Sacred Parenting

Happy Mother's Day flickr land! by Ann&Ming

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.

Comments

amy in peru said…
I don´t know how you do it, but we are literally on the same page OFTEN. This particular idea is something that the Lord has been teaching me over the past weeks. He often brings me back here... you´d think I´d get the point by now :)

My journal says:
"A believer must be satisfied in his God. When he isn´t seeking satisfaction in his God and thereby attaining it (because he who hungers and thirsts for righteousness WILL be satisfied), then he is unfulfilled and will seek to satisfy himself by his own means - sin."

Thanks for the reminder AGAIN ;)
Amy
tarapoto, peru
6intow said…
Amy, Don't know if or when we will ever meet in this lifetime, but I look forward to some tea chats in eternity. So encouraging to be walking this path with other like-minded, growing Christians!

Thank you, again,
~Erin
I'm so glad you're delving into Thomas. I'm pretty sure you'll be glad you did--he has become my favorite author of devotional writing.

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