Jesus himself faced such a night. After three years of impeccable living, impactful ministry and the forging of a legacy that would inspire believers for thousands of years to come, he found himself sitting in a garden, his soul overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.7 In just a few hours, he would face torture and crucifixion. The agonizing prospect of this reality caused him to sweat drops of blood. He prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."8 The text tells us he made this request of G.o.d not once, not twice, but three times in full. And yet still Christ had to die.

A seldom-noted moment in this garden scene captures my attention. Between the prayerful sweating of blood and his arrest by a mob of soldiers, Jesus seemed to have experienced a moment when he was emboldened to lay his dark-night burden down and then, simply, to "get up."

"Rise! Let us go!"9 he told his disciples, who had been snoozing while Jesus fervently prayed. "If ever there has been a dark night, this is it!" I envision him saying. "But trust me when I tell you, great light soon will shine again."

That Light can come into your life too. The G.o.d who is near to you-the G.o.d who actively seeks you out-this G.o.d whispers light into your darkest night.

CHAPTER 7.

PROMPTINGS.

FOR PARENTHOOD.

ONE FRIDAY EVENING I HAD SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY then two-year-old grandson, Henry. Everyone else in the family had made plans to go to a party, so for six hours it was just the kid and me. I dutifully did the diaper drill and the air-plane-in-the-hanger trick to get him to eat his dinner, and then I decided I'd take him for a walk. It was eight-thirty or so, which technically meant I should have been putting him to bed. But his parents were nowhere to be found, so I figured we could break some rules.

A few minutes into our stroll, a delivery truck slowly drove by, and on the side of the truck was a picture of a giant ice cream cone. Picking up his stride a little, Henry said, "Ice cream! Ice cream! I need ice cream." I figured now was as good a time as any for him to learn the difference between needs and wants, and so bending down to his level I stopped his forward progress.

"Henry," I said, "you don't actually need ice cream, because to 'need' something means you have to have it in order to survive, like air. You don't have to have ice cream to survive. You may want ice cream, which is okay. But you don't need it."

He tilted his face to the side and looked up at me. Two perplexed blue eyes, positioned above his very fat cheeks, seemed to say, "Look, I know you're trying to have a teachable moment here and everything, but I need ice cream. I saw a truck, there was ice cream on the side of that truck and now I need to have that ice cream. That's as complicated as I get."

While he and I were engaged in our exchange, the truck eased away from the stop sign and soon was out of sight.

"See?" I said with the certain satisfaction that comes from beating a two-year-old in a debate. "You're not going to get ice cream after all. And for the record, you never needed it to begin with."

We turned back toward the house because it was starting to get cold outside. As we rounded the bend-to Henry's delight-the truck reappeared.

"Ice cream!" Henry cheered. "I need ice cream!"

"You don't need ice cream," I said, fully aware that my words were having no effect. As I continued herding him toward home, the truck pulled right up next to us and stopped. Two men hopped out and came over to ask me how to get to a particular address, where they were due to make a frozen-food delivery. After I provided the requested information, one of the guys nodded toward Henry.

"Hey, is that your kid?" he asked.

"Try grandkid," I said, "and he's been giving me grief about ice cream ever since he noticed the side of your truck. He keeps telling me he needs ice cream, and I keep explaining that while he might want ice cream, he does not need it."

I don't know why I told the guy all of this. Maybe I was looking for a little validation, but that's not at all what I got.

"Hey!" the guy said, eyes dancing. "I bet I got a spare cone in the back. Hang on." With that, he disappeared into the truck . Moments later the man reappeared. He gallantly presented an ice cream cone to Henry, who shot me a look that had his clear sentiment written all over it: "I told you I needed ice cream."

So much for my big grand-parenting moment-which wasn't so grand in the end.

HOURS LATER, AFTER I'D FINALLY PULLED HENRY DOWN FROM his sugar high, coerced him into pajamas and helped him say his bedtime prayers, I headed toward the living room. I picked up a few scattered toys and lay down on the couch to recuperate for a few minutes. As I lay there, I replayed the night and decided that all in all, I really was a fantastic grandfather. Henry had made it through multiple hours with no adult supervision other than me, and there were no broken bones, b.l.o.o.d.y noses or major melt-downs to report. In fact, in my honest and objective opinion, I had done a banner job of taking care of the little guy.

