Category: Biblical Counseling

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Christian Parenting Reminders from Jason Helopolous

I needed to read this today and I hope that it is an encouragement in your parenting as well.  Click here for the entire excellent blog post from Jason Helopolous at the Gospel Coalition.

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Some of my greatest joys in life stem from being a parent to two delightful children. However, some of my greatest struggles in life also stem from being a parent to these same two children. There are days that I cannot imagine anything more rewarding and other days that I want to get into the fetal position and remain there for a week. Here are a few reminders for me and all the other Christian parents out there:

Affection and Love: We can never show our children too much love. I have yet to meet the adult who tells me, “My parents just showed me too much love!” But sadly, I have often heard the reverse. Shower your children with affection. May they know our warm embraces and messy kisses!

Have the Right Goal in View: As Christian parents, our goal in raising our children is not primarily to prepare them for going out into the world as fully functioning adults. Our goal, as Christian parents, is to prepare our children for eternity! This should shape all that we do in our homes.

Focus on My Responsibility: But having said that, we can’t “force” our children to be faithful, less sinful, or more righteous. That isn’t our responsibility. Our responsibility is to be faithful in our own charge as parents. In that regard, I can surely hinder or help their sensitivity to Christ, growth in sanctification, understanding of grace, and maturing in character, but I can’t guarantee it, secure it, or determine it. Let’s be faithful in what we do have responsibility for and spend less energy trying to control that which we don’t have responsibility for.

Keep Your Eyes Forward: We can be prone to look over our shoulders. What will OUR parents think? What will others at church think? What will my pastor think? Our children are disobedient and we find ourselves cringing inside and looking to see if anyone else was watching. And when we see others looking on, immediate concern grips our minds. Will they think my children are disobedient or bad? Will they think I am a terrible parent? Stop! We aren’t parenting for others’ approval. We are parenting for the good of our children to the glory of God. Let’s keep our eyes looking forward and heavenward for the good of our children and the glory of God.

Don’t Get Too High nor Too Low: Children change, so let’s not get too high or too low by what we see in our child’s character, actions, or soul in any given day or during any given period. Let’s rejoice some. Let’s mourn some. But let’s do so with restraint.

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Run the Right Direction: God knows a thing or two about wayward children, so let’s seek Him who has an understanding ear. What grace we need in parenting and what grace is given in Christ. May we run to Him with our frustrations, struggles, trials, and failures. He should be our first counselor and comforter.

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Christianity not Morality: Morals are good, but not in and of themselves. Let’s teach our children and pray for a morality that flows from a heart changed by God’s grace. For many of us, our default is to slip into morality parenting, rather than Christian parenting. The former is focused solely upon outward behavior, the latter is focused upon inward change which will manifest fruit  in moral outward behavior.

Lastly and Most Importantly, Count the Blessings: Let’s thank God everyday for our children. Even on those hard days, find the blessings amidst the chaos! Count every blessing that comes as a parent. Let it fill us with wonder that the Lord of the Universe has given us the privilege of having these little souls under our care. What a blessing. Thinking on that may even help us get out of that fetal position.

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[HT: Jason Helopolous]

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Parenting is Hard for a Reason

Christina Fox has a post at The Gospel Coalition blog that encouraged me in my own parenting this week.  I read it yesterday afternoon and then I was tried in it last night.  I love how Fox applies the gospel–as displayed in the cross–to parenting.  I need forgiveness when I see that I sinned in how I parented.  I can teach my children about the gospel and their need for forgiveness in Christ even as I ask for their forgiveness.  As Fox says, parenting is hard for a reason.  It is another reminder of our need for Christ.  Read some excerpts below or click here for the full article.

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It had been a long and trying day where nothing went the way it should.  I must have corrected the kids every five minutes.  After refereeing fights and cleaning up messes all day, I was exhausted, irritated, and impatient.

Sitting at the dinner table that evening, it was my oldest son’s turn to give thanks.  When I heard him say, “And God, could you please help mommy to be patient with us?” I realized I wasn’t the only one affected by our difficult day.  I was part of the problem.

Before I had children, I considered myself a patient person.  Having worked with children professionally, I felt confident in my ability to interact with them.  I assumed that working with troubled children would automatically qualify me for parenting.  It was soon after I had my first child that I realized just how wrong I was.

