by Elder Peter Lim

Sometimes, Christians oversimplify the role of parenting as if all parenting problems/concerns can be resolved if only one is spirtual enough or walking right with God or if they did their quiet times that day. Or perhaps if they just knew all the secrets and wisdom contained in Scripture they ought to be able to be the super-parent who is capable of responding perfectly through every twist and turn on the road of life. With sufficient Biblical knowledge, shouldn’t we know how to live adequately and buy a house and feed our children with delicious and nutritious food that’s optimized to be nutritionally balanced at every meal on only $20/week? Let’s be real here. Yes, the Bible contains all the wisdom and principles we need in order to glorify God in our parenting. Yes, God is good and He will take care of us. Yes, we are to be filled with His Spirit as He guides our footsteps. However, the specific way we may desire to be cared for and guided may not be His sovereign will. In reality, God continues to refine us and build our character through various circumstances as we are given opportunities to exercise wisdom-filled decisions and to be patient and even learn through our failures. Children have a way of bringing our weaknesses to light. This is a good thing because it causes us to fall on our knees in prayer because we don’t know what to do. We need to admit that to ourselves and sometimes even to our children. They need to learn that parents are dependent on God as much as they are.

As I teach the parenting class at our church, it soon becomes apparent that the Bible deals more with how we as parents are to be than what methods we are to use to get the desired behavior from our kids. That’s why I appreciate Tedd Tripp’s “Shepherding a Child’s Heart.” The whole emphasis of this book is to make sure that we are dealing with being a real Christian parent who is concerned more about our children’s hearts than their external behavior. It’s easy to slip into a mode where we want to be able to measure their obedience and implement a system of rewarding good behavior and penalizing bad behavior. We must not fall into this trap! This ignores the heart out of which evil thoughts and deeds come. (Mark 7:14-23) Parents, don’t lose hope. It’s amazing how fast children grow and come to understand their own sinfulness. When these moments come, we need to be ready to reiterate the message of hope that comes only through the gospel of Christ which you have been teaching them all along. This is particularly true when our children get older into their teen years. The world would say that these years are hard because their kids turn into rebellious monsters. As Christian parents, we need to take these opportunities to relate the gospel back into their lives, how although they just messed up, forgiveness and the grace of God is their only hope.

At our church, many of you are young and many of you have parents who have struggled to raise you up in these ways. Often they have failed to treat you like the young adult that you are, overreacted or underreacted to your failures, and misunderstood you. But I’m sure that they have also loved you and cared for you, however misguided they may have been. No matter your upbringing, you have an opportunity to learn from them and make Biblical changes if necessary in your parenting skills in order to raise up the next Godly generation. If you never marry or have children, you will still have opportunities to affect the next generation through discipling the younger members of the church.