God The Parent- Part 1

I distinctly remember the feeling when my wife and I left the hospital with our newborn daughter. “Are they really going to let us leave with this thing? Surely, somebody is about to stop us and ask for a certificate or a license of some sort, something that proves we have a clue on how to raise a kid! Wait, nobody stopped us! We actually made it to the car (with the newly installed infant car seat) and no one even blinked when we walked out the doors. What kind of place is this? Didn’t that doctor realize that I was clueless on how to care for a child?”

How do we learn how to raise a child? The obvious answer is that we model our behavior on our own parents. Parenting is a learned behavior, we either imitate our parents or decide what behaviors we want to avoid. I was very fortunate, my parents were great. I always felt safe and I knew that I was loved. I knew the rules, they were fairly consistent and my true needs were always met. We quickly learned the difference between a “need” and a “want”, and I must say that I had many of those “wants” met as well. My parents did believe in “whuppin’s”, however, and my dad meant business. I am not saying I didn’t deserve them, my brother and I got into quite a bit of trouble by fighting and breaking things. I frequently entertain friends by relaying stories of my childhood. We heard our parents say things like this; “If you kids are going to kill each other, I wish you would go outside and do it!” or “My gosh, I can’t even come home and sit down to dinner without having to whip somebody’s a##.” My dad had a colorful vocabulary; he became a Christian later in life and cleaned up his vocabulary by the time my daughter was born.

My wife and I have had long conversations about parenting and have tried different techniques at various stages of our daughter’s life. She is 13 now and we are heading into brand new territory. So I sit back and think about how we should continue on this parenting journey. I have recently realized that, like so many things in life, God has provided us with many great lessons on parenting by the way he has dealt with humanity throughout history and the way I see him working in the world today.

Over the next few weeks I want to explore these examples of how God models the way for us to parent our children. I want to begin by looking at the parenting traits we can see examples of through scripture and then explore some of them more deeply. This list will by no means be exhaustive; I don’t think we could do a complete list in a few weeks. It will be some of the characteristics that I think are most applicable.

The most obvious example of God’s parental characteristics is Unconditional Love. We know from John 3:16 that God loved each one of us so much that he gave his only Son to be an eternal sacrifice for our sins. There were no preconditions on this act of love, Romans 5:8 says that “…God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

What would this type of love between parent and child look like? I think it would mean that we love our kids for who they are. Our love as a parent should not be based on our child meeting certain conditions. Just as God loves us even as we are sinners, we should love our kids without them having to meet a set of conditions. You don’t have to look far to see families where a parent pushes a child to play a certain sport or to be a certain way in order to receive love and affirmation. There is nothing wrong with encouraging a child to be their best, but our love should not be conditional.

Love does not have to equal approval, however. Just as God is displeased and does not approve of many of the things we do as sinful human beings, as parents we may not always approve of the choices or actions of our kids. That doesn’t mean we should stop loving our kids, however. The story of the prodigal son is a perfect example. The father does not approve of the younger sons actions, but when the son comes to his senses and returns home, dad greets him with a hug and a kiss. Just as God loves us as sinners, we should love our kids at all times.

A second characteristic of God the Parent is Guidance. One thing that is true of all kids is that they like to know the rules; they need to know what the boundaries are. Anyone with a two year-old has seen this. Two year-olds are great at testing what the boundaries are and they are just as curious about the consequences. God provided guidance to the children of Israel through the Ten Commandments and the Laws of Moses. As parents we need to provide structure and guidance for our kids. Pop cultural wisdom says that rules are restrictive and that they inhibit creativity. Kids actually like structure and want to know what the rules are. Some parents prefer to be more like a friend instead of an authority figure. Growing up is hard and kids don’t always know what is best. As parents, we should draw from our own experiences and use our judgment to help guide our children through childhood and adolescence. My child has friends, but she only has one set of parents and I need to help her by being the best parent I can possibly be. That doesn’t mean that they will always listen and act as I would like (See Unconditional love above), but my responsibility to parent doesn’t end when I get upset with her choices.

One of the best things we can do for our kids is spend time with them. That is how we build a relationship with anyone. Many of us think that we are too busy to sit down and talk with our kids, and we are especially too busy to listen. But like any relationship, giving someone face-time demonstrates how much we value that relationship. How does my daughter know that I care about her if I never give her any of my time?

Come to think of it, it is that way with God. I need to give more time to God as well. If I value my relationship with Him, I should spend time with Him. And just like with my daughter, I need to spend more time listening.

That’s it for this week. I will keep digging and praying for something more to add next week.

First Things

For some time now I have felt like God has been calling me to share some thoughts and ideas with others. At first I thought this to be a crazy notion, a streak of arrogance rising up within me. As I prayed about this, however, I continued to feel that it was the right thing to do. Maybe this is a tool that can be used to glorify God in some way, maybe this is just a journal for me to think through some things...I am not really sure what it is.



This is my pledge: I will commit to write something every week until I feel lead to stop, or until my wife tells me that I am bringing shame to the family name. I promise not to be too preachy, and I will try to inject the wit and humor I think I have. (I think I am the funniest person I know!)



I don't know if anyone will actually read this, but at least I will feel like I have been obedient to my God and Savior.



John