The joy of parenting? How to bring the joy back (part 3)

Throughout the Bible, children are considered to be a gift from God and a blessing to the parents who receive them.

Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. (Psalm 127:3)

Scripture contains many prayers and songs thanking God for the blessing of children, including those of Sarah, Hannah, and Mary. Mary had heard the stories of Sarah and Hannah and had learned that children are an awesome gift and a blessing.

Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” (Luke 1:46-47)

If you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, here it comes. Sometimes parenting can seem downright overwhelming. Children need constant care, training, and discipline, and none of us is perfectly up to the task. So at times we feel tempted to consider the gift of children as anything but a blessing. I once heard a mother say to her young teenager (in jest of course), “Watch it, buster! I brought you into this world and I can take you back out again!” That about sums up the way we sometimes feel, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, sometimes it goes beyond having a bad day or a frustrating moment. Many parents firmly believe that parenting is a burden, that children are rebels and mischief-makers, that teenagers and adults don’t get along, and that siblings would all but kill each other if left alone. I’ve heard parents complain that their kids won’t listen, won’t help, don’t care, and are just huge pains in their backsides. When we believe these things, we lower the bar of expectation and learn to live with substandard behavior instead of looking to God for help and solutions and choosing to believe God when he calls children a blessing. If God gave children to you as a blessing and considers them a blessing, then he’s already prepared to give you every thing you need to experience them as a blessing.

When we choose to believe what God says about our children being a blessing, we raise the bar and look for ways to learn how to resolve conflict, restore relationships, and parent God’s way. And eventually we see peace return to our households.

If you feel worn out and at the end of your rope with your children, stop and pray right now. Give your situation to God and ask him for help, wisdom, and workable solutions. Look up advice online, read a parenting book and/or ask for help from a parent who you’ve witnessed doing a great job. Ask God to return the atmosphere of his blessing to your household and children. Once you’ve done that, start thanking him (and keep doing it daily) for your children, trusting him that he’s heard your prayer, that he’s helping you learn and grow, and that he’s turning things around.

Don’t expect things to get perfect overnight, but continue to stay focused on God’s affirmation that being a parent is a gift and a blessing. Know that if he calls parenting a blessing, then he’ll help get your family to the place where it is. Then watch him slowly but surely return the joy of parenting.

And even if our household usually reflects God’s blessing, we can still all take a page out of Sarah’s book. When things start to slide, remember to check your perspective, laugh, and remind God that he called this whole parenting thing a blessing. Then ask him for the wisdom, grace, and help to cause your experience to match his statement.

Please help spread the word to the next generation. Children are a blessing from God but so is gardening/farming and money. But as with all blessings we need to apply ourselves to learning how to garden/farm, manage our money and parent properly if we want any of these blessings to be a success and a joy.

For more practical and Biblical Christian Parenting ideas we recommend the Christian resource, ‘What Mary and Joseph Knew About Parenting’.

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)

The joy of parenting? God meant children to be a blessing (part 2)

We’ve all seen supermarket tantrums. If God intended children to be a blessing, why does it seem that for so many, they are not?

Let’s look specifically at one Bible couple to see if we can find the answer. I believe that God told Abraham and Sarah to name their son Isaac, which means “laughter,” in order to confirm this pair’s conviction that Isaac truly was a gift and a blessing from God. Let me explain.

When both Abraham and Sarah heard the Lord say that they would have a son, they responded with laughter. Yes, they laughed in part because they had long before left behind their childbearing years; and Sarah at least laughed somewhat because of doubt. But another emotion also bubbled under the surface. If someone told you that he was going to give you an all-expenses-paid, month-long vacation anywhere in the world, how would you respond? You might well respond with laughter that said, “Wow! That’s just way too great to be true!” Abraham and Sarah felt so overjoyed by the possibility of having a child that they could hardly believe it to be true.

When God had earlier told Abram that he would father a multitude of descendants, as numerous as the stars in the sky, we read, “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Yet when God repeated the still-unfulfilled promise many years later, we read a different story;

Abraham fell face down; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” (Genesis 17:17)

Is this unbelief? The apostle Paul didn’t think so, for he wrote,

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
(Romans 4:18-21, emphasis added)

Scripture does not have the same words of commendation for Sarah, who had a different reaction to the news:

So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?” (Genesis 18:12, emphasis added)

Yet here’s how Sarah responded when the promise came true:

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:5-6)

God had turned Sarah’s skeptical laugh into joyful laughter!

