The first time God used one of my kids to teach me something about my relationship with Him is still as vivid as when it happened. Our oldest daughter, now 7, was just a baby, less than a year old. I was making her laugh hysterically by doing that ol’ dad thing that mom’s hate…throwing her up in the air over my head and catching her. Up and down she went, laughing and flailing her arms, until something happened that made time stand still. She was up in the air, just at that second before she started to come back down, when I heard that little voice in my spirit that asked me the question that started it all:

“Why don’t you trust Me like that?”

I froze. Well, not enough that she hit the ground or anything, but I was certainly dazed. The point was obvious: faith is trusting in God’s plan and actions, not just to the point of tolerance but to the point of joy. Isaiah, looking forward to the Messiah, said Jesus would “delight in the fear of the LORD,” and my daughter showed me what it meant to delight in the fear of dad. I had all the power to do whatever I wanted, and she trusted to the point of joy and laughter because she knew she was secure. As a new parent, this got the wheels turning: If God is a Father to us, then shouldn’t I try to parent the way He does?

How do you parent like God?

I am by no means a perfect dad–trust me, this morning 2/3 of my kids woke up crying and screaming at me–but I have done a little looking around over the years in the Bible to see how God parents His children, and I want to share three of them with you. I can’t guarantee you’ll raise the perfect kids (you won’t), but you’ll at least be parenting in a way that reflects the character of God. Parenting to the glory of God really means parenting in a way that is a direct response to who God is, what He is like and what He has done.

1. Put God first as God puts God first.

To begin any search for how and why God does specific things we have to first ask why God does anything. Throughout the whole Bible the dominant answer to this question is, to glorify Himself. I love John Piper’s partial explanation of why this is true, even though many don’t like this. God is the center of the universe, and God glorifies Himself first and most centrally, not because He’s on an ego trip, but because He alone is what is going to make people happy.

When you or I are self-centered, we distract people from what will make them happy…we are “quite unsatisfactory,” to use Piper’s exact words. But if God is self-glorifying, then He’s not distracting anyone, but is loving us because He alone is what will satisfy us and make us happy. Therefore, God is always at the center of God’s will. If God were to put someone else in the center–like us, as we so often assume–then He would be giving glory and honor and praise to someone else. He would be pointing the universe to something else as being greater, more important and more valuable than Himself. So we must never let our kids become the center of our universe. That place belongs to God.

But maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “But I don’t want a God that is all about Himself and not about me. That would mean He could do any unpleasant thing to me and be justified.” If you’re one that things it’s incredible to say we are not the center of God’s world, and that we should be, I want you consider that I don’t think you really believe that, or at least you don’t really want that. You don’t really want a man-centered God. At least, it’s not a personal relationship you want with that God, because that’s not a God you can know and interact with.

A God that can’t offend you is no God worth following. A God who always did what you wanted would be like a robot, like what the men had in that movie “The Stepford Wives”…they killed their real wives and made robots that looked and talked just like them, only the robots were controllable. A God who can’t offend you, a God who always does what you want, may be something desirable to you, but it’s not a God you can know. That’s not real.

Stephen Mathewson, a biblical scholar and author, when he preaches on the story of Genesis 22, where God tests Abraham by having him almost sacrifice his son Isaac, says, “The greatest thing you can do for your kids is worship God instead of your kids.” Put God first as God puts God first.

One way we do that in our family, which I think every family should do (including single-parent homes) is family prayer (that’s what Spurgeon famously called it in their home) or family worship. Honestly, we’ve been out of practice for a week or so because of some traveling, but normally we designate a time in the morning that we all sit down, and I read a passage of Scripture, talk about some lesson that comes from it, and we pray together.  Sometimes we include singing, and sometime not, but that’s an important thing to do. The idea is that I wan to blow my kids’ minds with the glory of God at least once a day.

Whatever you do, make sure you are putting God first and not your kids. They are not God, and they should not be allowed to occupy the place in your life of dictating everything you do…and they will occupy that place if you let them. Sometimes your kids’ disappointment is the best thing for them. We all have to learn that God is the center, and not us.

#2. Inspire obedience with love, even if you can demand it.

Gracia Burnham, former missionary to the Philippines, was held captive by radical Muslims for a number of years in the 90’s, along with her husband who was killed in their rescue. They spent those years in the jungle, living with their captors, running from gunfight to gunfight. Gracia wrote a book abouther experience called In the Presence of My Enemies, and speaks throughout the country. I have heard her speak twice, and both times were very impactful.

