Faithful Living vs Faithful Moment in Parenting

Actually, what I will write here applies to just about anything, but parenting is the topic on my mind so parenting is what you get.

The challenge of a parent is to have faith.  What you have when you get a baby is just that, a baby.  Not fully formed, not mature, and not wise.  And your task, if you are a Christian parent, is to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  In other words, raise them in the awareness of who they are before their Creator, who they are before the Savior, and who they are in relation to the world.

But you must teach, discipline, and tickle with faith for you do not see yet what your child shall be.  You keep before you the promises of God and you trust His ways are wise and right.  And then you wake up each day and faithfully move forward.  Forward through each little crisis and each big one.  Forward through the highs and the lows that accompany every parent.  And when you do this you are cultivating faithfulness.

Here are two mistakes I often see with younger parents:  The first is they beat themselves up over a moment of unfaithfulness with regard to parenting, though their overall direction is faithfulness in their duties as parents.  The second is worse, it is triumphing and focusing on a moment of faithfulness and ignoring the pattern of unfaithfulness in their duties as parents.

Moments of unfaithfulness will not destroy the deep furrows of faithful parenting.  Instead they just remind you that you are a sinner saved by grace and you need to remember to show that grace to your less experienced sinner (the child).

However, it is easy for parents to fool themselves into thinking that because they were proper and faithful once this last week that somehow that undoes the month of consistent unfaithfulness that has also been present in the home.  This is folly.

A Brief Word about Parenting

My church is putting on a parenting class for the many young families that attend.  In that class a broad foundation of instruction and wisdom is to be laid for each of the families, helping them chart a way forward in a world filled with opinions, mostly idiotic. Good stuff, sound material, excellent teachers all should provide much help and encouragement for all who come.

However, and yes, there always seems to be a ‘however’, none of it will do any good if one simple attitude does not take hold in the minds of the parents to the point of action.  It is the attitude of faithfulness.  Taking this class will do nothing for the family if there is not a commitment to faithfully applying what is learned.

Obvious statement I know, but I am no dummy.  I have well over a decade of watching as pastor, and well over two decades watching as a father, family after family start well and end horridly.  They wring their hands with sorrow, wondering what happened, when the answer is simply that they took their eyes off of the prize and wandered far from faithfulness.

One of the first aspects of faithfulness will be consistency.  Let’s pretend you do not believe in spanking, so you decide “time-outs” are the best course of action.  Fine.  But will you be consistent?  Every time?  Always.  With every child?  Even is she is looking really pitiful and sorry?  Or will you instruct your child that if Mommy is tired then the child can get away with 20% more mischief.  And if Mommy and Daddy are arguing then there is a 50% increase in mischief as the child manipulates guilt.

I listen a lot to parents.  And I hear them often say, “That is a great idea!  I have to try that!”  And I raise my eyebrows slightly and I think to myself, “Like the last fifteen things you said you had to try?  None of which you are doing now?”  Then I watch the boring parents.  They don’t have clever devices like “friendship bracelets” which are essentially handcuffs to force the kids to make up and get along.  Instead they are simply consistent.  The how of the discipline is less important that the faithfulness behind it.  Fair, clear boundaries are set and the children learn to flourish within those boundaries.  And if they choose to violate those boundaries (e.g. be disrespectful to a parent, not obey a proper command, act in a hurtful manner toward a sibling, etc.) the consequences are consistently and quickly brought to bear.

As a pastor and Christian, there are many biblical principles that must be taught.  But if the parents learning have no real intention of getting their butts off of the couch when a child needs training then none of it matters.  So my free, cheap advice to parents is stop making excuses as to why you will not train your children or stop having babies.  For the Christian there is the reality that we are to give an account for our children, so let’s act like we do live under the Lordship of Jesus.  And finally, never use the gospel, or grace, as an excuse to sin as an unfaithful parent, Romans 6 won’t let you.
**Updated, fixed a few errors in the text.