In my post, Is it Enough?, I wrote about how we need to equip our kids to handle all that life throws at them. The hard part about parenting is, we can’t anticipate every…little…thing.
A few months ago, I attended a parenting seminar hosted by a local church. The speaker was author, Gary Thomas, who has written many books on marriage and parenting. In this seminar, he was focusing on his book, Sacred Parenting. There were so many nuggets I pulled from that seminar, but one stuck out to me the most – Defense vs. Offense. Thomas spoke on how we tend to parent on defense. Instead, we need to take the side of the offense.
Defense vs. Offense
I see that tendency so often. While we try to prepare our children the best we can, sometimes we are blindsided. As a result, we parent in arrears. We can try our best to anticipate situations or problems before they arise, but we can’t always offer specific guidance for every conceivable scenario to which our kids will be exposed.
So, there are times when it is only after a situation occurs that we can address the issue.
It’s hard to set them up for success when they’ve already failed.
What’s even harder, though, is when we thought we had all our bases covered. Our offense was at the top of our game, we were in the best shape, and ready to play. We had gone over strategy with our kids and practiced it all.
But, somehow, we still end up playing defense. The other team played harder and dirtier, and we just weren’t as prepared as we thought we were.
Who’s on Offense?
Mr. Thomas covered a wide range of topics that night, and really didn’t speak much about this concept of doing a better job on offense, but the idea of what that looked like in our home has stayed with me ever since. Over the past few months, his words have floated in and out of my brain from time to time. But, like most books I purchase, Sacred Parenting was brought home and put on a shelf for future reference.
There it stayed until recently we had a situation in our home that had me searching my shelves for his book. I had gotten to the point of needing answers. My child was struggling, and I didn’t know how to help him. I was hoping for a special phrase or specific action that could make everything better.
I’ve only read a few chapters so far, but I can already tell that’s not how this book works. In fact, the book is on parenting – not a how-to book on fixing your kids. Even more, it’s not even necessarily about our kids.
Take a minute and read that again.
Yep. A parenting book that’s not really about kids.
Parenting is for Whom?
Thomas suggests that with the lack of specific parenting advice in the Bible, we could be led to the conclusion that “God believes the parent’s own spiritual growth is the most essential part of the “how-to” of parenting.”
Thomas writes in his book that we, as parents, need to consistently grow in our faith. “Parenting isn’t our purpose; it’s a response to our purpose – worshiping and glorifying God.” We know that is our purpose and it’s not just him saying this. There are many references to this need in the Bible.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowedge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 peter 1:5-8
I need to grow in my faith, and parent out of reverence for God. This is my offense.
What I learned, and am still learning…
So, is it enough? No. I don’t think I, as a parent, can ever do enough to protect my children. And that’s a really hard thing to admit.
I can do my absolute best – continue to grow my faith and have a strong relationship with God. I will work harder at it than anything else I’ve ever done. But our kids need so much more than I can offer. They need more help to resist the pressures of the world and strength to gain and stand firm in their convictions.
They need God.
Our children need His guidance and love to help them maneuver through the snares and situations that can cause them to stumble. They need to be armed with His Word and His protection.
But, when they stumble, (because they will), I pray our parenting will “point our children to their need for a relationship with God and His wonderful answer to this need…worldly failure can set our kids up to seek and receive God’s grace.” (Sacred Parenting, p. 52-53.)
They need God.
Your thoughts?
What do you think? This has been a bit of a twist in my thinking. I’ve never really thought of glorifying God through being a parent. That the process of parenting helps to purify me. I’d love to get your thoughts on this! Can’t wait to hear from all of you!
