Before we got married, we attended a parenting seminar at our church. A couple from Scotland taught two sessions over the weekend and introduced us to many, many books for parents and children. The teaching consisted of encouragement and ideas on bringing the Gospel to your children. They emphasized times of family worship, Psalm-singing, and simply living out the Gospel in front of and with your children – sort of a Deuteronomy 6 approach to parenting.
Though I didn’t really admit it to myself at the time, I was somewhat disappointed at the content of the seminar. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why I was disappointed or what I was expecting exactly, and it bothered me that I felt this way. I knew that everything they said was true, and I knew that I should have appreciated the encouragement and taken it to heart more. I was hearing from two fantastic teachers – yet for some reason the simple Gospel wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted the tangible, practical, how-to’s of parenting.
I thought perhaps this just wasn’t the forum they wanted to use for more practical parental advice. But it almost seemed intentional, and now looking back, I think that it was. The Bible doesn’t speak about the importance of making (or, helping, depending on your perspective) your baby sleep through the night by 8 weeks – how arrogant for anyone to impose that standard as “God’s way.” Though I am not a parent quite yet, I can see the great temptation to try to do these little things “right.” If there is a right and wrong way to do things like feed a baby, then I can feel like I am a good parent if I follow XYZ regimen. I can know that I am doing everything right, and then I no longer have to walk with grace. If parenting were as simple as a feed, wake, sleep cycle, why would I need Jesus?
When we make these little things a measure by which to judge the righteousness and godliness of a home, we really miss the big picture of God’s covenant faithfulness to his people. We feel good about the order we have created, but we don’t see how we are failing everyday at showing our children the Gospel of God’s abundant grace and love by living our lives in complete dependence on him.