I won’t forget one story she told about her captors. They all wore the same necklace, which had 9 small beads and 1 big bead. The explanaton they gave was that the 9 beads represented names of God that they knew, and the big bead represented the secret name of God. After a number of questions (Is God’s name “merciful?” yes. “Is God’s name Almighty?” yes), Gracia came across one held by Christians that the Muslim captors denied.

Love. “No, God is not love. We obey God because he is God, not because of love.”

“Aha!” Gracia thought… “I know what the secret Name is!”

As true as it is that God has absolute authority and power, deserving of all obedience, praise and honor, and as much as God requires the life and obedience of every person…God’s choice of action is to motivate obedience with love, even though He can demand it. This is what is at the heart of a Gospel-centered life. We don’t obey God to be loved and accepted by Him; we obey God because we are. As Tim Keller has put it so clearly, “Religion says ‘I obey God, therefore I am accepted.’ Christianity says ‘I am accepted by God, therefore I obey.'”

When you are raising your kids, this is a huge, difficult, princple to implement…inspiring obedience with love even if and when you have the right to demand it. As much as you are the parent, the boss, the dictator-for-life, the King, the Queen, the President, Founder & CEO of FAMILY HOME Inc., what is your current plan to get obedience from your kids? Demands, or proactively loving them and showing them grace? Kids don’t respond very well to demands to obey, do they? Do your kids have to obey to be accepted and loved, or are they given the chance to obey in response to unconditional acceptance?

As parents, we reap what we sow, and a lot of the time our kids don’t obey because they don’t have a reason to obey that makes sense to them. Kids, particularly younger kids, don’t have much concept of authority structures and obligations, but they do understand being valued, adored and respected.

Am I saying lay down your authority and don’t expect your kids to obey? No. Our children must be taught to obey, for this is our primary responsibility to our kids, according to the Bible. However, there is a heck of a lot more to teaching obedience than simply demanding it. We should consider how much reason we give them in our own behavior to obey. God chooses to inspire obedience by love, not by demands and appeals to authority…at least not a first course of action.

Jesus said the one who loves Him obeys His commandments, and John said we love Him because He first loved us. The Apostle Paul said God’s love was demonstrated in that while we were sinners Christ died for us. We have a plethora of reasons to obey God; one is that He is God and deserving of that honor, but God would rather inspire that obedience with love. The mercy and grace shown to us in the Gospel gives us more reasons to obey than we can run out of. We can do the same with our kids.

#3. Don’t just give them your resoures; give them yourself

A common view, indeed the “modern view,” of parenting is that we must give our kids everything we have to set them up for success, health and happiness. I know people who work multiple jobs to pay for their kids’ sports activities, parents who work their fngers to the bone so their kid can be in the right private school. A lot of parents are led to believe that if they are doing everything they can for their kids in the way of material blessings (money, food, work opportunities, education, lessons, etc), then they are being a good parent.

In my view, that’s not called being a good parent (or a bad one); it’s just called keeping your kids busy. And sometimes it’s called being a lazy parent. The busiest people are often the laziest. See, this is not even what a lot of kids want; they just don’t have the time to ask for anything else because they’re kept so busy. This is also a far cry from the way God leads His children. Jesus didn’t come into the world to give us everything we want to set us up for health, happiness and success. He didn’t suffer, die and rise from the dead to give us a happy life, but to give us His life.

The Christian life is not one lived from material blessing to material blessing. It’s the life of Christ lived out in and through us by the Holy Spirit. His perfect record is given to us in exchange for our broken one. He lived the life we should have lived and gave it to us. He died the death we should have died and gave it to us. He honored the Father as we should have, and then steps into our place as if we always honored the Father. His Medal of Honor is placed on our necks and our noose is placed arond His neck.

Being a parent like God is not about lavishing on your kids every possible thing in the way of the right clothes, the right education, the right healthcare, the right work opportunities, the right experiences…it’s not about giving of your resouces to meet their felt needs. It’s about giving them yourself in order to meet their real needs. Kids don’t care how much stuff you give them if you give them yourself, and most of the time kids get demanding of your stuff because they don’t have you. 

NO, this is not a formula for perfect parental success. These are just a few simple, but hard, things I’ve learned about what it means to parent the way God parents us. And maybe toss your little ones up and down a few times, and see what God teaches you.