The Perfect Plan

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 Some years ago when I was pastoring and my sons Jonathan and David were 11 and 9, we had some missionaries stay in our home for several days.  After a reminder in how they should behave, they were perfect angels the entire time the missionaries were there (this may have qualified as a miracle)!

However, minutes after our guests left, the boys got into a huge wrestling fight. Separating them I said, “What happened?!  You’ve both been so good!”  David said, "We can be good only so long."  I replied, "But I named you Jonathan and David so you'd be best of friends." To which David replied, “You should have named us Cain and Abel!”

I felt a mixture of joy and sorrow at that point:  sorrow that they seemed to be enemies rather than friends, yet joy that David obviously had been listening to the Bible stories!

So we all agree there is no perfect family – in fact, most families experience the Family Crazy Cycle on a daily basis.

But there is a plan to parent God’s way and this plan is the most perfect plan there is.  Does that mean if we follow the plan, we’ll have a perfect family?  No.  Obviously we are all flawed – so perfection is not possible here on earth.  But it is possible to succeed at parenting in God’s eyes if we follow His plan regardless. 

Malachi 4:6 says:  "Elijah will teach parents how to love their children. He will also teach children how to honor their parents. If that does not happen, I will come. And I will put a curse on the land” (NIRV).

Wow.  That’s pretty heavy.  What else does the Bible say about parenting?

God calls children to honor (respect) their parents in Exodus 20:12, Matthew 15:4, and Ephesians 6:2.

And though God puts agape-love in the heart of a parent, children do not always feel that unconditional love. Parents readily admit, “I love my child but I do not like my child.” This is why the older women are to encourage the young mothers to phileo-love their children in Titus 2:4. This Greek word is the root of our English word Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. In other words, mothers in the home are to be friendlier.  Though moms love their kids unconditionally, they can appear negative and irritated in the home.

 As for fathers, though they possess compassion for their children according to Psalm 103:13, kids do not always feel that love as dads provoke their children to anger (Ephesians 6:4) and exasperate them so that they lose heart (Colossians 3:21).

Bottom line: Kids need to feel loved just as parents need to feel respected.

The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.

The good news is that when children feel loved they are motivated to respond positively to parents. And when parents feel respected they are energized to be lovingly affectionate with their kids.  When these needs are met, good things happen in the family.

That’s the perfect plan.  But of course, living this out is much more difficult on a day to day basis.  Ironically, parents who are supposed to be more emotionally mature than their children are often guilty of being just the opposite.  And children do not always respond to our love in the way we expect. 

But parenting is for adults only.  And as adults, the responsibility is on us to act like it. Can we parent God’s way even if our children disregard us, disobey us, and disrespect us?

We’ll delve into this more next time.  Until then, will you begin today to search the Scriptures for God’s blue print for parents?  I believe you’ll be encouraged.

~Emerson

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No Perfect Family

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Everybody dreams of a perfect family.  Even though we know it doesn’t exist, we still feel guilty when we fall so far short. While rearing our three children, Sarah and I were there many times.  I remember well what it is like to win a battle but realize I might be losing the war.  As parents we were not perfect, as Sarah relays in this story:

One day in a conversation with our oldest son, Jonathan, he said to me, “Mom, you wanted a perfect family, and you didn’t get it!”  I was stunned.  I had never said that, but I obviously had communicated it without words.  Having come from a broken home and determined to do things differently, I realized at that moment I had wanted something that was impossible to attain…I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children? We were not perfect parents, our children were not perfect, and there is no perfect family! 

Although frequently asked over the past 20 years to write a book for the family, I chose to wait until our own children were grown before I’d consider it.  Although I had my PhD in child and family ecology, I knew the verdict was not out on whether I was any kind of expert.  In fact, the longer I parented, the more I became convinced that I was most definitely not an expert! 

But two years ago I started writing Love and Respect in the Family, which comes out next month (Nov 2013). During these two years of writing, I wanted to quit several times as I re-visited my failings as a parent. So why didn't I quit? My three kids told me not to.  They said I needed to give myself some grace and get this message of love and respect to parents. But in order for it to be an honest and candid work, I wanted the kids to speak into what I wrote.

I have a feeling that you can relate to my feelings of parenting failure...at least some of the time.  But I also want to give you hope in the midst of discouragement! 

While there’s no perfect family, I believe God has given us the perfect parenting plan in His Word.  I’ll be sharing some of what I learned in the next several weeks.

Be assured my adult children, now in their thirties, have signed off on everything I share – the good, the bad, and the ugly!

~Emerson

Pre-Order your copy of Love and Respect in the Family here