The Three Needs of Every Child
What is the goal of grace-based parenting? Scores of parenting books line the shelves at Christian book stores all claiming to offer new insight and practical tips. When we shut out all the noise, and use our own relationship with Christ as the model for how we should parent our own children, three core issues emerge. Above all else our kids have three basic needs: 1) a secure love, 2) a significant purpose, 3) a strong hope. These three needs summarize what God the father freely provides each believer the moment they place their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. As members of the body of Christ we have been forgiven and made accepted in the beloved (secure love), ambassadors in Christ's stead (significant purpose), and given a blessed hope (strong hope). It thrills my heart that my boys fundamentally need the same things I do and that the grace message I hold so dear meets all these needs in abundance. As parents, our job is to communicate, live, and demonstrate the doctrines of the Grace Life to our children.
A Secure Love
"At the core of grace is love—a love that delights in us in spite of our sin and comes to us free of charge."(1) In Romans 5:8, Paul offers perhaps the greatest expression of this type of love, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." The cross is the greatest expression of God's love for humanity. When we were dead in trespasses and sins, God loved us enough to send his son to die on our behalf so that we could be reconciled to God.(2) Furthermore, the gospel of grace teaches that salvation is a nonmeritorious gift bestowed freely upon the sinner through simple faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.(3)
If God loved us enough to die in our stead when we were yet sinners, how much more does God love us now that we have been saved?(4) Ephesians 1:6 states, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." Having been given redemption and the forgiveness of sins based upon Christ's work on our behalf, believers are at peace with God,(5) sealed with the holy spirit of promise,(6) adopted into the family of God as adult sons,(7) and seated with Christ in the heavenly places.(8) Does that sound like a secure love to you? Romans 8:35-39 confirms the security of God's love for us:
35) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36) As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38) For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39) Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Consequently, when we sin, we don't fall out of grace rather we fall into grace--"where sin did abound grace did much more abound."(9) Only in Christ can the deepest longing of our soul for unconditional love and acceptance be totally, completely, and continually meet.
This is the steady and sure love that needs to be written on the hard drive of our children's souls.(10) This is the kind of love that will confidently carry our children into the future and successfully defend their hearts when they are under attack. We all know there is a difference between desiring to love our children and actually loving them in such a fashion that they develop a secure love. In Ephesians 5:25, Paul offers Christ's sacrificial love for the church as a picture of the love a husband ought to have for his wife. Likewise, the secure love we possess in Jesus Christ is the same love we need to communicate to our children.
Incomplete Love
My wife constantly reminds me that the decisions I make demonstrate what is really important to me. Our kids are perceptive little people. They intuitively know when they are being dismissed or demoted on our priority list. In Grace-Based Parenting, Tim Kimmel acknowledges that the love we communicate to our children is often incomplete when they feel they constantly have to compete for it.(11) Kimmel writes, "We tell them we love them and then they watch us make decisions regarding careers, our friends, or our pastimes that directly undermined our ability to invest the time in them that love requires."(12) To be clear, working and paying the bills is part of the Pauline parenting paradigm:
- I Timothy 5:8—But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
- II Thessalonians 3:10—For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
Most children understand that work is necessary for the well being of the family. However, they also know when we make deliberate choices to take something from them that they vitally need so we can enhance our careers. When parents make selfish choices, they communicate an insecure love to their children. While children may not question that we love them, they simply feel like we love other things more.(13)
There is a second way that parents communicate incomplete love to children according to Tim Kimmel. Our parental love is incomplete and violates the principles of grace when we make our kids feel like they have to earn it.(14) "They figure out that they receive praise and pride when they do things that make us look good or make our jobs as parents easier. These are kids, who have to process a lot of guilt before they can find approval."(15) Does this sound like the unconditional love and acceptance we enjoy in Jesus Christ described above? As parents we need to remember that any time we find ourselves operating on the basis of a system of performance-based acceptance, God the Holy Spirit is not leading us to function in that fashion. Galatians 5:18 makes this vividly clear, "But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law."