Partway through my lavish self-praise, I sensed the Holy Spirit saying, "Give it a rest, Bill. You did alright, but you had a pretty good head start, if you'll recall."

As I lay there considering the Holy Spirit's interruption-which although true seemed a bit discourteous to me-a flood of memories came to mind, most of which I know only by way of tattered black-and-white photographs and Hybels' family folklore. G.o.d was right: I had been given a good head start, courtesy of some Christ-following relatives who had gone before me.

A hundred years ago a man named John Hybels had married a woman named Mary, and together they moved from the Netherlands to Kalamazoo, Michigan. They loved G.o.d with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, they were diligent to hear and heed the whispers of G.o.d, and they raised a houseful of children, one of whom was Harold Hybels, who would grow up and marry Jerry, my mother. That couple too would live for G.o.d and love him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and they would wind up having five kids, one of whom is me. I would grow up and marry Lynne, and although we would do an imperfect job of parenting, we would set out with all our heart, soul, mind and strength to hear and heed the input of G.o.d and to love our family with every ounce of devotion we possessed.

By G.o.d's grace and heaven's humor, our two kids would grow up and choose to love G.o.d as well, and our daughter would marry a man who also had been raised by parents who followed Christ with their lives, and who was now choosing to live his life in that same vein. Their union has yielded a little boy, a kid named Henry, who all of us hope will devote his life to G.o.d in exactly the same way.

On the couch that evening, in the silence of my living room, I felt an immense wave of grat.i.tude rush over me.

"Thank you, G.o.d, for putting me in a family that has generations of faithfulness on its side. Thank you for giving me a spiritual head start, for giving my kids a head start and for giving Henry a head start too." I'll never deserve G.o.d's goodness in my life, but I'm grateful for it all the same.

Every serious-minded parent I know wants to pa.s.s along good things, not bad things, to their kids. They want to leave a legacy of blessing and wisdom rather than foolishness and pain. They want to be known as ones who followed G.o.d's sound instruction rather than going their own way with their lives.

Deuteronomy 6:6a7 says, "Always remember these commands I give you today. Teach them to your children, and talk about them when you sit at home and walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up" (NCV). Parents who mean business know that spiritual values can't be imparted to kids by words alone. The values lived out through the course of their real-world everyday lives are the ones that will stick. Spiritual dogma doled out in a rigid, militaristic fashion-intended to control, rather than to transform a child's heart-will bear the fruit of some serious resentment and rebellion. Instead, as the verses in Deuteronomy suggest, wise parents adopt the life-lesson approach to helping their kids establish a spiritual foundation upon which to build their lives.

However, it is my contention that even if someone could write the perfect parenting book-and even if every parent on the planet read it and applied its lessons fastidiously-there would still be a few (hundred) times in life when moms and dads would be at a total loss regarding how to coach and counsel their kids.

Even Scripture leaves much to be desired when it comes to turn-by-turn directions for steering our kids toward independence and maturity. G.o.d intentionally left out a lot of detail when it comes to solving parenting (and grand-parenting!) dilemmas, which I happen to think is a good thing. When we get in over our heads, when we step beyond our capability, beyond even what Scripture has to say, it brings us to our knees. We get desperate enough to ask G.o.d personally to intervene. And then it becomes our job to stay wide open to what he wants to communicate to us. It is whisper time!

One of the earliest, most significant parenting whispers I remember receiving from G.o.d pertained to our son, Todd. It was apparent to me from their earliest ages that our kids, Shauna and Todd, were as different as night and day. Shauna was wired two-twenty from day one. She has always been incredibly verbal, highly extroverted and the life of every party. At age three, she could carry on adult-level conversations and loved to talk so much that Lynne and I kidded her by saying, "Honey, you've never had a single unexpressed thought, feeling or opinion."

With Shauna, you always knew where she stood. She had a personality type that really resonated with my own. Conversationally, we were like two peas in a pod: I was expressive and candid with her, and she was a verbal light bulb in response.

But Todd was not wired that way.

