Perfectionism is an easy trap to fall into. We read such scriptures as “Matthew 5:48 that says, “Be perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” and then deduce that everything is based on our behavior. When we fall short of “perfection”—as we inevitably do—we are left with one of two options: 1) fully acknowledge it and fall upon the mercy and grace of Christ or 2) minimize it through a myriad of justifications that range from excusing to blaming to denying.
I put “perfection” in quotes as to denote the context of this scripture. If you read various commentaries, the great majority of the writers suggest the goal is to be like Christ, especially in loving others. Even though it may not be our pragmatic reality, it is to be our desire; that is the point. Sadly, most of us understand this with our minds, but our hearts betray us by whispering that everything, including parenthood, is based on what we do and we leave God’s grace out of the equation.
What we do does indeed matter; we cannot deny that truth. We see throughout the scriptures “if you, then I …” I do not want to minimize this fact. What I do want to stress is that if success is solely dependent upon what we do, we are all in distressing straits because we each succumb to sin! What do we do then, especially in dealing with our children?
One of the greatest parental weapons is authenticity. Authentic used to be thought of as being transparent, honest, real, or genuine, and this is the definition that I will be using. Sadly, this term has been hijacked to give politically acceptable ascent to “being true to who you are,” or “you being you.” “What is so wrong with that?” you ask. Well, what if you are a murderer or a thief? Is it still okay to be you? Do you see the trajectory that this line of thinking sets? Whenever someone is praised for being authentic, it often celebrates the pervading social behavior of the day, whatever it is and in spite of how anti-biblical it might be.
Our children can smell hypocrisy a hundred miles away. This is why parenting gets tougher as they get older and more attune to the hypocrisies in our lives. I have seen parents employ all sorts of smoke and mirrors to try and minimize their duplicity. This is just additional hypocrisy!
When we are authentic with our children about our own struggles with the Christian life and with all the worldly temptations, we are doing several things. First, we are demonstrating humility about which we spoke of in last month’s blogs. Second, we are giving them spiritual oxygen to breathe so they can be authentic in their own lives. If we try to cover up our hypocrisies, we will, by default, teach them to do the same thing in their own lives. Finally, being authentic will help them embrace who God made them to be. They will understand they do not have to pretend to be someone they are not or cover up their own sin with a 21st century fig leaf. Instead, they can lay their shortcomings down before God and receive His life for their death.
I pray that God will use this months blogs, videos, and fasting to enable and equip all of us to be real before our children so they can be real before God and others.
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