When my kids were small, I couldn’t understand why things weren’t going as they should.  I read all the books.  I followed each method and step listed on the pages.  I did everything I was told to do.  But my children didn’t always sleep the way the experts said they would.  They didn’t potty train in a day.  I’m not convinced they’ve learned their manners.  And they didn’t (and still don’t) do what I say the first time.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it all.  When parents seek to raise their children in a godly way, how can parenting still be so hard?  But if I believe that God is sovereign, then I must believe he is sovereign even over all the challenges I have with my children.  If they have a rough day, whine, complain, and don’t get along, it is not outside his control.

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While I used to despair over my children’s imperfect sleep patterns, rambunctious behavior, and failure to say please and thank you, I now realize there is a greater purpose—my refinement. Each struggle, each exhausting day, each behavioral problem, is an opportunity for me to grow in my faith. God uses my children as mirrors to reflect to me the sin I didn’t realize resides in my heart. He is in fact using my own kids to refine and transform me.

Parenthood is tilling the soil in my heart, weeding out the sins that keep me from growing in faith. Some of the roots run deep and have entangled themselves around my heart. Before having children, I didn’t realize how deeply rooted sins like impatience, selfishness, and irritability grew in the sin-fertilized soil of my heart. It took the challenges of raising children to reveal them to me.

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But even as God reveals my sins of impatience, irritability, and selfishness, he also reveals his grace. When my children are easily distracted and I respond with impatience, not only does the Spirit reveal that sin to me, he also points out to me all the ways God is patient with my own distracted heart. When struggles in parenting reveal my sin of irritability, it also shows me God’s endless forbearance. When the weeds of selfishness become apparent in my heart, I also see how selfless Christ was for me at the cross.

Time and again, the gospel of grace covers my sin, bringing me back to the cross of Christ. Jesus knew I could never be a perfect mom. He knew I couldn’t respond to my children with love and grace at every moment. He knew I’d have days where I would fail. And that’s why he came. At the cross he suffered for every time I am impatient, for every time I fail to teach and train my children, and for every time I don’t love them as he loves them.

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That day when I came face to face with my sins at the dinner table, I count it as grace. For it is God’s gracious love that desires to rid me of the sins that keep me from him. And after my son prayed, I asked him for grace and forgiveness for my impatience that day. Reminding him that I am sinner just as he is, I used the opportunity to point him to the grace of Christ who bore all our sins on the cross.

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HT: Christina Fox

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Biblical Parenting Books

There is a plethora of resources available to Christian parents today, which is both a blessing and a problem.  How do you know which are the most biblical and which may steer you in the wrong direction?  After all, you want to be right on track with what the Bible says about parenting!  You don’t want to realize that you missed the target when your children are leaving the house, but you want to “…bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4)  I encourage you to make it your goal to read at least one of these books this fall!  Here are my current Top 10 Biblical Parenting Books…

Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp has become a classic biblical parenting book.  If you are only going to read one parenting book this year, or if you have never read this, I can’t urge you more strongly to start with this one.  There is also an excellent Study Guide available that really expands upon the book in a simple manner, written by Tedd Tripp 10 years after the original publication, and will help you to practically work through some of the topics in your own family.

“Don’t Make Me Count to Three!” by Ginger Plowman is my wife’s favorite parenting book.  It takes the biblical principles in Shepherding a Child’s Heart and makes them extremely tangible.  My favorite quote is from the Foreword, “I’ve heard many ‘experts’ proclaim that the Bible has very little to say about raising children.  Perhaps they have spent too much time earning their degrees and too little time learning the Scriptures.  God’s Word has plenty to say to parents if we diligently read it, apply it, and reap its fruits.” (pp. 16-17)

If you are looking for a “theology” of Christian parenting, this is your book: What the Bible Says About Parenting.  John MacArthur faithfully and clearly explains the Scriptures that God has given us regarding parenting.  Don’t let “theology of Christian parenting” turn you away though–in my opinion, this is one of John MacArthur’s best books.  He is practical and passionate when he talks about the family and raising children God’s way, and it shows in his own family.

Your Family God’s Way by Wayne Mack.  If you are having communication struggles within your family, whether in your marriage, with your children, or teens, this is the book for you.  The subtitle, “Developing & Sustaining Relationships in the Home” belies that it deals with more, but the way that Wayne Mack practically explains the biblical principles of communication is worth this book’s weight in gold.

