Gary Thomas - Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes Our Souls

CONTENTS

To Brady and Shirley Bobbink, whose example and teaching have left a spiritual inheritance of the highest order

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Books by Gary Thomas

9 Must-Have Conversations for a Doubt-Free Wedding Day

Authentic Faith

Cherish

Devotions for a Sacred Marriage

Devotions for Sacred Parenting

Every Body Matters

The Glorious Pursuit

Holy Available (previously titled The Beautiful Fight)

A Lifelong Love

Pure Pleasure

Sacred Influence

Sacred Marriage

Sacred Marriage Gift Edition

Sacred Pathways

The Sacred Search

Simply Sacred

Thirsting for God

The radically transformative process of parenting

O ne day, when our daughter Kelsey was two years old, she started pointing at every family members chair around the table. I was gone at the time. Mommy, she began, Allison, Graham, Kelsey She then pointed to my empty seat and said, God.

Thats not God, Kelsey, Lisa, my wife, said. Thats Papa.

Jesus, Kelsey replied with a smile.

Three days later, all of us were together in a hotel room when Kelsey did it again. She started pointing to everybody and announcing his or her name. When she got to me, she said, Jesus.

Im not Jesus, Kelsey, I said. Im Papa.

Youre Papa God, Kelsey replied.

I was flabbergasted and earnestly tried to talk it out with her, but you parents know what a two-year-old is like. By the time I had made my point, Kelsey had found something vastly more interesting than theologyher little toe, and how it could be made to wiggle in all directions.

To me, this is one of the greatest ironies of parenting. I think about how big I seemed to my kids when I was just in my twenties, and how little I knew. Now, a bit more experienced in my forties, I find it almost laughable how much smaller I seem to my children! Graham knows he could take me in a math test, and theres no chance either one of my daughters would mistake me for deity.

But these early episodes of mistaken identity truly opened my eyes as a young parent. The more time I spent with my kids as they became toddlers, and then preteens, and then teens, the more open they seemed to Gods presence in their lives. The less time I spent with them, the less they seemed to pray. The observation both sobered and humbled me; somehow, in their minds, I helped shape their passion and hunger for God.

I soon discovered that my own passion and hunger for God seemed just as directly related to my duties as a parent. Ive been at this business of parenting for less than two decades, but I think its fair to say I have been stretched more in these past sixteen yearsspiritually, emotionally, and relationallythan perhaps in all the previous years combined.

Why does parenting offer such a potent pathway to personal growth and reflection? The process of raising children requires skills that God alone possesses, and we are decidedly not God. As much as our kids may even call us Papa God, parenting regularly reminds us of our absolute humanity. We do not love perfectly, as God loves. Our ability to relate, to understand, and to build intimacy comes up short in a way that Gods does not.

While I count raising children as one of the most profoundly meaningful and rewarding things Ive ever done, it also has humbled me, frustrated me, and at times completely confounded me. I could never write a book about how to raise a toddler or a teen, because in many ways I still dont have a clue! If you thought this book would give you five steps to help your daughter succeed in school or ten steps to prepare your son for adolescence, youre in for a big disappointment. Instead, it approaches a much different territoryhow God uses these children to shape us, spiritually speaking.

I knew the rules had changed just a few weeks after the birth of our oldest daughter. We were driving south to Oregon when we stopped at a restaurant to get a bite to eat. At one time in my life, my favorite food on earth was a Dairy Queen Blizzard. I just knew that the creator of this fine confection had to be a Christian, because I thought it would take nothing less than the Holy Spirits inspiration to come up with anything that tasted as good as an M&Ms Blizzard.

We ordered our burgers and fries, and I had my Blizzard. We took it outside on a sunny day, and at exactly that moment our daughter had her once-every-three-day diaper blowout. Our firstborn, as a baby, liked to save it up. She preferred to wait until we were on our way to church, had just sat down for dinner, had just given her a bath, or some other convenient moment before she expunged the previous seventy-two hours worth of digestive effort.

I remember the helpless feeling. Cold fries dont taste very good, and melted Blizzards lose a lotyet I knew I had a good ten to fifteen minutes worth of work ahead of me. Because this baby did it all at once, changing her meant not just a new diaper but a veritable bath and a full change of clothing. And we were on the road.

Dont just stand there, Lisa said. Help me!

But I looked at my fries, already wilting with a shelf life of about ten minutes. I stared forlornly at my Blizzard, teasing my tongue with its promise, yet already looking as though it were about to start boiling in the hot sun. I put the food bag on top of the car and went to work.

Life had changed, indeed. It may sound like a small sacrifice to youand even now, as I look back a decade and a half later, it seems insubstantialbut it marked a major turning point for this then-twenty-five-year-old. I was learning to put someone elses needs ahead of my own. Little did I know that I had just begun the spiritually transformative journey called parenting.

My wife and I have benefited greatly from books and seminars that teach us how to shape our children, but along the way weve realized that our children also have molded us. Parenting is a two-way street! Our kids have taught us how to sacrifice (chapter 13) and how to handle guilt (chapter 4); theyve schooled us in the art of listening and forced us to our knees in prayer (chapter 5); theyve shown us how to laugh (chapter 6), how to grieve (chapter 14), and how to live courageously (chapter 7); theyve helped us face our inadequacy, need, and reliance on One who is greater than we are (chapter 10). The experience of parenting comprises one of the most influential aspects of spiritual formation Ive ever known.

Tiny Teachers

This idea that God can use children to teach us, that we have an opportunity to gain spiritual insight from those we are called to raise and teach, comes from our Lord himself, who in this regard was something of a revolutionary.

In the first century, children enjoyed little esteem and virtually no respect. While families appreciated their own children, society merely tolerated them. The very language of the day reveals this first-century prejudice. One Greek word for child (pais or paidion) also can mean servant or slave. Yet another (nepios) carries connotations of inexperience, foolishness, and helplessness. Greek philosophers regularly chided a stupid or foolish man by calling him nepios. Indeed, even biblical writers admonished Christians to stop thinking like children [