Are you, as a parent, dominated by love or frustration? Leading is born out of love and pushing is born out of frustration. We tell our children that we demand obedience and speak sharply because we love them and only want the best for them. Most likely our children are not buying this explanation. It feels to them as if they are being pushed into doing what mom and dad want.
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 addresses this issue.
First, you are to love God with every fiber of your being, with all that you have to offer as a human living and being sustained by the grace of God.
Second, the commands of God are to dominate your inner being because of your profound love for God.
Third, these commands are to be deeply implanted into the lives of your children during every event and opportunity that God brings to you each day.
You are to deeply love God with all that you are as a person. This love is expressed by drinking deeply of his commands so that your heart is permeated with them. Then, this love for God and his commands is to overflow from your heart into the everyday situations of life that you and your children encounter.It is this combination of loving God and living out his commands that will allow you to impress the love you have for God into the lives of your children. This is what it means to lead.
Even as you embrace this deep love for God that Deuteronomy requires, your children will be still the same sinful creatures that desperately need the grace of God. You will still have to discipline, train, and patiently endure the challenges of being a parent. The difference will be that you will not be pushing your children to grasp what remains elusive to you. Rather you will be leading them to the same place that you long to go – to the cross.
Living out Deuteronomy 6 in this way requires dependence upon God to do what you cannot do in your own strength. It is this dependence that will uniquely draw you closer to your God and his beauty. An unexpected joy will emerge, the deepest longings of your soul will be met for the joy of the Lord will be your strength!
3 thoughts on “Leading out of love or pushing from frustration”
Sounds good. However, you have left faith in Jesus Christ out of your advice, entirely. We can never hope to stay committed to God consistently enough to remain dependent on Him for help in raising children without, first, acknowledging that we are sinners in need of a Saviour, repenting, and giving our hearts to Jesus Christ–to believe that he was the only begotten of God the Father, who was crucified, died, was buried and resurrected to save us from sin, through His grace, not our efforts, and who now sits on the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, where, He intercedes for us to our Heavenly Father. Only, then, are we made into new creatures –with new hearts and minds, which actually long to obey God’s commands and to love, as Jesus Christ would love, rather than operating put of the frustration and fear that is part of our old, human-motivated selves. -Linda L.
Linda, thanks for your concern. I believe that I did it address it with this:
The difference will be that you will not be pushing your children to grasp what remains elusive to you. Rather you will be leading them to the same place that you long to go – to the cross.
The cross embraces all of the concerns that you noted.
God led me this blog tonight… had a rough day emotionally with the kids and despaired about HOW to parent when I myself need so much help and grace. I especially liked this part about not pushing them to grasp what remains elusive to me, rather leading them to the same place that I long to go – to the cross. YES. thank you so much. very edifying.