If you are struggling with being pessimistic about your family or your role as a parent, Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent and Barbara Hughes is biblically joyful and positive.  It is chock full of ideas for enjoying your family, learning and growing together, and living for the Lord.  It is not as much of a parenting manual as some of the other books, but I highly recommend it if you need to move beyond a foundation, or if you need hope or ideas.

See my earlier blog post regarding The Duties of Parents by J.C. Ryle.  It is available in a free download as a PDF here!  It is an excellent booklet and is only 38 pages.  The only caution I give is that Ryle sees Proverbs 22:6 as an absolute promise from God rather than as a divinely inspired proverb that explains how things generally work.  If it were a promise, however, there would be no faithful parents with unfaithful children.  It is well worth reading though and it will be helpful with your parenting.

The title of Gospel-Powered Parenting: How the Gospel Shapes and Transforms Parenting by William Farley intrigued me enough to get it on my bookshelf.  I am confident commending it heartily as my Pastor, Mike Pohlman, recommends it.  See his blog post here.  Farley says in his Introduction, “In my experience, the most effective parents have a clear grasp of the cross and its implications for daily life.”

The Faithful Parent: A Biblical Guide to Raising a Family by Martha Peace and Stuart Scott is written by the same author  that I have trusted enough (Scott) to read The Exemplary Husband three times!  In an interview about this book Scott remarked that it is written from a “different yet biblical perspective: God’s and the parent’s faithfulness rather than the ‘product’ or the outcome.”

In Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, Paul David Tripp hopefully titles the first chapter, “Age of Opportunity or Season for Survival?”  Certainly it is the former.  Ken Sande explains that this book “…provides a superb road map for raising teenage children…[and] experiencing with them the challenges, victories, and joys of our journey to maturity in Christ.”

Growing Up Christian by Karl Graustein is not a parenting book.  It is actually written to teens who have grown up in the church and subtitled, “Have you taken ownership of your relationship with God?”  It is well written and a book that would be perfect for a parent of a teenager to read simultaneously with their teen and discuss over coffee or a meal together.  It would be a great way to shepherd your child’s [teen’s] heart!

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Sickness

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Almost 3 years ago I was forced to think about sickness in a much deeper way than I ever had before.  As a 30 year old I began to suffer from a condition rare for men my age that first sent me to the emergency room, gave me pain every day for well over a year, other medical issues & infections, forced me to purchase expensive medication to experience some relief, and that although not life threatening, could be something I will have to deal with the rest of my life.  God was gracious to me.  I found a cheap herb that takes away 90% of the symptoms for now. I realize that some reading this may be walking through deep, dark valleys of sickness, some life threatening. I don’t share this to compare, but rather thinking of 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” May the Lord Himself encourage and comfort you. I found great comfort from God meditating on the twin truths that He is sovereign and good. If you are not passing through sickness now, remember that until Heaven our bodies are in a sin cursed world and you must be ready.

J.C. Ryle wrote a booklet entitled “Sickness” that I would encourage you to read for its’ helpfulness. There are 3 special duties associated with sickness that he writes about:

1) One supreme duty which the prevalence of sickness places on us is that of living always prepared to meet God. Sickness is a reminder of death. Death is the door through which we must all pass to judgement. Judgement is the time when we must at last see God face to face. Surely the first lesson which the inhabitant of a sick and dying world should learn, should be to prepare to meet their God.

2) Another supreme duty which the prevalence of sickness requires of us, is that of always being ready to bear it patiently. Sickness is no doubt a trying thing to flesh and blood. To feel our nerves unstrung, and our natural energy reduced, to be obliged to sit still and be cut off from all our usual activities, to see our plans broken off and our purposes disappointed, to endure long hours, and days, and nights of weariness and pain–all this is a severe strain on poor sinful human nature. What wonder if bad temper and impatience are brought out by disease! Surely in such a dying world as this we should study patience.

