Sacred Parenting

After a couple recommendations, I have started reading the book Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas.

Lots of great thoughts to mull over, but this paragraph especially stood out to me:

I'm saying that our own spiritual quest must drive our parenting. Unfinished or neglected spiritual business inevitably works its way out through our relationships in a negative fashion: we become more demanding, more controlling, more intolerant, more resentful. Our spouses and our children cannot quench the God-given spiritual hunger in our souls. When we neglect God, we ask our marriage and our parenting to become stand-ins for God -- something they were never designed to do.

It is so tempting to fall into relying on what we can see. To seek our worth or approval in the physical relationships that God has blessed us with. But, these should only be a greater catalyst to push us closer to Him. They don't take His place, they magnify His place in our lives. They should spur on spiritual growth, not become a substitute for it. Parenting and marriage are such spiritual experiences, but we need to make sure that we keep them in their place as channels, not ends in themselves.


One of those things ya' know, but need to constantly remember and keep at the forefront of your thinking.

I am definitely looking forward to getting further into this book and topic.