Earthly Parents and Our Heavenly Father

Parents: You are not God, so don’t even try to be. I’m going to start this out really matter of fact: You WILL fail your kids. You WILL let them down. You WILL disappoint them. You WILL hurt them. Humble yourself before the Lord and accept that. Every Christian knows that we, as humans, are not capable of perfection or blamelessness- that is why we desperately need Christ in the first place. So why do some parents believe that they can achieve perfection and blamelessness in their kids’ eyes? Why do they think that they will NEVER hurt their kids or let them down and make mistakes while they are raising them? The reality is that sin holds us back. We are all born into sin and it holds us back in every aspect of our lives, including as parents.

Parents, you do not have a user’s manual on how to raise your kids. BUT you do have God and you do have His word. So hold your babies tight and pray to God that He instruct you on how to provide them with all of the guidance, wisdom, nourishment, and sacrificial love that they need. Pray to God to set you free from any generational curses so that you will not make the same mistakes with your kids that your own parents made with you. Pray to God to heal your babies of any wounds on their heart that you may inflict upon them. Pray that He give them the type of love, wisdom, and nourishment to their souls that is not in your power to give them. Because after all, God is their real father, you are just their earthly father. And apologize with a sincere and repenting heart EVERY time you wrong your kids or break their heart.

Kids: Your parents are not God, so you cannot expect them to be. You cannot make your parents your God and expect them to never disappoint you and that they will meet every single one of your needs. If you’re an adult, you might feel scorned by one or both of your parents and might see the smudges that are on them. There might be so many things that you wished they would have given you. There might be so many things that you resent them for doing to you or putting you through. There might have been times in which you thought that they were not putting you first and not loving you as sacrificially as they should have. You may be reluctant to forgive them for those things. Forgive anyway. Forgive them just as Christ has forgiven you. Have grace and mercy towards them. Your parents have sin in their bloodline, just like you do, so you know that they come into this world with limitations. They can only love you that is within their human ability to do so, whereas God can love you supernaturally and divinely. 

If you have been deeply hurt and scarred by your parents, recognize them as the finite humans that they are and pray that God heal you of all your wounds and that He give you all of the things that your earthly parents could not.

Parents, accept your limitations as finite humans. Kids, accept your parents as such. And keep God in His proper place and do not put something else there… especially your parents. Perhaps there would be far less broken and estranged families if more parents and adult children kept their relationships Christ-centered.

***Kids that have been abandoned or abused by their parents: I am so sorry if this has happened to you, and I pray for your healing. But please understand that your Heavenly Father would never do this to you. God is a father to the fatherless and calls you to be anointed and adopted into His family. “Though my father and mother fail me, the Lord will take me up.”– Psalm 27:10. If this is you, do not allow this to prevent you from kneeling to God and surrendering your life to Him. All evil things that have been done against you do not go unnoticed by God and you can trust that revenge towards those that have wronged you rests in His hands, and He will judge them justly and accordingly.