God is Parent Never Grandparent

One of the things I love most about being a grandparent is that I have to do so little disciplining.  That’s not to say I don’t discipline when I must, it’s to say I don’t overly concern myself with teaching my grandchildren their “please” and “thank-yous” and all the countless other things that go into the good moral training of children.  The reason I don’t concern myself is that my grandchildren have parents who do this, leaving me free to just love and enjoy them, and perhaps just train by example.  It’s a cushy arrangement and one I thoroughly enjoy.

Parenting on the other hand is a lot tougher. It’s a 24/7 kind of job; a sloughing-it-out-in-the-trenches kind of role which is, for the most part, thankless, at least until the kids are old enough and mature enough to understand the value of discipline. 

Most parents have a heart of love toward their children and just want to shower them with affection, gifts, privileges, but instead find themselves in a position of having to correct, withhold privileges, lecture.  It’s called “tough love” and it’s wearing. But unlike grandparents, parents don’t have the luxury of spoiling and pampering, not if they really love their children and want them to grow up the best they can be and fulfill their God-given destinies.

Nothing helped me quite understand the parenting heart of God until I became one. And nothing makes me more sympathetic because unlike us earthly parents where there is a point in time when our job is finished and we can do no more, God’s job as parent is never done.  He still must discipline us when He would rather take us in His arms.  He still must correct and guide us, withhold those things we want for our own good, deal with our disappointment and anger because we don’t understand that what He is doing is needful. God is perpetual parent, never grandparent, never able to close His eyes to our misdeeds and spoil us anyway, but always loving us enough to do the hard thing. 

I am awed by this kind of faithful, steadfast love.  A love that doesn’t take the easy way out, doesn’t seek to please itself, but stays the long hard course of trying to mold us into something lovely.

Until next week,

Sylvia