[Keep Walking] The Perseverance of ParentingSample

Parenting Begins With The Parents 

It is really easy to talk about parenting when you are not a parent. The Earl of Rochester, a poet and good friend of King Charles II, once said, “Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now, I have six children and no theories.” So, parenting is easy when you are not a parent, but when you become one and begin to raise children, things get a little bit harder. 

There is something we need to understand: our parenting begins with our relationship with God the Father. Our relationship with God is a good determinant of our performance as parents and a good resource for us as parents. 

It says in the Bible that we are to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, and strength. In ancient times, the heart was believed to be the rational part of humankind, like the mind is for us today—the decision-making part. The soul is the untouchable, invisible part of an individual, our sensibilities, who we are inside. And our strength is our physical side, our capabilities, what we are able to do. When we love God with our hearts, we love Him with our emotions, determination,  mind, and intellect. We make a decision to love Him. 

The greatest thing we can do as parents is to fall in love with God. The more in love with the Father we are, the greater resource He will be to us as parents. We have the opportunity to influence our kids for the Lord. Yet, there are good parents who have bad kids and bad parents who have good kids. There are a lot of things we do right and many that we do wrong, though we do the best we can. We do not have to get everything right. There is no need to feel guilt when we are not perfect as parents, grandparents, guardians, and so on. 

Taking responsibility for our parenting does not mean that everything is on us as parents. God loves us. He forgives us. He wants to teach us in our mistakes and in the things we do right. God wants to be our resource as we strive to be good parents.