Parenting with God

        

As the grandfather of twelve young people ranging in age from six to twenty-six, I feel reasonably well qualified to comment on a book by Paul David Tripp that sheds light on parenting.

His title: Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family (Crossway, 2016).

His theme: “Nothing is more important in your life than being one of God’s tools to form a human soul.” 

Although the book has been around for some time, its observations and guides remain as fresh as yesterday’s laughter, and are especially useful in helping parents view their role in today’s pandemic-challenged society through the lens of God’s grace.

I especially enjoyed this comment from teacher and preacher Francis Chan (father of seven children): “Part of me wanted to sit, cry, and confess all of my failures as a parent. The other part wanted to scream with excitement for the tremendous insight I now have to be a better parent.” 

It was also good to read a comment from golfer Webb Simpson (winner of the 2012 US Open) whose life on the professional circuit has been interwoven with the self-discipline required to raise four children.

Simpson likes the fact that Tripp goes far beyond the correction of children’s behavior to take readers to the source of the problem—the heart. He says: “If we understand our children at a heart level and have a proper understanding of the gospel, then we can parent them as God intends.”

Both of them are spot on, just as Tripp is on target when he draws on his own experience to guide us all on issues such as the ambassadorial aspect of parenting.

He insists that an ambassador’s work is not shaped and directed by personal interest, personal need, or cultural perspectives.

“Every parent everywhere is called upon to recognize that they have been put on earth at a particular time and in a particular location to do one thing in the lives of their children—God’s will.”

Which leads to Tripp’s conclusion that parenting is not first about what we want for our children or from our children, but about what God in grace has planned to do through us in our children.

Tripp readily admits that his book doesn’t provide practical steps for dealing with the kinds of things every parent faces. 

It’s essentially a reorienting book, he says, designed to give parents a new way of thinking about their responsibilities. To give them vision, motivation, renewed strength, and the “rest of heart” that every parent needs. To give them “the big gospel picture of the task to which their Savior has called them.”

I wish I’d had this book at the start of my own parenting adventures!