When he was still quite young, I recognized that I never was going to reach deeply into Todd's soul through the use of words. It was a realization that came to me around our family's dinner table one night. As was typically the case, Lynne, Shauna and I were carrying the conversation, and I noticed that as our banter increased, Todd's involvement decreased. The more we engaged, the more he withdrew, and suddenly the Holy Spirit whispered. "Bill, if you do not adopt a different approach with this little guy, you might just lose him forever."

The prompting was quite upsetting to me. What adjustments could I make as his dad to connect with his personality, so different from my own? During the weeks that followed, I read as many parenting books as I could find, in hopes of discovering the secret to engaging a quieter kid, and thankfully, one author came to my aid.

He suggested that because children are distinct, parents would do well to offer differing parenting styles to each. Now this may sound like Parenting 101 to many, but it was a mind-blower to me. I was raised in a cultural setting where parents employed one parenting style, even though they were raising five or six children with vastly different wiring patterns, preferences and needs. But something rang true in this author's counsel. With G.o.d's whisper still punctuating my thoughts, I thought I would give it a try.

Through another read, I discovered the concept of "love languages,"1 ways in which people receive love from others. I learned that Todd's "love language" was quality time. More than words of affirmation or attempts at deep father/son talks, what Todd needed most from me was unrushed time, and time on his terms. So, I decided that if I couldn't reach him through dinnertime conversations-which worked wonderfully with Shauna-I'd offer him my time. This took intentionality, and it looked differently at different ages as Todd grew. During his elementary school years, I would come home after a long day at work and say, "Hey, Todd, what would you like to do for the next couple of hours, just you and me?"

His answer always revolved around one of three things: he wanted to go look at used cars, head to the bicycle shop and look at bike gear, or take a trip to the nearest motorcycle dealership and meander up and down the rows of Harleys, just soaking it all in.

Thankfully, my son and I had some shared interests in each of those areas. But spending multiple hours in these shops two or three times a week-not to talk, mind you, but simply to roam around-wasn't exactly my definition of "connecting." After making several of these significant investments of time, I thought, "Surely this will open the kid up, and soon he will feel the freedom to talk more."

But no dice. Todd was still quiet. Actually, about every six weeks when we were en route back home from one dealership or another, he would open up a tiny bit and offer something for us to talk about for a few minutes. But I learned that Todd never was going to verbalize his feelings on par with his sister, and the sooner I right-sized my expectations and watched for optimal opportunities that would offer him a chance to talk, the more of his heart he was likely to disclose.

TODD IS IN HIS EARLY THIRTIES NOW, AND HE HAS REMAINED true to his quieter, G.o.d-given wiring. As I look back at that first critical whisper from G.o.d, it is painfully clear that, had I stayed on the other track-the track of forcing my single-focused parenting style on two very different children-I'd have severely limited my relationship with him.

As it has turned out, we enjoy a wonderfully fulfilling connection these days, mostly because along the way we learned how to use fewer words by using them well. These days, you'd rarely catch us sitting across from each other at a restaurant, engaged in a multi-hour conversation. But you might find us jogging together or boating together or working on one of Todd's jet skis together and, after a substantial amount of quiet, quality time has pa.s.sed, exchanging a few well-placed, meaningful sentences. I praise G.o.d for every single one.

My kids' wiring differences went deeper than just their communication patterns. The entirety of their interpersonal worlds varied as vastly as two people's could.

Shauna has always loved people and parties, and she is not averse to speaking to crowds, large or small. Todd, on the other hand, preferred a behind-the-scenes style of life. This was another area where G.o.d by his promptings saved me from a terrible series of parenting mistakes.

Todd played team sports all through grade school-soccer and basketball, mostly. When he was in junior high, he was a starter on his school's basketball team and one of their highest scorers. Once when he was in the throes of try-outs for the eighth-grade team, which he was a shoe-in to make, he caught me totally off-guard. He was just about to head off to bed one night but stopped and said, "Dad, I don't think I want to play basketball anymore."

He knew that I had played basketball most of my life, and that I valued my kids' partic.i.p.ation in team sports because of the terrific groundwork I believe it lays for future team-leadership roles. I'm sure he knew his words would hit me hard.

"Why don't you want to play?" I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral and my expression receptive.

