Good Parents

Dear Victorious,

As a single parent, I often have conflicting feelings about how I'm doing. These feelings seem to range between frustration all the way to anger. Self-doubt comes along too. I work very hard to be a good parent, but I rarely feel as if my efforts are effective. So I worry about whether or not I am a good parent. If my kids mess up is that a reflection of my own bad parenting? If my kids do well, is that a reflection of my own good parenting? And what then if one kid does well while another does bad? I believe I need a new way to think about parenting. Help!

Connie U. - North Platte, NE

Dear Connie,

You're describing something that I believe all parents experience. We grow tired and weary from the struggle to see our children do well. While we teach them, provide for them, pray for them and make enormous sacrifice for them - it sometimes seems not to matter. If we were to suffer and even die for them, we wonder if it would then matter (and suspect that it wouldn't). This must be a feeling that is known to God. It has been His experience as well!

The Bible is chock full of advice for parents. But the thing that has been most helpful to me and my wife has been to look at how God parents His children (you and I). Specifically, here's a few of the things we notice about God's relationship with us:

1. He draws firm boundaries, explaining what will happen if they are crossed.
2. His discipline is firm, and serves to reinforce the boundaries that are set.
3. He does not waver on those boundaries. Even at the risk of losing us.

The one thing about God's relationship with His children that is the most stark in contrast to our human perspective are these three principles. Consider that in enforcing boundaries, God risks losing us altogether. We either choose Him and His ways or we go to hell for all of eternity. God is not willing that any of us would be lost. But He is equally unwilling that any of us be rescued from the natural consequences of our choices.

So here's my advice for a parent today. Be the parent that God calls you to be. Then trust God with the outcome. You are not in control of or responsible for how your children turn out or what they do or who they become. But you are responsible for your obedience to God. When there's a question, you turn to God and ask Him how He wants you to parent your children. Then you do as He says.

We are responsible for our obedience. We are not responsible for the results. That's God's job!