Chapter Two is entitled: Whose Idols are in the way ?
“Start with your heart,” he says.
The idol of comfort. “Secretly in our hearts, many of us want life to be a resort. At a resort, you live with a sense of entitlement. We reason that we have the right to quiet, harmony, peace, and respect, and we respond in anger when we do not get it.”
The idol of respect.
The fastest way to lose respect is to be a hypocrite.
The idol of appreciation.
Lead them to be thankful for all things by being thankful yourself. You man, you father, be known to be the foremost servant in your home.
The idol of success.
“We tend to approach parenting with a sense of ownership, that these are our children and their obedience is our right. We begin to look at our children as our trophies rather than God’s creatures.” When this done, the Lord has ways of pulling out the fingerprint dust to point out the impression of our sin on them and on our own heads.
The idol of control.
“I regularly work with parents who want to turn back the clock. They think that the only hope is to go back to the former days of total control. They try to treat their teenager like a little child. They end up more like jailers than parents, and they forget to minister the Gospel that is the only hope in those crucial moments of struggle.”
Forgiveness and integrity on the part of the parent, is the way out and the way through. “Tony, this is the way your mom and I are going now. I have sinned here, here, and here. Please forgive me. My intention is to live for the glory of Jesus now far more conscientiously. Please follow me and imitate me as I imitate the Lord.”
“My goal is not to clone my tastes, my opinions, and my habits in my children. I am not looking for my image in them; I long to see Christ’s.”
This has to be ours as well.
When the children are young we do have opportunity though to teach them to love the things that we love, if we can only show it to them in irresistible beauty.
“If our hearts are ruled by comfort, respect, appreciation, success, and control, we will unwittingly hunger for our teens to meet our expectations instead of ministering to their spiritual needs.”
Your child’s sin is first and foremost a sin against God, not you.
Ben,
. Our closest neighbors are our spouses and children. And to love them faithfully is indeed to love Christ.
Thank you for these posts on parenting. I find them very helpful reminders in rearing young children too! It is so easy to pursue idols while parenting isn’t it, and then to get quite angry when something/someone comes in front of our worship of them. To love the Lord or God with all our hearts and all our minds and with all our souls, even while parenting, is indeed the greatest commandment. “And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matt. 22:39
Jana
True, true my bride. We must constantly remind ourselves that our fundamental neighbors are our families.