Monday, January 25, 2010

Guilty of Grace

The Parable of the Lost Son from Luke 15, is in my opinion one of the greatest parables of the Bible. You can view the story from so many perspectives. You can put yourself into the shoes of the younger son, the older son and also the father. It was not too long ago that I felt I could not relate to the father very much, but now that I am a father I can totally feel his pain. To have a child reject you as their parent must hurt like nothing else.
Then on top of that pain a parent would probably heap guilt on themselves. They would wonder what they did to cause the child to reject them. They would wonder what could have been done differently. They would beat themselves up again and again.
It may not be as bad as our child leaving us, but there are other things that happen with our children that we heap guilt on ourselves for something that happened. We worry and fear that we will fail our children with decisions we make as we raise them. We want to the best we can, but there are times we miss the mark. And many times other people can't wait to let us know about it.
I believe God does not want us to live our parental lives buried in guilt or fear. God wants to free us from these feelings. (Some fear and guilt is good to let us know an issue should be taken seriously, but too much of it is harmful.) God wants us to be confident as parents of our children. Confident that God will use us to be the best parents we can be.
In the Parable of the Lost Son after the son leaves and comes back, the father openly welcomes his son home. We see the father show his son grace. However as a parent I also see the need for this father to have offered grace to himself because he could receive his son home. He had to stop asking himself what he had done wrong and trying to change the past. Instead he had to offer himself grace and hope for the future.
Parents, be willing to offer yourself grace, as well as offering grace to your children. Grace is amazing and can transform our relationships. So, be guilty of offering grace.

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