"Well, two reasons," he said. "For one, whenever I get fouled during a game, I hate standing on the free-throw line with a whole gymnasium full of people watching me shoot. I don't think I like playing sports in front of big crowds."

"And the second reason?" I asked.

"Dad, none of the other kids are taking the game very seriously. If I'm going to be on a team, I want to practice hard and do my best. It would be fun if everybody felt that way, but they don't. I just don't want to play anymore."

In that moment, I knew that either I could lay down the law and force my son to play basketball, or I could allow for the fact that Todd is different from me, that team sports just might not be his thing.

I asked Todd how much longer try-outs would run-three days, it turned out-and said, "How about you give me three days to pray about this, and you pray about it too, and then on Friday we'll talk again."

Over the course of those seventy-two hours, I felt a strong sense from the Holy Spirit that Todd probably was more wired up to do individual sports as opposed to team sports. He never had been a "public" kid-even when he'd won awards along the way, he had to be pushed to go to the front of the banquet room to receive them. He was a shy boy, plain and simple. What's more, Willow already was quite large by that time, and I wondered if the visibility of Lynne's and my life might also be taking a toll on our son.

By Friday of that week, G.o.d was whispering to me, "Let Todd go the way I have created him, Bill. Trust that this new path will lead him in a positive direction." Todd and I talked, and together we agreed that quitting basketball was the right thing for him. The relief on his face was palpable. The following week, Todd and I informed his coach that he would not be playing ball his eighth-grade year, and although the coach was deeply disappointed, my son never once looked back.

Proverbs tells parents to train up their kids in the way they should go. I've heard parents use this verse as a justification for pushing their child into conformity, regardless of his or her G.o.d-given temperament. I've since come to understand that there are two layers of wisdom in that verse. Scholars who study this text are convinced that the writer-in addition to encouraging parents to teach a child to surrender to G.o.d and practice righteousness-was also challenging parents to discover the natural apt.i.tudes and abilities of their children, and to encourage their children's pursuit of the path that is theirs uniquely to walk. In addition to pouring out ma.s.sive amounts of love onto your kids and setting appropriate limits along the way, another vital gift you can give your children is a discerning a.n.a.lysis of the special abilities G.o.d put into their lives and a gradual drawing-out of those competencies so that a young kid eventually can find his own particular path. It's exactly what I needed to do with Todd.

Incidentally, after Todd quit basketball, he immediately took up s...o...b..arding, snowmobiling, motorcycle racing and surfing -all individual sports that he became very good at over time. The point is, Todd's life has proven out what I believe G.o.d revealed to me in that whisper: my kid's strong need for independence was something he couldn't-and shouldn't-be talked out of. Instead of forcing Todd into my predetermined mold, I needed to help pave G.o.d's path for his life.

Parenting brings varying degrees of difficulty that range from no-brainer stuff, like teaching your kids general civility and basic table manners-things you could teach your dog to do-to mind-bending dilemmas that involve their morals, their character and their future. During those highly intense parenting moments when you're wondering whether to exhibit grace or clamp down, whether to manifest low control or high, whether to forgive them or make them pay, whether to spare them from consequences or let them feel the full brunt, a little divine help is needed. It is then that G.o.d whispers, "Stay wide open to my guidance, and I promise to show you the way."

One night when Shauna was sixteen, I was preparing to go to bed when I heard a car pull into the driveway. Thinking it was Shauna arriving home for the night, I remember being glad that I wouldn't have to worry about making sure she met curfew and that for once I could enjoy a sound night's sleep.

That's not exactly how things would go down.

En route to my bedroom, I glanced outside through the front windows and saw Shauna jumping out of a car that was parked in our driveway. The dome light revealed a back seat packed with kids from her school. Seconds later, she burst through the front door and blew past me.

"Hi, honey. You okay?" I asked.

"I can't get into it right now, Dad," she hollered from the hallway as she dashed toward her room. "My friends are all waiting, and I have to get my stuff."

So much for beating curfew.

I suggested to her that right now would actually be a perfect time to "get into it," explaining that as her dad, I needed to know where she was going and what she intended to do. "Please slow down and help me understand the plan," I said with as much kindness as I could manage.

