentioned briefly, I don't think that either one of our parents really knew what that right path was themselves.

And so now we are having to figure that out as adults and as parents. But how much better will my children be if I know the path and I'm walking down that path and then that, now that I know the path and I know what leads, and we know that that way is one way, Jesus.

Bruce: Well, real quick.

Kaila: He's dancing too.

Bruce: Yeah. As I'm sitting here thinking about though, in that path, right? And I think so many parents are like, Well, how, like, what, what does that path look like? And, you all know what I gotta say, thank you. Thank you to the thousands, the couple thousand years ago when people sit there and put this book together called the Bible, which has 10 commandments as well as it has things that we're supposed to do, like Proverbs 22.

Commandments of sorts that are telling us what it is we should be doing. It's not saying, Hey, if you have a chance, you should direct your kids or maybe you should direct your kids. Or if you feel up to today, you should direct your kids.

[00:09:53] Kaila: Or you know, they might turn out, it may turn out like you got a 50 50 chance.

You know, it's not it. The Bible is very direct and this is saying, you know, When they're older, they will not leave it. There's your efforts. It's the, seed that you're sewing, right? Like any, if you've ever planted seeds, I know tomato plants are the hardest for us. We try every year with epic failure.

It takes effort and it takes time and you have to water it and you have to, you know, there's a lot of tender love and care that goes into getting. Seed to blossom and produce fruit. And so your think of your child's lifespan, or at least the first 18 years as that seed, and we're constantly having to water it in order to see that blossom when they're in adulthood.

Bruce: Yeah. I think that's a great analogy. I think another analogy that we can sit here and use is how about an in. . I mean, how many of us are sitting here worried about a retirement or talk about our retirement or 401k or 4 0 3 B as a teacher? Or what do we gotta do to sit there and make sure we can have a nest egg so we can retire?

And I guarantee, for a lot of people, that is a conversation that you have probably had more times in the last year than you have talked, spent talking about the investment that you're willing to sit there making your kids. I mean, that's just something that just hit me right now, right. I go through it as, as beginning the school year has come up.

We have had numerous individuals come and talk to us and wanna talk to us about our investments. You know, do you have the proper investments ready for when you retire? Because between your retirement age and what you already have saved, it's not enough. Well, the reality is we have that the same amount of time, if not shorter, to invest in our own kids.

And it's crazy that we spend so much time worrying about the financial gain in our lives. The most precious thing in our lives are our kids, and that's getting neglected, and that's unfortunate. You don't know what that we sit here and we're an excited, That values money over nurturing our kids, empowering our kids, raising our kids.

The second, as you know, as we sit there and go through, are non-negotiables. The next one is being committed. Okay? This is the same thing in marriage. You look at our marriage rate in the United States especially, not just in the secular world, but in the Christian world, how many people are getting divorced because it's just not fun anymore or they don't like it, or they're not happy, or they're not full of joy?

You know, this is a podcast that you're gonna hear some stuff about divorce. I myself was divorced at one once upon a time and my beautiful wife comes from a, a family where her parents were divorced. So, we sympathize and even empathize with people going through. That being said, the commitment level here in the United States isn't what it should be or where God calls us to be.

And as parents, I mean, imagine if you sit there and said, Hey, I want a full paycheck going to work, but I'm only gonna work half the time. I'm only gonna commit myself 25 hours a week, but I want a 40 hour paycheck. And it's the same thing when we sit here and we raise our kids. Okay? You can't sit there and expect to have an awesome God fearing, God loving kid who loves their classmates, yet you're only gonna sit there and.

25% of your effort or 50% of your effort or time into raising them to be this human being, right? It doesn't matter how it's tired, we are, it doesn't matter how much we don't want to get up and do something with them today. Or maybe we don't wanna sit there and drive into a soccer game, or maybe practice is too late in central Austin and not getting home till nine 15.

Okay? Guess what? Take that 40 minutes that we're in a car and be committed to sitting there teaching them about God. Be committed to them and talk to them about, Hey, how's your day going? I mean, Kaila and I, we've had had so many conversations with our kids over the years, spent in the car, while in the car coming back from a practice that it's almost more beneficial than sitting here at home.

You know, I once heard a pastor say best part about being in the car with your kid is that you're committed. There's nowhere for them to go. You have to sit there and have the conversations with them then, because they can't hop out and walk away, especially when they're in high school and they wanna avoid you to begin with, right?

And so as we sit here and we. About being committed. The verses that we're looking at are in Deuteronomy chapter six versus five through seven. Uh, you wanna go ahead and read that, honey?

Kaila: Yeah. It says " you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength."

