Transcript
It's only ever rest in God's presence and grace that will make you a joyful and patient parent. Let's be honest for a moment. Parenting is hard. I remember a couple moments in our parenting. One where my wife, Luella said, "I think I'm forgetting how to talk adult." She felt like she had so many infantile conversations, she was losing her vocabulary. Or there was one evening where at 11 o'clock, I'm at the grocery store buying lunches for the next day. And I'm driving home and I'm thinking, "This is too hard. It's too burdensome. I can't do this."
You Are Never Alone in Your Parenting
It's so important to rest in the fact that God is in you and for you and with you, that you are never alone in your parenting task. That passage we call the Great Commission at the end of Matthew is one of the most wonderful reminders for all parents. Two things that God says: "All power is given to Me in heaven and earth." There's never a situation, there's never a location, there's never a relationship in parenting that isn't ruled by King Christ. And then Jesus says, "Lo, I am with you always." God's with you. He's with you in every one of those moments. He promises that He'll never leave you and never forsake you.
I like to think of it this way. Jesus, on the cross, took every ounce of our rejection so even in our worst parenting day, we would never see the back of God's head. We will never experience God turning and walking away. You see, if you load all that your children need on your shoulders, you'll be overburdened and overwhelmed and discouraged, and maybe even hopeless as a parent. You need again and again and again to remind yourself that God is for me and He is with me. He rules what I can't rule. He gives me what I don't have by myself. In that, I can rest with the daily moment by moment knowledge that as a parent, I'm never alone.
