Being a Godly Parent

Teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.
—Judges 13:8

This prayer of Manoah is the earnest and often anxious prayer of every
godly parent.

The boy was Samson, Israel’s prankish Hercules, who squandered his
God-given strength. One wonders how often Manoah and his wife awakened
in the dark, sleepless hours of the night and asked themselves, “Where
did we go wrong?”

When our children make bad choices—when they abuse alcohol, do
drugs, get pregnant out of wedlock, drop out of school, turn their backs on
God and family—we ask ourselves the same question. We blame ourselves
and see our children as the tragic victims of our ineptitude.

There is, however, no absolute correlation between the ways we parent
and the way our children turn out. Good parenting makes a difference, but it
does not guarantee that the product of that parenting will be good.

We all are acquainted with families where neglect, violence, and substance
abuse are the norm, yet the children turn out remarkably well. They have
good friends; they do well in school; they hold good jobs; they end up in
stable marriages; and they handle their own parental responsibilities with
wisdom and love. And we all are familiar with families where the parents are
warm, nurturing, kind, firm, wise, and giving—and yet there’s at least one
prodigal in the family and sometimes more than one.

Despite our best efforts, our children may go wrong.

But, you say, what about Proverbs 22:6?

Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

That sounds very much like a guarantee.

We must remember, however, that the biblical proverbs are not promises,
but premises—general rules or axioms. Proverbs 22:6 is a statement of general truth, much like our contemporary saying: “As the twig is bent, so the
tree is inclined.” A proverb is a saying that sets forth a truth that is applicable
in most cases, but there are always exceptions to the rule.

Why these exceptions? Because children are not mindless matter that we
can shape at will. They are autonomous individuals who may, with the best
of parenting, choose to go their own way. Even God, the perfect parent, has
always had trouble with His children—Adam and Eve to name two. (You
and me to name two more.)

If we believe that by applying certain techniques and rules we can secure
godly behavior in our children, we may be in for bitter disillusionment and
heartache. No one can determine or predict what his or her offspring will
do.

Joaquin Andujar, poet and pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, said you
could sum up baseball in one word: “You never know.” His word count was
off, but he captured the essence of life as well as baseball.

Given that uncertainty, the question is not “How can I produce godly children?”
but rather “How can I be a godly parent?” The two questions may
appear to be the same, but they’re not. The first has to do with result, over
which we have no control; the second with process, over which we do, by
God’s grace, have some measure of control.

If our focus is on process, then the questions are about us: How can I deal
with my impatience, temper and rage, my selfishness, my resentment, my
stubbornness, my defensiveness, my pride, my laziness, my unwillingness to
listen? How can I deal with my addictions? How can I strengthen my marriage?
How can I develop my parenting skills? How can I build bridges of
grace, forgiveness, and acceptance that will make it possible for my prodigal
to come home?

These are the matters that must occupy us as parents . . . and then we must
leave the results with God.*

Ruth Bell Graham expressed it well:

Lord, I will straighten all I can and You
take over what we mothers cannot do.

*I am greatly indebted to Dr. John White and his book Parents in Pain for some of the ideas in this essay.

Taken from Seeing God, © 2006 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566, Grand Rapids MI 4950l. All rights reserved.