Bruce: Did it, did it say all your, all your..

Kaila: You’ve probably all heard that before. All of it.

Bruce: Best part is, is that my seven year old kid can sit here and read the word all and he can sit here and define what the word. Anyways, go ahead.

Kaila: So I love that it says this because it says, your heart, your soul, and your strength.

And I'm gonna just a quick interlude here because, it's also said in Genesis that man is created in God's image and God is three in one, right? God is father, son and spirit. And so I love any verse like this. Recognizes our trinity and how we are created in his image as heart, soul, and strength, right?

So there's also three parts of us. And so we have to love God with our heart, with our soul, and our strength. And then it goes on to say, "you must commit yourself wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them. When you're at home, when you're on the road, when you're going to bed, when you're getting up all the time," there's always time to talk about how God is working your life.

There is always a moment. To make that time with your children, asking them about how their day's going, asking, praying with them. How can we, how can I be praying for you? Have you prayed about this? Are you seeking counsel about that? What does the Bible say? Here's a verse. Are you memorizing your verse?

What did you read today? There is always that time and you know, whether it's in the car and just having, I ironically had a conversation with a woman just today about that, quoting that same pastor saying, you know, in the car. She said, My kids are just always on their phone.

And I said, You're the parent.

Take their phones away.

Make them talk to you because they can't go anywhere else, and that's what we need to do. It is so important. We, if we know the truth and we know the way, and we know like this, there's this Bible and it has so much truth and freedom and so many promises, but it also has life giving commands that offer correction and bring blessing.

And this verse is very specific where it says we need to commit ourselves wholehearted. Telling them to our children. And something else that, I recently read a quote by John Maxwell and he was talking about how, you know, there's two different types of growth. There's accidental growth. And then there's intentional growth.

And so we can act, right? Like accidental growth is, oh, it just happens. That idea of, oh, maybe they'll grow up to be good kids, or, you know, maybe they'll figure it out someday and you know, they'll learn sooner or later. And it's just kind of this natural progression, this natural course. But then when you take the intentionality, if you take the intentional, you know, you're really sitting down having time.

It's like we're pouring into our children and we're only gonna help them reach their full potential because instead of just tossing them out into the wild and hoping that they'll figure it out,

Bruce: On that premise alone, right? If we don't raise our kids something else will.

Kaila: Absolutely.

Bruce: Absolutely right.

And, the reality is, if you look, you know, looking at the society, societal problems that we're facing today, especially as. And just in general, you know, with the hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of kids that we come in contact with on a regular basis is parents are so worried about being cool or about being their kids' friend, right?

Yeah. And it's not asking us in the Bible or telling us in the Bible or commanding us in the Bible to sit there and say, Hey, be a great friend to your kid. It's asking us to sit there and lead by example as a parent is. Is asking us to be committed as a parent. Going back to what you said about the phone, in the car, I mean, I'm the first one to sit there and say it's easier sometimes to say, Hey, here's your device.

Be quiet. Guess what? That's a wasted opportunity. Yeah. And so it's hard, you know, parenting's hard and that's why we're sitting here doing this is so that we can have, you know, it kind of brings up, up into our, our next point. But it's so that we have other like minded people. As we raise our kid, and, and to us, we call that, you know, our village.

You know, who is your village that you are doing life with, and it's important to build your village, right? And, and so point number three is building your village. Kaila and I have been blessed to have many awesome friends. You know, it's funny is you have kids, you end up going to different activities, which you meet parents at those activities, whether it's church, whether it's sports, whether it's school, whatever it might be.

And. Beyond blessed, especially as we moved to Texas a handful of years ago, to to meet a lot of awesome people here in Texas. And then we have an even better support group back home in California. But the reality is here in Texas we have awesome Christian friends, and not just the word Christian, but Christ followers, people who are disciples of God.

And every aspect, whether it's going to church, whether it's at our workplaces, whether. In our small groups, whether it's coaches that coach our kids, I mean, our kids sit here and play soccer for some of the largest organizations, including an MLS team here in the area. And I mean, we've been blessed with some awesome coaches who sit there and pour into our kids who we've seen the difference that they've made.

Right. You know, I'll throw a name out here right now, dude named Travis Carmichael. I mean, awesome kid who because of him, my kid, and I call him a kid. He's in his twenties. I'm just getting to be an old man, I guess. But, I throw his name out there because you wanna know what the love that he has poured into my kids, you know, as Kaila and I sit here and watch this, it's immeasurable.

You know, they learn from their teachers, which is awesome. But somebody like him who shows them the love of God doing an activity they love is immeasurable as well. So it is important to build your village. You know, it's, it's awesome to, to be able to be around people.

