Our culture thinks of children as innocent and impressionable; blank slates awaiting the external influences of education and culture. The Bible says something very different: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15 ESV).

I had a rough day as a parent earlier this week. It wasn’t the first time and I’m sure that it won’t be the last.

My wife and I have 5 kids and we have fostered 16 other children for varying lengths of time. If I have learned anything over the 20 + years of my marriage it is that parenting is incredibly hard.

I’m sure there are many reasons for that, but these 6 come immediately to mind. Parenting is incredibly hard, first of all:

Because Kids Are Terribly Sinful

Our culture thinks of children as innocent and impressionable; blank slates awaiting the external influences of education and culture. The Bible says something very different: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15 ESV).

The Bible says that children come into the world already leaning in the direction of sin and rebellion. A fair bit of bad stuff comes preinstalled and the job of parents is to find it and drive it out.

Therefore wise parents find themselves dealing primarily with issues of the heart. The King and Queen in Proverbs build all of their subsequent parental instruction upon this essential principle: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7 ESV).

Derek Kidner comments on this verse saying:

The beginning … is not merely a right method of thought but a right relation: a worshipping submission (fear) to the God of the covenant, who has revealed himself by name.[1]

Parenting is not ultimately about teaching right behaviours it is about facilitating a right relationship. Your first job as a parent is to help your child relate to the God of the covenant through faith in Jesus Christ.

You are an evangelist and God has sent you a sinner.

That’s why parenting is so incredibly hard.

It is also incredibly hard:

Because Change Is Remarkably Slow

I feel like parenting would be easier if kids were better listeners and faster learners. I explain things – I think quite brilliantly – and yet very little of what I say tends to result in positive action. I make a case – a MARVELLOUS CASE – for the wisdom of starting each day with a clean room and a made bed. I tell stories about how professional athletes and military heroes learned this discipline at an early age. I wax poetic about great journeys that begin with a single step. I illustrate, amplify and exhort and then I wake up the next morning to a full on circus of sloth and stupid.

Was I not clear?

Why are we not getting this?

And the answer of course is that change is remarkably slow.

Parenting is the fine art of saying the same thing 10,000 times over the course of 20 years without losing your mind.

Gradually.

Slowly but surely.

Inch by inch.

Change happens.

As with our children so with the children of God. The Apostle Paul said:

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV)

The Lord is patient with our pace and progress. How much more must we be patient with the children he has entrusted to our care?

Children will grow by one degree of glory to the next. This is a call for endurance.

Thirdly, parenting is also incredibly hard:

Because I Am Breathtakingly Selfish

I find myself getting angry as a parent, more often than not, because the sinfulness of my children or the slowness of their growth and development interferes with my desire for rest, respect and recreation.

I want to nap on Sunday afternoon. My children want to poke each other in the eye. I have to referee that so that no one actually looses an eye. This makes Daddy angry, even though Daddy remembers knocking his brother unconscious with a glass peanut butter jar.

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