An Introduction of the Tjiptadjaja Family By Sofia Tjiptadjaja
When I decided to be a stay-at-home mother, I didn’t fully realize what I was getting into. The overwhelming motherly love I feel, coupled with my intense personality, set me on a full-throttle mode. I become a full-fledged machine with the sole purpose to provide safety, comfort, and wellness for the children, whatever is needed to make the children flourish and thrive (from the daily minutiae to anything that helps turn my grandiose vision for them into reality). Children as the priority should be a non-negotiable term.
While my husband in his work witnesses how the principles and practices in the marketplace often disregard God’s values. He feels convicted to share not only God’s ways and values, but eventually, God’s heart and the precious gospel itself to the marketplace. His conviction grew, and together with other brothers and sisters who have the same vision, they formed a marketplace ministry called Kingdom
On a sideline, I see how God is working on Tommy, scraping off any bits of personal ambitions and focusing solely on His agenda. In my husband’s worldview, there’s no scale of priority. He believes everything is important to God. Thus, he needs to give all in everything.
Even though my husband loves the girls very much too, our two different worlds and worldviews isolate us from each other. This situation often creates points of discussion and contention between us, especially regarding the allocation of our limited time, energy and finances.
Jesus said in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.“
I would be lying if I said that my heart didn’t feel any painful pangs of betrayal when my husband quoted that verse to my face. I understand Jesus didn’t mean for us to hate our family. He wants us to love Him above everything, such that in comparison our love for others would look like ‘hate.’
The trend I have observed from both the secular and religious circles is that all are placing children as the utmost importance and purpose in the parents’ life. We all seem to agree in unison that this is the right way of thinking, and we continually reaffirm one another with this worldview. I also get this impression from the sheer amount of information and products geared for parenting and motherhood, available both online and offline.
Now that my eyes are opened, I must confess. Before my children were born, I put my husband as my idol to be my savior from all the troubles in the world. After the children came, I changed my allegiance to them. My world revolves around the children, placing them as my source of joy and hope, firmly binding my identity and life purpose to them.
What I am saying here is not that we should stop taking care of and paying attention to our children. I don’t ask for a change of behavior, but a change of heart. What matters are in the heart, and we can’t hide from God. God will let us know if there’s anything amiss inside our heart if we let Him.
I read a quote somewhere that says: “Your priorities must be God first, God second and God third, until your life is continually face-to-face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever.” This quote echoes what Jesus said in Luke 14:33: “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.“
My husband challenged me and asked, “What makes you different as a parent compared to others who don’t know Christ? You basically want the same things: success, health, excellence, good character, happiness. Is ‘wanting your children to know Christ’ the only difference?”
My husband said as a follower of Christ, the way we parent and prioritize should be very different from a non-believer. I honestly still digest and figure this out in my heart. Meanwhile, my husband penned this piece of reflection out of the pain in his own heart. I like to share this with you, and perhaps we can start a conversation and encapsulate together on how to be a Christ-follower Mom.
The INVISIBLE IDOLS BY TOMMY TJIPTADJAJA
This writing comes from an aching heart that questions if we can do better together as a community. It also comes from a cautious mind pondering which idols are lurking and perhaps getting into us.
It’s very easy to think we in Christian communities are in a safe zone, away from dangerous sins and idols. The truth is: there is no safe place on earth, perhaps even more so in Christian communities. Because we are redeemed followers of Christ who want to obey Him and do His will on earth, so one can say we are sharply in the devil’s crosshairs.
Having served in marketplace ministries and run various businesses throughout the years, I used to think marketplace ministries are very prone to “mission drift,” to bend inward, to idolatry, and I have been continuously trying to guard against that.
When I want my company to do better, it is often hard to differentiate the motives, is it so the company can be successful and rich in the world’s eyes, or so it can bless and reach out to others? When “networking” with high-profile people, it can be hard to differentiate your agenda, is it to advance God’s Kingdom or for personal gains?
When I spent time at church communities with other brothers and sisters, I used to think now I am in the safe zone. We are all here doing exactly what God wants: caring for our families, children, brothers
Let’s think about family ministry. Surely, it’s a good ministry that can’t be wrong; we are building strong families in God! But as I reflect deeper, just like marketplace ministry, family ministry can be easily, and often bent inward.
It’s hard to differentiate between raising good, skillful kids vs. raising God-centered kids. It is hard to differentiate between spending time with kids vs. being helicopter parents. It’s hard to differentiate between investing in our families for His sake vs. for our own sake. It’s hard to differentiate between loving our kids with godly love vs. fleshly parental love.
Sometimes we even choose to focus on the
Just like marketplace ministry that can bend towards idolatry when we improve companies and people for their own sake, family ministry can also be easily bent towards idolatry once we dwell in dogmatic justification that family is more important than other things or children is more important than other things.
Put God back in
I believe we are missing out something big, something very important, which are:
- God Himself. Any ministry, any family, any children will be idolatrous if God is not the focus. He is a jealous God. What that means is if we don’t make our families, people closer to God and therefore be transformed, we are creating idolatrous ministries.
- God’s Heart. This means we love what God loves which are reaching out to people, expressing love, concern, justice, mercy, grace, be salt and light in societies, etc. and our hearts break over what breaks His which are idolatries, injustice, evil practices, the poor, the weak, etc.
First, God’s heart has to be imparted in each parent’s heart and mission in life before we impart it to our children. We need to be the model we want our children to be; there is no way around it.
God’s heart and love are always others-centered. This means, either marketplace ministry or family ministry, it has to be mission-driven and others-centered.
Is our family mission-driven and others-centered? What is the mission of our families? What is our personal calling? Or are we inward-looking, only focusing and zealously protecting the well-being of our own family?
- Our investments towards ourselves and our children should be aligned with and based on God’s heart and mission for us. If we can’t answer all the questions above, we run the risk of investing in our families and children for its own sake and it’s a thin line before idolatry. What is the explicit purpose of all our investments in our children?
All references in the Bible about building families and for leaders to have a good family are in the context of God’s overall redemptive plan, never for its own sake.
WITHOUT VISION PEOPLE PERISH
Truly, what is God’s vision in our personal life? In our families? For our children? We should not escape answering these questions by distracting ourselves in various ministries. We also can’t answer these questions in the absence of our societal context.
If we don’t answer those deeper questions, we are running the risk of elevating our families and children to an idolatrous position. We need to have vision lest we can be forever distracted by lesser things that don’t even matter in front of God.
In the case of our children, for example, how do we determine the stewardship of time, money for our children (such as which activities to go to, which education experience they should have, etc.), if we don’t know what God wants them to do in life (their mission and purpose)?
Furthermore, how do we know what they are supposed to do, if we ourselves don’t know what we are supposed to do? And of course, it will not be for the family’s sake or for the children’s sake as that’s not a biblical model. We want them to have others-centered and mission-oriented lives.
It’s time we put God back in, His heart, His agenda, His mission and His others-centeredness in all we do. We also need to figure out how to measure those. Otherwise, it will just be another abstract Christian talk.
We ought to live our lives and ministries with clarity and purpose, and right at the center of His heart, His will, His grace
An article related to this topic is: Idolatry in Motherhood (A Personal Testimony).
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