If you're not there or if you're busy doing something, they raise your kids with the same expectations that you do,

Kaila: Right. I mean, There's a reason why they say it takes a village to raise a child. Because they were not lying and you know, it really does, and we all know too that kids sometimes just respond differently to another adult figure and when I'm not there 100% of the time.

I think you said that perfectly. It's important that you have other adult. In your children's life, who they can also equally look up to, that they can confide in and they can see an example and that, you know, those other adults are raising my children with the same expectations that I would, you know, there's not a, a conflict in our beliefs or what is important or, Oh, I know that your mom says that, but it's okay.

That's not how it really is. No! We're in alignment with what matters most. Now, does that mean we agree about everything? You know, there's a whole nother podcast episode on healthy conflict. I can feel it brewing. But, you know, it's what matters most. And so when it comes to loving,

Bruce: So it goes back to the non-negotiable. It's the non-negotiable, you know, what matters most.

You know, it's funny, over, the years as we sit here and talk about building our village, you know, I come from a household born to a household that was unequally yoked I mean, as I was born my parents, neither one was a believer. And then my mom became a believer. And, they didn't have the same values in terms of Jesus, one way to Jesus or, following Jesus, right?

And so there was always kind of a struggle based on, I mean, both good people, but early on there was a struggle because one of them was sitting there trying to follow God in His will, and the other one was trying to sit there and do their own will, which doesn't work out very well. And so same goes for raising your kids, is the importance of being equally yoked with your spouse.

but in terms of that being equally, almost equally yolked with the people who help raise your kids. And this kinda leads us into the, the next verse that we're gonna kind of follow up and finish with,

Kaila: and that's Proverbs 27 17. It says, "as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend". And so we just, you know, again, God just being so clear in his word, that when it comes to our friendships and those who are in our closest circle, We need those people who are iron, who are strong, and who are going to strengthen us right alongside them.

Bruce: Absolutely. You know, it's, I, I liken it into trying to eat, you know, here, here in Texas, people like their steak. I mean, some people like T-Bones, some people like filet, whatever it might be. we've come to like the Texas, I mean, if Texas had like a state meet, I'd think it might be a ribeye.

Kaila: I think that's ours. I think the Texas state meat would technically be a brisket.

Bruce: Yeah. That's not a steak. That's, I'm just kidding. Brisket is to die for as well. Absolutely love it. But, but in terms of a steak, it would be a brisket.

And guess what? You can take a brisket or a ribeye regardless. Try going to battle with that steak with a spoon.

You're not gonna be able to cut that very well. And I know it's cliche, but you know how hard it's gonna be for me to sit there and eat a piece of brisket or a ribeye with a spoon. I mean, unless. Nah. Even then it won't be able to do it. Right? The reality is you're not gonna be able to sit there and cut it.

And the reality is, in life, if we are not sharpen like iron sharpens iron, we are not gonna be able to go through life efficiently. You know, we're gonna get stuck at every turn. Like that spoon trying to cut a stake and getting stopped in our tracks. And I, I think this goes back to the point number one is leading by example, right?

If we want our kids to sit there and have good relationships, I mean, how often do you sit there and say to your kid, Hey, make wise choices. Have good friends. Make sure you're here. You know, hanging out with people who, who are like you. Make sure you hanging out with people who love God. People who don't curse, People who sit there don't make fun of other kids.

People who get good grades, well look in the mirror. Are you hanging out with people that are making good decisions? People that are sitting there and using good choice words, Hanging out with people who are making you. , because if you're not, you wanna know what kids are gonna sit there and say, Ha ha.

Stick their finger at their nose and make fun of you and say, Guess what? You're a hypocrite. Either you're committed to this lifestyle, you're not. Either you're committed to investing in your kids' life or you're not. And so you wanna know what you want your kids to have iron in their life. We'll start with the iron in your life first.

You want your kids to sit there and imitate Jesus on earth. Imitate Jesus on Earth first. You. Your kids will sit there and grow the kingdom of God. Guess what? You grow the kingdom of God for by sowing those seeds into your kids from a young age. And, you know, it's something that's extremely important to us.

You know, it's something that God's put on our hearts for a number of years and it's something that we've battled and gone back and forth and. As she said, and I've said earlier in this podcast, we're not perfect. I mean, it's a work in progress. We have a couple spirited kids this week that have made us wanna sit there and pull our hair out, but at the same time, we are called to, to love them regardless.

We are called to sit there and discipline and then show grace and mercy and a bunch of other things that we'll talk about as we forward.

