Why is Competitiveness one of the topics I chose to include in this Core Christian Parenting Fundamentals Series?
I believe the God’s heart grieves when we are competing with one another rather than working together as a team, within the family, within marriage, and within the Body of Christ. 
My heart grieves for broken families; but I also grieve for families that that are still “together” by our worlds standards but are ineffective or less effective because of either a competitive spirit or a selfish spirit. I believe God’s heart also grieves. Our families are training ground for how the family of God should function. If we can’t get it right and work together using our gifts within a family how can we positively contribute in the Body of Christ effectively?
I believe the spirit of competitiveness (which is a self-centered focus) is usually at the core of any destruction in the Body of Christ today. Competitiveness divides a team. It is destructive, and the spirit of selfish ambition is at its core. Selfish Ambition and competitiveness make a team less effective, and sometimes disabled. As a church body, we need to work as a team, but training for this starts in the homes of the members of the Body of Christ. It is essential to the health of the Church to be teaching our children and raising them up to function as a team. We need to be allowing our children to have their gifts, their strengths, that God gave them, and let them use them.
On top of being great training ground for the church being effective today, it is also God’s design and training ground for marriage and family life down the road. We focus a lot on the “team” perspective with our kids. That God put our family together with our unique gifts for a greater purpose. We are Team Tolpin, and we are working together to shine for Jesus. My prayer is that growing up learning how to work as a team will be one of the legacies that is passed down to the next generation, that our children’s families function as a team.
You see, once a child is humble before God and receives Him into his heart. He is laying down his cross and picking up the cross of Christ. All of us have done this if we have received Christ as our Savior. In doing so we acknowledge that this life is not just about us. It’s about Jesus, and He is so much greater than we are. But we are privileged to be on His team. We need to teach our children this eternal truth and eternal perspective as we are dealing with the little tiffs in our home between siblings. It is so much bigger than who was in the bathroom first… it is a heart of selfishness and self-centeredness or a heart of sacrifice.
It is bigger than not wanting an older or younger sibling to teach them something new on the piano… it is a heart that is prideful. It is bigger than not wanting a younger sibling to do something at a younger age than they were allowed to. What is their focus? They are focused on what they did or could do in comparison to their sibling. If we want to train our daughters and equip them specifically not to compete with other ladies… it starts here. If we want to train our sons to be joyful for another brother’s successes or accomplishments… training starts here. You see these issues won’t go away and less we bring them into the light of God’s word and call them what they are… We don’t want these little issues to become adult sized issues that were untrained. Let’s tackle competitiveness, selfishness, and pride now.
God Bless as we all work to equip the future church,
Angie
