The Best Gift a Parent Can Give
In lecture #5 of Sonship, Jack Miller is brutally honest about his failure in parenting, saying,
"My great sin against my daughter Barbara was that I did not reach her [heart]. I didn't try to. I was really concerned about outward behavior, thinking that if I worked on the outward behavior, it would work inward. It never works that way... I presented the gospel like law, and I was not broken before her."
Psalm 51:16-17, which my Sonship counselor is having ME pray for myself this week, says, "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
God delights in the broken, contrite, repentant, humble, needy heart that comes to him for forgiveness, healing and grace. He will not despise me if I come that way, but welcome me as the Father did the younger son in Luke 15. And neither will my children despise that kind of heart. It may be that the greatest gift that I can give my kids is not material— it is my own brokenness of soul and need for a Savior-Healer-Redeemer. If that is the attitude of my heart, then I will not parent in the all-to-typical self-righteous, I-would-never-act-like-that style. But that is pure hypocrisy, and our kids see right through it... and hate it (even if they can't express it like that when they are younger. But when they reach the teen years, they begin to react in all kinds of unpleasant ways).
So maybe what my kids need is not a bullet proof Dad, but a nail scarred Jesus. My ever present need for that Savior just might be the best gift that I can give.
