We’ve recently been taking a seminar around the UK, exploring parenting through the lens of our Christian identity. Every parent wants children who are kind, brave and able to make wise decisions, so what more is there for Christian parents?
Everyday questions
In our everyday conversations, remembering that we are a child of God gives us better ways to cope with the tears, the anger, the terrifying questions and the recurring issues. Whether we are in Belfast or Birmingham, the questions we get from parents are very similar. All of us want to show our children the wonder of living for Christ. All of us feel inadequate to the task. All of us are reassured that our children’s eternity rests with Christ and not us.
We all need help to keep bringing Christ into the everyday struggles of life in a natural way that brings our children closer to him, rather than pushing them further away. I am the same. When the same two siblings in my family get into the predictable argument that leads to the same sad outcome, I tend to the same despair or anger. I long to apply the gospel better to the most frequent issues in my family and my heart.
Burdens that feel like barriers
But many Christian parents have another question: one that begins, “How can I parent as a Christian when I have….?” These questions are about more than practical help, or everyday wisdom. These questions reveal a heavy burden that can feel like a barrier to Jesus Christ working in our family. How can I parent as a Christian when I have a husband who isn’t a Christian? When I have an autistic son? When I have a daughter who has experienced trauma? When I have a teen who refuses to come to church or talk about Christian things?
These questions reflect our struggle to imagine how a breakthrough could ever come. We wonder whether our best efforts can possibly bear fruit. The situations we cannot fix can feel hopeless when, despite our pleading, God does not seem to be giving our children the comfort we crave for them.
God’s power in our weakness
Paul wrote of exactly such a situation. “I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Cor. 12: 7-9)
Paul longed for the situation to change. Perhaps Satan whispered his usual lies more loudly; “God can’t love you if he allows this.” or “The good news of Jesus isn’t big enough for a problem like this. There’s no hope” While the Lord did not change the situation, he radically changed Paul’s perspective. Paul came to see his own weakness as the means for the Lord’s power to be at work.
Let us, like Paul, learn to see that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. Let’s trust him to work through the problem. Let’s wonder how to talk to our child about how God could use this situation to help us to trust him more. And let’s pray that God would use our thorns to leave both us and our child saying, “God is kinder and more powerful than we ever imagined.”
A longer version of this article appeared in the May 2025 issue of Evangelicals Now.
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