We have to get to give.

One of the strangest suggestions I make to parents when they present any type of parenting problem is to take better care of themselves. Most respond in a very confused manner, thinking perhaps I misunderstood their situation because the focus of the conversation was supposed to be the problem of their child. Wrong. In order to take better care of our kids we have to take even better care of ourselves.

Now taking care of oneself can imply many areas: spiritually, physically, recreational, relational, etc.

Whatever area you aren’t 100%, probably needs some attention.

With low energy, grim motivation, little patience and no comfort or support, HOW can a person parent. I have to be my best ME before I can be a good parent. Otherwise I will parent my child with stress, anxiety, impatience, frustration, exhaustion, hopelessness, doubts, etc. With these circumstances, we have little chance of truly loving our children in a transforming way necessary to influence or save them.

Similarly, if we do not allow ourselves to be truly parented by God, we have a slim chance of giving our kids the parenting they are supposed to have.

One Bible verse that I misunderstood for years was Acts 20:35-

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

The obvious conclusion of this teaching is to give more. YET there is another more subtle lesson in these few words.

It is blessed to receive.

Did you catch that? It says it is more blessed to give, NOT blessed to give and cursed to receive.

If we minimize the blessing of receiving and hold on rigidly to the concept of giving and giving, we eventually fall. The formula doesn’t work. Jesus certainly gave a lot in his lifetime, but in order to do that we also notice him receiving a lot via time with God, time with friends, time in nature, rest, accepting hospitality, etc. We must get in order to give.

Reflections:

1. What kind of blessings have you received from God in the last few days?
2. What kind of blessing have you received from people close to you in the last few days?
3. What kind of blessings have you provided yourself in the last few days? (Oops! Is that OK to bless yourself? Pray on that one.)
4. How did you receive these blessings mentioned above? How did you feel inside? How do you feel right now recalling these blessings?

We parent because He first parented us.

1 John 4:19 reads “We love because he first loved us.” When this is read carefully, one can understand that without God’s love it is impossible to love. Any person’s ability to love another on this earth is the result of something that already happened to them. They were loved. Fortunately, Bible truths are not limited to Christians. They apply to all mankind. If someone loves in this world, it is the by-product of that person being loved by God, whether they believe in God or not.

But let us take even more from this verse. How does God love us? What does that mean? What does the process of loving us look like? Jesus introduced us to God as Father. It was a concept so outrageous that it triggered the conspiracies to kill him. Yet Jesus’ most dangerous message became our most important message – God as Father. This answers a huge question about how God loves us. He parents us. Perfectly.

Now, let’s look at 1 John 4:19 through this new lens:

“We parent because he first parented us.”

If I am not parented by God or do not accept parenting from God, I have a very slim chance of offering good parenting to my children. Unless we fathom how God parents us or better yet how God does NOT parent us, we are leaving our parenting to the wind of good intentions. Our children deserve more than well-intentioned parents. They deserve to have parents that are fully loved, nurtured and supported themselves.

Reflections:

1. In what ways do I see God loving me on a daily basis?

2. What characteristics of God remind you of fatherly characteristics?

3. What does parenting mean to you?

4. How has God parented you this week?