Kaila: Yeah. So to end, really I think what he said, There's gonna be a lot to come. And in this Unshackled Love podcast, we're gonna address those things and we're gonna talk about all those topics.

But how do you do that with love? Because I think above all else, that's our biggest commandment, right? To love God and then love one another. And so with everything that we do, Love has to be the theme. And I think that there's definitely finding a balance between how do we discipline in love, how do we set boundaries in love?

How do we set, expectations and hold our children accountable to those expectations in love and, and accountability. And so we're gonna do that over the course of the podcast. But I just wanted to encourage you today if your. Wondering, man, they have nine kids. I don't know how you do it. First of all, you're not the first person who've said that.

Bruce: yes, We do have nine. We do have nine, that's the number after eight, before 10.

Kaila: Get that quite often. I don't know how you do it. So, uh, first of all, stick around.

Bruce: Actually, real quick, real quick. You know what, I think we get more than you have nine kids is, "you know, what causes that? "

Kaila: Oh my gosh, that's a whole nother tangent...

Bruce: But the reality is I think we get asked that question more often, and yes, we did not have cable once upon a time. Anyways, go ahead.

Kaila: Oh, okay. So you might be sitting there wondering to yourself, I don't know how you do it. So the first saying I'm going to just encourage you do is stay connected.

Join us next week when we post our second podcast and throughout this journey, as this becomes part of our weekly routine, we feel that God is, wants us to use our gifts to bless others and bless you. And so maybe the podcast is great and you're getting lots from it, but maybe you also just wanna have a conversation and you're like, You know what?

I think I need some more. I think I need more help. I really need to figure this out. Maybe you're struggling, you've lost control in your family. Maybe you're feeling uncertain and doubt that you aren't cut out for this job or you don't know how to start building your faith. These are all valid struggles that we've gone through at some point in time.

And so part of our growing pains, his, hers and ours ministry, is making sure that you are getting the resources that you need to grow first. And a couple of the ways that we do that is through mentorship and coaching. And so if that's something that you're like, I wanna find out more. Possibly partnering with Bruce or Kaila or both of us, through marriage coaching.

I just encourage you go to check out our website. It's Growing Paynes and that's "paynes" like our last name, P A Y N E S. Growing paynes.org. There, you can read our bios, you can fill out a contact form. Let us know, how you wanna get connected. You can also see what our vision and our beliefs are, and that's really how you're gonna get to connect with us and start building relationship and, and include us in your village.

That would be such a blessing if, we could be a part of your village.

Bruce: Absolutely. And I think not just her and I, but like I said our kids as well. We will, you know, in future podcasts, we will be doing this with them as well, and having them be a part of this. They will be available online as well to talk with your kids or whatever it might be as well.

So we're excited, you know, as, as a family. It's not just her and I, it's our village here at our house and then our extended village, of folks who know what is, you know, who know what God has put on our hearts. And so I'm gonna sit here and end just with the word of. I know a lot of people are going through a lot of things right now.

I mean, we have 3, 4, 5, 6 loved ones in our lives who are either in the hospital or about to be in the hospital who have had surgery or who are going through surgery, who have been informed by doctors, but not too sure what's going on next. And, just know that regardless of what's going on, and even though you know, you might feel distant from God right now, or you feel that he's distant from you, that's not the case.

Dear heavenly Father, just thank you for this time to come together and have this podcast. Lord, thank you for giving us an opportunity to sit here and talk about what is so precious to you and that's raising kids, Lord, the kids who you talk about multiple times throughout the Bible and just the importance of raising them and treating them right and showing 'em respect and even living life like children do.

Lord, I pray that you can be with our kids. I pray that you can be with the kids of parents who are listening to this podcast as they go through life, Lord, that you can help them navigate with wisdom, with peace, with understanding that only you can give. Lord, I pray that you can be with parents who are hurting right now.

You know, there's so many broken people due to a variety of different circumstances. Lord, I pray that wherever people are, that you can meet them where, right where they're. That you can meet them right where they're at and you can fill that void that only you can fill, Lord, that you know that void that people might turn to alcohol or whatever it might be.

That you can sit there and fill that void. I pray that you can be with all the families of our loved ones who are going through different battles right now, Lord, that you can sit there and you can just bring them peace right now, Lord, that you can sit there and you can show them your love, that you can come to where they're at, Lord, on their level, whatever might.

Maybe they're not sitting here praying to you, but that you can just sit there and know their heart that hey, guess what? They need you right now. Thank you for my gorgeous, lovely wife, and thank you for this opportunity to sit here and do this ministry. Lord, Let us glorify you with our words and actions in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Kaila: Amen.