Abraham and Sarah viewed the birth of Isaac as an awesome and wonderful thing. God had them call their son ‘laughter’ because he was affirming his agreement that children are an awesome blessing that should bring us overwhelming joy.

However, in Genesis 18 God reveals some instructions that he gave Abraham and Sarah that they needed to follow in order for parenting to continue being a blessing.

For I have chosen him (The Lord speaking about Abraham), so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” (Genesis 18:19)

God intended for parenting to be a blessing but it can only be a blessing if we follow his parenting instructions and raise our children according to his Word. The simple reason why children become a burden is that many parents believe that parenting is intuitive and/or they don’t know that parenting is something they have to apply themselves to learning.

It seems incredible to me that now a days, if you mention to someone that perhaps a parenting book or course would be helpful, most take it as an insult. Surely, only bad people or bad parents need such things. Don’t good people become good parents intuitively? I believe that it’s this attitude and approach to parenting that has caused tantrums in the supermarket to become a regular part of the grocery shopping experience, but it doesn’t have to be.

For more practical and Biblical Christian Parenting ideas we recommend the Christian resource, ‘What Mary and Joseph Knew About Parenting’.

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)

The joy of parenting? You’ve got to be kidding! (part 1)

I apologize for the video. Let me be clear, I am not endorsing the product and I think the whole idea behind the video is appalling. However, the fact that this commercial was made and that people find it funny or appropriate, perfectly illustrates the point of my next few posts. Many people today believe that kids are generally horrible, that parenting is a huge thankless burden, and that having kids should be avoided. According to many statistical reports that I’ve viewed, the percentage of couples who are choosing not to have kids is increasing significantly ever year. So did God tell us to be fruitful and multiply so we could spend 20 years being miserable? Not! God meant parenting to be a joy not a burden.

I love it that the first recorded words of God to humankind are all about the joy of parenting;

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number.” (Genesis 1:28)

Please notice that not only did God’s first recorded message to us concern children, but he stated it as a blessing not as a burden: “God BLESSED them and said…”

Recently someone told me of a couple who declared that they had decided not to have children because they enjoyed their freedom and lifestyle too much and wanted to remain selfish about it. Although I admire this couple for recognizing their shortcomings, they have their wires severely crossed. Having children and raising them God’s way is not a burden – it’s a gift and a blessing from God. If that couple knew what a blessing it could be, they would jump at the chance to have children and thereby enrich their lives. Yes, raising children is a responsibility; every blessing comes with responsibilities. Having a lot of money is a huge responsibility, but who would refuse a million dollars because of the responsibilities that come along with it?

However, if you were raised in a family that went from rags to riches and you saw the money rip your family apart and create endless pain, would your attitude towards the gift of a million dollars be different? If I am guessing correctly, most of us would say that it wasn’t the money that caused the problem but the way the people involved responded to the money.

Many young people today are shying away from having children because they themselves have seen more pain and problems in the parenting process then blessings. Yet, it’s not parenting or having kids that caused the pain and problems, it’s often no knowledge of the way that God tells us to parent and/or just uninformed parenting that is the problem.

It always amazes me how so many people will get a coach, teacher, trainer and/or take a class or course when they want to learn anything from gourmet cooking to surfing, but when it comes to parenting, they think they can do a great job without making any effort to learn how. Not to long ago a woman told me that she believed that parenting was intuitive and therefore no one needed to learn it. If this were true, there would be no bad parenting because we’d all do it well intuitively. Unfortunately, there’s more bad parenting going on then good. Some aspects of nurture are intuitive, but the vast majority of what makes a good parent needs to be learned.

We need to get a message to those who, for the pain and problems that they’ve experienced or seen, are running from having kids. Parenting can be a joy if we apply ourselves to learning and growing as a parent. A good parenting book or parenting course will do for your parenting experience what a gourmet cooking course will do for your cooking experience. When God said that children were a blessing, he was assuming that we’d be getting his help and wisdom and learning from others who had done the same.

With this post and my next few, I want to explore what the Bible says about the joy of parenting. I’m spending time on this because I’ve found that when we understand how God views parenting, it helps us to make adjustments in our actions and attitudes and sometimes it’s those adjustments that make a huge difference in how we approach parenting. I also want to equip the Body so that they can respond, and lovingly instruct those in this generation that are shying away from having children for the wrong reasons. Those who would find truth and humor in the opening video instead of error and sadness.

For more practical and Biblical Christian Parenting ideas we recommend the Christian resource, ‘What Mary and Joseph Knew About Parenting’.

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)