11 Mar Parenting – Chapter 13
Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul Tripp
Chapter 13 – John Breckenridge
It is hard for us to rest. Think about it. When are you at rest? And the idea of a Sabbath rest (The Lord’s Day) is so foreign to most of us, that it might as well be from another planet. But Tripp in this chapter is asking us to… rest. To stop worrying, hyper-focusing, and playing the “what if” scenarios in our heads as we parent. To rest.
Tripp says we don’t rest for the basic reason that we don’t trust. Therefore we become, he says, “Overburdened, overwhelmed, exhausted, and discouraged.” Let’s take our parenting burdens to God as we plead for our children, before the God who formed their bodies as well their souls.
Chapter 13, “Rest”, is for many of us a mirror of what the real problem in parenting might be… we are so busy doing it (the parenting) that we forget to enjoy the fact that God goes before us in this parenting business. As Jesus says in Matthew 28:20, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” We can and should rest in that.