Parenting

"The most fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children. Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility and should cause every parent to be desperate for God-like transformation. The children will have years of exposure to what the universe is like before they know there is a universe. They will experience the kind of authority there is in the universe and the kind of justice there is in the universe and the kind of love there is in the universe before they meet the God of authority and justice and love who created and rules the universe. Children are absorbing from dad his strength and leadership and protection and justice and love; and they are absorbing from mom her care and nurture and warmth and intimacy and justice and love—and, of course, all these overlap." John Piper in This Momentary Marriage

Piper describes the responsibility, a serious and weighty matter, that parents have in introducing their children to God and instructing them about God. This is, at times, a burden. What if I screw up (and I know I will)? What if I scar them and scare them away from God? Am I fit for this? But I want to think about this 'burden' differently. I want to compare it to fuel for an airliner. The weight of fuel that an airplane, perhaps a 747, is enormous. A 747 can hold 50,000 gallons of fuel which would be around 350000 pounds for the plane to carry. A big burden. Yet, that burdensome load is also the fuel the jet needs to propel itself. And that is how I want to think about the responsibility of parenting children; the responsibility is a God-given burden that fuels me to be the parent I am called to be. Parenting is a serious endeavour, and that makes it, in some ways, a burden. But if it wasn't serious, what motivation would there be to do it well? This is a weight that, with the Holy Spirit's help, will not weigh me down but motivate me to soar. I'm thankful for my children and the responsibility that comes with them!

"The chief task of parenting is to know God for who he is in his many attributes—especially as he has revealed himself in the person of Jesus and his cross—and then to live in such a way with our children that we help them see and know this multi-faceted God." John Piper in This Momentary Marriage