When we weren’t fishing, swimming, or visiting tourist attractions during our annual Florida vacation, my brothers and I would venture out on a “lizard safari.” Although we knew the little chameleons were hiding in every bush and tree, we had a hard time spotting them. But it wasn’t long before we learned that when chameleons were hiding on the green leaves of a palmetto plant, we were looking for a green chameleon. If they sat on the trunk of a palm tree, they would turn brown and be almost invisible. At other times they would turn almost gray, camouflage themselves while sunning on the stucco walls of the house. A chameleon will change color to blend in with its environment.

Over the years, I’ve learned that as a sinner in need of God’s grace, I am constantly engaged in a battle with that ever-present default setting to blend in like a chameleon to my environment. As parents, we must be mindful of training our kids to see and address this battle now during the growing-up-years where they’re especially susceptible to changing colors, and throughout the rest of their lives.

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul recognizes and addresses this nagging tendency in our lives with a call to holy living, which is a kind of living that is bound to make us stick out from those who follow what he elsewhere calls “the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2). Paul says that in view of and in response to God’s mercy and grace in saving us through faith in Jesus Christ, we should gratefully “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). How do we do that? I love the way J.B. Phillips paraphrases the answer Paul gives us in Romans 12:2. “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold, but let God remold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves toward the goal of spiritual maturity.” We offer up our lives, allegiance, and conformity to His will as a big “thank you!” for the free gift of our salvation. Rather than taking “our color” from our surroundings through a willful outward act of conformity, we are to seek to yield our will to God’s will as the Holy Spirit does His work of inward transformation in our lives. In essence, we should be praying, becoming, moving, and parenting away from worldly belief and behavior shaped by the environment, to “Word-ly” belief and behavior shaped by God’s will and way as revealed in the Bible.

Here are five practices that will help you parent your kids away from the mold of the world.

First, know the Word. It all begins with you. Your primary and overarching priority through your life is to pursue depth in both your relationship with the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, and your knowledge of God’s written revelation of Himself in the Bible. Study it. Learn it. Then study and learn it some more. Never stop. Embrace God’s Word like the Psalmist, seeing it as the lamp to your feet and the light to your path (Psalm 119:105).

Second, know the world. Theologian John Stott calls this “dual listening.” He says that we “stand between the Word and the world with consequent obligation to listen to both. We listen to the Word in order to discover ever more of the riches of Christ. And we listen to the world in order to discover which of Christ’s riches are needed most and how to present them in their best light.” We must recognize and know the lies of the world that call for their conformity in order to bring the transformative light of the Word to expose on those lies.

Third, teach them the Word. Echoing the instructions to teach God’s Word to our children spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the Apostle Paul reminds us of the need to bring up our children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Read and teach the Bible at home. Attend worship together to sit under the preaching of God’s Word. They can handle it! Involve them in a church youth group so they might learn God’s Word in the midst of their peers.

Fourth, supplement your lips with your life. Proverbs 20:7 tells us that “The righteous who walks in his integrity – blessed are his children after him!” Elisabeth Elliot tells us that “the example of parents, for good or ill, is an influence far more profound than can be measured.”

Finally, trust God’s Spirit. We cannot drag our kids screaming and kicking into God’s Kingdom. Neither do we want to strong-arm them into nothing more than behavioral conformity. Rather, we trust God’s Spirit to do His work in their lives, transforming their hearts. As Paul Tripp tells us, “The goal of parenting is not control of behavior, but rather heart and life change.”

The cultural pressure for our children to live like chameleons will always be present, but we are equipped with the ultimate guide to counter it. Through intentional teaching, authentic living, and steadfast prayer, we can protect our kids from being squeezed into society’s mold. Let us then commit to parenting away from worldly conformity, trusting God to bring about true, lasting heart change in our kids!