Shepherding a Child's Heart

I think that one of the biggest reason's God allowed me to work in education as well as children's ministry was to prepare me for being a parent. I have learned so many valuable lessons over the past five or six years of working with children! I am thankful not only for the practical training "in the field" with other people's children, but the opportunity to study children "intellectually" as well. What I mean by that is I love to read about subjects that I am passionate about.

The Lord has brought me in contact with many great books about child-rearing, especially while I was working at Trinity Pres. I have been able to read a few of them. Now, I am not a firm advocate of parenting self-help books. I think that the only self-help book we need for parenting, or anything else for that matter, is the Word of God. He is the ONLY authority on any subject, and we should earnestly and prayerfully seek His wisdom in whatever we are doing.

However, I have greatly benefited from several books written not as self-help or five step programs but as reminders that our parenting should be saturated in the Word and in honoring our heavenly Father. I may discuss some more of these in detail later (I need to re-read a few now that I am actually a parent). But I would like to make several posts concerning Tedd Tripp's book Shepherding a Child's Heart.

This book has been on my "To Read" list for some time now. I have read several excerpts from it at times, but I decided yesterday it was time to read the whole book. First, if you are interested in reading it I would HIGHLY recommend it so far. (A good portion of my book is now yellow from my colored pencil marks.) I am not the fastest of readers (okay I am a pretty slow reader), and I have read about half of it in 24 hours.

Usually to accomplish a feat like that I would have to read for a good bit of the day (and it is not a large book). However, it is a very easy and quick read, which is great when entertaining a six month old. I have only read while Sterling is asleep, so if I can do it you can too!

With that said, Dr. Tripp has a great way of putting in words what my spirit has been telling me for some time, our culture's idea of parenting is drastically different than God's command to parents.

I would like to post some thoughts I have had while reading the book. This is a good way for me to process what I read so if you are interested feel free to keep reading. I will not get to all of it today, so more to come.

The title and theme of the book is about shepherding a child, training a child in righteousness, not for the sake of well behaved children, but for the sake of God's glory. The first chapter of Tripp's book is called Getting to the Heart of Behavior.

This chapter is truly the thesis statement and foundation for the rest of the book. Parenting is not about having well behaved children to function in society. It is not about having children who are wealthy, well-rounded, beautiful, loved, or even saved.

When our ultimate goal for our children that they would be one of the above things or a host of others, our means to that end is correcting behavior that does not fit into that goal (or it could be the other extreme, our goal is that our kids are just themselves, in which we let them follow whatever whim they may have at the moment). We spend our lives trying to get our children's actions to fit into whatever spoken or unspoken goals we may have for them.

However, as Christian parents our goals for our children should be as Tripp states from the Westminster Shorter Catechism: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. This is our chief end as believers and should be our desire for our children as well.

If our goal in parenting is that our children would glorify our Father in heaven and enjoy Him forever, our parenting would look a lot different than those around us. If this is our goal for our children we cannot look to the world for advice on parenting. We cannot look at the latest trends in parenting, Dr. Phil, Supernanny, or even our children's teachers. We must look to the Word of God alone!

This does not mean that we cannot and should not share with one another and encourage other believers along the way. However, it does mean that everything that we do as parents must first be weighed against the Scripture.

This puts a great deal of responsibility on us as parents to be in fellowship with our Father and to know His Word (very convicting as well). This is what we are instructed to do in Deuteronomy 6:7 "You shall teach [the words of the Lord] diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."

As parents we are commanded to teach our children the commands of the Lord and to discipline them when they do not obey them (Proverbs 23). But more on that later, this is enough for today.