In a flurry of sentences she informed me that she was headed to spend the night at a friend-of-a-friend's house, and that she was "pretty sure" it was in Lake Geneva, which is about an hour's drive from our house.

"Dad, I have to go!" she declared. "They're all waiting for me in the car."

"Shauna, I need more information than you're giving me," I said. "Like, who is this friend of a friend, and exactly where in Lake Geneva will you be? And are any parents going to be there?"

I'm not entirely sure what kind of response I expected from Shauna. After all, this was the same kid who at age three frequently rode her Big Wheel down the sidewalk, past the fence post that was a declared boundary for her. She knew that riding beyond that certain point on the street was forbidden, but she still would do it. One day, after yet another boundary infraction, Lynne kneeled down, face-to-face with Shauna, put both hands on her little shoulders and said, "Shauna, if you ride past that fence post one more time, I'm going to spank your little rear end. I don't want to, but I will!"

Shauna looked up at her mother, raised her hind side toward the sky and said, "Then spank me now, because I'm going riding!"

But back to our entryway on that Lake Geneva night. In lieu of answering any of my questions, Shauna did something she had never done before. She approached me, looked me straight in the eye and said, "Dad, unless you physically stop me, I am going to go to this party."

My jaw dropped. I was speechless. My little girl! The one whose diapers I had changed! (Well, a couple of times...) The one I had taken to McDonald's every Sat.u.r.day morning for years, just so we could enjoy dad/daughter time. The one I had dragged with me on speaking trips all over the world, just so she and I could hang out at the hotel after my obligations were fulfilled and have breakfast together the following morning. Was this the same girl who was now going toe-to-toe with me, defying my authority?

I stared at her incredulously. Her face bore a defiant look that conveyed, "It's a new day, Dad."

My mind whirred, and my thoughts wrestled to untangle themselves from one another. Clearly, I was out of my league here. What was I supposed to say? Or do?

As I took a deep breath, I sensed a strong prompting from the Holy Spirit: "Don't even think about physically restraining this young girl. This thing will go south so fast if you engage in that way. We are in new territory now, it is a new day, and you're going to have to put her in my hands. There is nothing more that you can do."

I didn't have time to question G.o.d on the parenting advice he was giving me. I only had time to obey. I took a step backward, eyed my insubordinate daughter and rattled off the only things I could think to say: "Honey, take my cell phone. You can call me anytime-at any hour of the night-and ask me to come get you. I'll drive to wherever you are and pick you up immediately. Any hour. Don't get into a car with anyone who has been drinking. I love you. I'm disappointed in your decision tonight. But I love you. I don't feel good about this at all, but if you're this determined to go, then I will not physically restrain you."

As soon as the last syllable was out of my mouth, Shauna brushed by me.

"Thanks, Dad!"

And she rushed outside to climb into her friend's idling car. The door slammed, and they were gone.

The Lake Geneva incident would be the first in a series of similarly confounding parenting challenges where Shauna was concerned. One of the more significant occasions happened while she was away at college in California. Through a series of events that are hers to tell,2 halfway into her undergrad experience she found herself making choices that distanced her from G.o.d and compromised the commendable character she'd built. Things eventually escalated to the point that Lynne and I decided I should fly out to California and try to talk some sense into Shauna, face-to-face.

After negotiating a tricky schedule, I designated the day, boarded the jet and later met my daughter at a sidewalk cafe in Santa Barbara.

After the usual catching-up conversation was behind us, I dove in.

"Shauna, the reason I'm here is that your mom and I are getting increasingly worried about you. We're concerned that you're heading down a dangerous path."

She looked at me intently, seeming almost sympathetic to my concerns.

And so I kept going.

"Honey, we want you to know that we love you, and that it's never too late to get back on the high road, to choose a G.o.d-honoring way of life..."

Still she gazed my way.

"...and so I'm just going to ask you outright: Do you think you might be ready to modify your course a bit?"

The question hung in the air like an invisible matzo ball. She stared at me through her clear, blue eyes. I stared back. The silence lingered.

Then, after the subtlest of lip twitches, she proffered an answer. I felt my eyebrows rise as I antic.i.p.ated concession on her part.

"Yeah, um, I don't think so," she said. "I've still got a lot of life left to live."