How shall we learn to bear sickness patiently, when sickness comes to our turn? We must lay up stores of grace in the time of health. We must seek for the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit over our unruly moods and attitudes. We must make a real business of our prayers, and regularly ask for strength to endure God’s will as well as to do it. Such strength is to be had for the asking: “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:14)

…Never do these graces [the fruit of the Spirit] shine so brightly as in the sick room. They enable many a sick person to preach a silent sermon, which those around him never forget…

3) One more supreme duty which sickness places on us, is that of always being ready to feel with and help your fellow men. Sickness is never very far from us…But wherever there is sickness, there is a call to duty. A little timely assistance in some cases, a kindly visit in others, a friendly enquiry, a mere expression of sympathy, may do a vast good…These things, I dare say, may appear to some people little and trifling. They would rather be doing something great, and grand, and striking, and heroic! But conscientious attention to these little acts of brotherly kindness is one of the clearest evidences of having “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). They are acts in which our blessed Master himself was abundant. “He went about doing good” to the sick and sorrowful (Acts 10:38). They are acts to which he attaches great importance in the most solemn passage of Scripture, the description of the last judgement. He says there: “I was sick and you visited me” (Matt 25:36).

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Calling All Husbands

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“Is marriage really hard?” the young man asked me with big eyes when he found out I had been married for over 8 years.  He was engaged and had friends telling him to not get married because it was too hard.  This has played out not once but 3 times, and not in a pastor’s office but at my register in the cell phone store I work at.  The fact that a man would ask a stranger selling him a phone about marriage shows me how much some men want to make marriage work even though the culture tells them it won’t.

As a Christian, God has laid out clear principles in His Word that He expects you to live out in your own marriage. It’s not just a matter of making your marriage work or making it better, but also a matter of obedience. Of course, when you follow God’s commands, then you invite God’s blessing on your marriage as well. These are all areas that I have had to change and grow a lot in over the last several years in particular. I always see a new way to apply these principles in my marriage now every time that I consider them. Just like you, I have further to go and I am excited for what God has for my marriage as I continue to love, lead, and learn my wife more like Christ loves the church. There are other biblical roles of a husband such as provider (1 Tim. 5:8) and protector, but for now this should be enough to evaluate in your own life and marriage.

1) Lover (Eph. 5:25-33). As a husband, you are called to love your wife in a deeper and more unconditional way than you ever thought possible…as Christ loves the church. This is a life-long pursuit of pursuing the Lord and your wife as you learn to live out the Gospel in your marriage. What are some of the ways that Christ loves the church?

  • He loves her unconditionally.
  • He died for her…there is nothing that God can call you to do for your wife that is too much!
  • He forgives her sin.
  • He covers her sin (He doesn’t hold a grudge).
  • He’s her advocate.
  • He protects her.
  • He provides for her needs.
  • He knows her needs, her strengths, her weaknesses, and He acts on her behalf.
  • He sanctifies her.
  • He has time for her.
  • He understands her–He was incarnational (even as God He experienced what man experiences daily, and now He can sympathize with our weaknesses).

2) Leader (Eph. 5:22-23).  Have you ever ridden a tandem bike?  You both pedal but only one can direct the bike by using the handle bars. You are both putting out energy and working together, but one has to take the responsibility for choosing the path that the bike will head down. If you are a husband, God has put you at the handle bars: “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church…” (Eph. 5:22a). Have you ever thought of what it would be like to be under your leadership within your marriage relationship? As husbands, we will answer to God for how we have led our wives.
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3) Learner (1 Peter 3:7). One of the exciting aspects of marriage is learning our wives for the rest of our lives. In fact, God says that if you don’t live with her in an understanding way and show her honor, then your prayers will be hindered. Marriage is dynamic. You are both constantly changing. Ask God to help you understand how to serve your wife today. What would bring her joy (even something as simple as doing the dishes because she is especially tired tonight)? What is a special way you can encourage her in her walk with the Lord? God says that she is a “weaker vessel,” but as husbands we often treat our wives as Tupperware rather than as a rare vase that is worth millions.

Remember, you can live out these things as a husband, which brings God glory, is best for your wife, and is best for you (Eph. 5:28-31). But you must be saved and walking with the Lord to be able to do this, by the power of the Holy Spirit changing you (Eph. 5:18).

Oh, in case you’re wondering, I did give an answer to the question, “Is marriage really hard?” I told them with a huge smile, “It is, but it is more than worth it.” Praise God that He has not left us wondering what our job as a husband is. He has given us both the commands and the resources to be able to love, lead, and learn our wives with joy.

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