Perfect Parenting

Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. —Hebrews 12:10

No parent is perfect; that is what is so ironic about this title. Perhaps you think back to your own childhood and how your parents raised you. You may want to go to your mother or your father and say, “You really made a mess of bringing me up!” Yet that’s the way parents are. They do as they think best, punish when they lose their tempers, and scold their children in front of other people.

But only God is the perfect Father. God disciplines us for our good, and He doesn’t make mistakes. Many of you have had an imperfect parent. Some of you can’t call God Father because your only frame of reference for a father is that the man who fathered you wasn’t very nice. Let me tell you something: if we have to have a perfect father in order to address God as Father—then no one would be able to do it. We are not supposed to look to our natural parents for the perfect frame of reference of what a father is supposed to be like. Look to Jesus. He is your frame of reference.

Let me say this: you and I need to remember God has a plan for our children as well as for us. The time comes when we have to release them. Maybe, after they are too old to discipline, we still want to point the finger and straighten them out. But perhaps you who have children need to join me in releasing them to God. He is the perfect Parent.

Excerpted from All’s Well That Ends Well (Authentic Media, 2005).