In the next few days, I’m going to talk about setting and enforcing boundaries; however, it’s imperative to discuss the importance of relationships and helping your children understand God first. Josh McDowell once said, “Rules without relationship leads to rebellion.” I would imagine this to be extremely accurate.
That’s not to say that kids with strong relationships with their parents don’t rebel. We all have free will and there is absolutely nothing we can do guarantee that our children won’t rebel. God is the perfect Father who had a perfect relationship with Adam and Eve…they still rebelled.
That said, there are definitely things we can do to help our children continue on a path with the Lord and one of the most important things is to model our relationships with our children after the Lord’s relationship with us. We are the very first glimpse of Jesus our children get. Yikes! That’s a tall order!
Is that who they see when my children look at me? If I am one of the first examples of Christ my children see, there is definitely room for improvement! It makes me think, what do I want my children to see in me? What are the most important things I want to my kids to know about God from looking at me? How am I helping my children understand God?
Helping Your Children Understand God: 5 Attributes of God I Want to Model for My Children
- Unconditional Love—
I will never stop loving my children, no matter what they do. This is a given. I know that God designed me with this in place because otherwise, let’s face it, it would be too easy to love the child who makes things the easiest more than the one who challenges me!
For at least two years after we brought our adopted daughter home, she pushed every possible boundary there was. Every time she was disciplined for doing something deliberately wrong, I followed up by telling her, “I still love you. You cannot make me stop!” She tried! She tested those words with everything she had, but one day, I said to her, “I am angry.” She replied, “But you still love me!”
I want my children to see that they do not have to work for Mom’s love just as we don’t have to work for God’s love.
- Grace and Mercy—
We have so many opportunities to exercise grace with our children—daily. Grace and mercy, especially can be difficult concepts to teach! I have explained to my children that mercy is “a second chance when you don’t deserve it.” And grace is “the unearned love and favor of God.” It is because of God’s mercy, that we have God’s grace.
In parenting terms, it’s not too difficult to understand. We all sin. There is punishment for sin. But because of God’s mercy for us, He sent Jesus to be our Savior, to take the punishment for us. Once we have that Savior, we are adopted into God’s family as His children and you know how parents feel about their children. There is nothing that can make you stop loving your child. That’s grace. But modeling it gets really tricky, especially if you are raising a future lawyer (or two).
Whenever my future lawyer got into trouble as a toddler, we prayed together before he received his discipline. He often would pray, “And please help Mommy to remember about mercy.” It was clear that in his mind, mercy was something that could get you out of punishment. And even though that’s truly the practical result of mercy, it’s also important to teach your child that God didn’t just say, “Okay, there’s no punishment because of mercy.” Instead, Jesus took the punishment in our places.
- Loving Discipline—
The Bible says in Proverbs 3:11-12 (And several other places), “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of His reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom He loves as a father, the son in whom he delights.
I remember, as a child, when I needed discipline and my parents would say things like, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” As a kid, I was thinking, “Yeah right! I’d be happy to trade places!” But as a parent, I understand that it really does hurt when our children make mistakes and need to suffer consequences for it. I don’t think God enjoys that part of parenting either.
And often, the compassionate side of me wants to just offer mercy; but then I remember that a parent who delights in her children will discipline them, as the Lord disciplines us. It really is such an important part of parenting that many people throw by the wayside because it’s hard.
That’s quitting on your kid! That’s pretty much saying, “I don’t care enough about your well-being to do hard things.” If you delight in your child, as you should, then you will commit to disciplining your child lovingly.
- Trustworthiness—
God is faithful and trustworthy. We can bring all of our cares to Him and He is compassionate and merciful to hear us and to take our burdens upon Himself. He promises to use all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). He keeps His promises.
How do we model that attribute of God to our children? What does that look like as a parent? God convicted me when my children were very young about keeping my promises. I often said, “We can do that later.” Or I promised to read my child a book at bedtime, but being exhausted, I put it off until morning. The Lord convicted me that I was breaking promises to my children. I have learned not to promise something about the future. It may or may not happen.
If my children ask something like, “Can we go to Grandma’s next week?” My answer is almost always the same, “I can’t make promises about the future.” Because if you say, “yes,” but then plans change, your child sees it as a promise broken. God does not break His promises—we need to do our very best not to either.
- Defense—
Our Father is also our Great Defender. This is important! God gave moms a “Mama Bear” instinct for a reason! As our kids get older, we need to teach them how to stand up for themselves and defend both themselves and those who are weaker than they are. But sometimes, even teenagers need their parents to spring to their defense!
A couple of years ago, a kid on the same sports team bullied my son. When I say bullied, I don’t mean “picked on.” I don’t mean “teased” or “aggravated.” I mean…true, my-son-was-physically-assaulted, bullying. Up until the assault, the other kid was mainly just being a jerk. My son wanted to handle it himself and we were encouraging and supporting that. Once it crossed the line, my husband was in the principal’s office quicker than I could blink. And he was mad! So mad!
Honestly, I have no idea what was said in the situation. He wasn’t mad at the principal at that point, because the principal didn’t know about the situation. But I do know that he made it very clear that something needed to be done about it. I can imagine he was “pretty firm” about that.
I saw something in my son that day. It was the look of absolute relief on his face when we got involved. He had gone from “I can handle this” to “I need help!” in one moment—and he saw that his parents (mainly his dad here) were there to say, “You will not mess with my kid and get away with it!”
That is how fiercely God loves us (except times a thousand)! Sometimes Satan comes after us and instead of letting our Father defend us, we think we are “handling it.” Until God says, “Enough! You will not mess with my kid and get away with it!” That is definitely an attribute of God I want my kids to see in me!
This list could go on far longer, but I think we’ll revisit this topic to discuss more of these. How about you? Are there specific attributes on this list that you’re doing well with? Are there attributes that you want to work on? Maybe there are specific attributes that you do work on, but aren’t included on the list. Please let me know so I can include them in further discussions!
You’re going to be great today, Friend!
RElated: Setting and Enforcing Boundaries
