Resolution #1 Love God first.
Remember the first and highest commandment: “Love the Lord your God (not your family) with all your heart, mind and strength.” A few verses later, Jesus warns, “If anyone loves their mother or father, or son or daughter more than me, he is not worthy of me.”
We know this: if we serve our families with our every waking moment we can shut out God. We can be so busy about family and household things, we leave no time to spend in immersion in God’s word, in communing with our Sovereign and Savior.
Seek God first, to love God above all others.
(Only then can we love and serve our families and our neighbors rightly and well.)
Resolution #2 Parent for our children’s holiness rather than their happiness.
Quit trying to make our kids happy with electronics, lavish birthday parties, too-late curfews, being their best friend instead of their parent. Choose to cultivate our children’s goodness rather than their happiness.
Remember how god parents---for our holiness---which leads to the highest happiness.
Do for our children what they cannot do for themselves: distinguish between their short-term happiness and their long term good. Parent toward that.
Resolution # 3 Let go of our obsession for success.
Let’s give up the now-famous over-parenting syndrome. Overbooking, over-sheltering, the hovering, levitating . .. .
Let our kids make mistakes. Let them experience the real world of cause and effect. Let them grow their own faith.
Acknowledge our limits as parents. Let go of the fact that we don’t control who our children become.
Stop trying to make our kids into our own image. Stop trying to be “successful” parents, and focus instead on being “faithful” parents.
Resolution #4 Parent by core values rather than by convenience.
None of us brought children into the world to minimize our time with them.
Resist the temptation to parent by convenience, by one-size-fits-all formula, by what’s easiest and fastest.
Resist the temptation to lessen our face-to-face time with our kids. Unplug, turn down, switch off, cook a real meal, talk.
End the search for efficient parenting; celebrate the God-made messiness and daily surprise of raising your unique, amazing kids.
Resolution #5 Trust what is real about parenting instead of how you feel about parenting.
Stop measuring the value of parenting by how we feel about it. We swing between fulfillment and frustration, happiness and hurt, love and anger, all in a single day. It’s normal!
End the guilt and failure and self-berating we indulge in when we feel like less than a perfect parent.
Remember love is not primarily an emotion. Love is not measured by how we’re feeling toward our child, but what we’re being and doing for our child.
Rehearse what we know about parenting: God has brought these fearfully-made children into the world. They are here to serve His plans and purposes, not ours.
Rejoice in 2010 at the ringside seat we’ve been given in this grand adventure!
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Many blessings in the New Year!!
Leslie