Definition of Love
Without launching into a lengthy dissertation on the various Greek words that are translated charity or love in the King James Bible, most believers know that love is not primarily a feeling but a choice. As Christ faced the cross on the eve of his crucifixion, it was not warm romantic feelings that compelled him to willingly be tortured and die on our behalf. Rather, it was a love that chose to be submissive to the will of the father. In the late 1970s Christian musician Don Francisco sang "love is not a feeling it's an act of your will."
Accordingly, Tim Kimmel offers the following definition of love in Grace-Based Parenting:
Love is the commitment of my will
to your needs and best interests,
regardless of the cost.
Line one expresses the reality that doing what is loving often does not come naturally. We must muster the strength to place our feelings in check and make decisions based upon the commitments we have made before God and to our families. The Apostle Paul touches upon the reality of line two in Galatians 5:13, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." The liberty grace has provided sets us free to serve others before ourselves. "Love see our needs as a "B" priority compared with the interests of the person we are called to love . . . Love is about meeting their actual needs, not their selfish needs."(16) Consequently, we are not demonstrating love when we indulge our children in what they want or when we attempt to circumvent the consequences of sin in their lives. Lastly, secure love acknowledges that loving someone is often inconvenient and painful. Loving our kids costs money, time, sleep, and often careers. Christ's love for us cost him his own life and stands out as the ultimate expression of the cost of providing a secure love.
Practical Tips for Making Love Secure
"We've got to love them (our kids) in the way that God loves us—when they're unappreciative, when they don't deserve it, when it's inconvenient, when it is costly to us, even when it's painful." The following three statements when administered consistently build an authentic secure love in the hearts of our children that will help stabilize them into adulthood: 1) children feel secure when they know they are accepted as they are, 2) children feel secure when they know they are affiliated with a loving and honoring family 3) children feel secure love when they receive regular and generous helpings of affection.
While points two and three seem like no brainers, point one requires further explanation. To be clear, because our children are born sinners in Adam, there are many thoughts and attitudes our kids possess that we do not have to accept. "Selfishness, disrespect, deceit, and any other sinful action do not have to be condoned or tolerated." However, when I speak of acceptance, I am talking about those things that are part of our children's personal makeup. "These are the unique things that make them individuals—the emotional, intellectual, and physical DNA. These are also the things that have no moral problems affixed to them. Many of our kids do things that annoy, frustrate, or embarrass us but they are not wrong. Every time we point these things out, we tell them that they don't measure up. This builds insecurity in them."(17) Kimmel writes the following to illustrate his point:
Boys are often berated because they are noisy, messy, or aggressive. Girls are often criticized for being too emotional, picky, or overly sensitive. Some kids are criticized for being slow, forgetful, or inquisitive, or for saying whatever pops into their heads. They have a hard time getting up, struggle in certain subjects in school, and are often taunted regarding physical features like eyes, nose, teeth, neck, knees, feet, voice, hair texture, or their completion.
Boys are criticized for liking girls; girls are criticized for liking boys. Some boys don't like sports. Some girls don't like to play house. Teenagers need more sleep . . . Kids go through awkward times where they don't' think they're attractive, smart, or interesting.(18)
As parents we need to be communicating nothing but acceptance for the unique characteristics of our children. Under grace, God accepts all of our uniqueness without requiring us to conform to some arbitrary standard, parents should follow suit with our own kids. When parents treat their children in same way God treats, us we demonstrate in real terms the acceptance God for all of our unique characteristics.
Endnotes:
- Tim Kimmel. Grace-Based Parenting. (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2004), 46.
- Romans 5:10
- Ephesians 2:8-9
- Romans 5:9
- Romans 5:1
- Ephesians 4:30
- Galatians 4:5, Romans 8:14-17
- Ephesians 2:6
- Romans 5:20
- Kimmel. Grace-Based Parenting. 46.
- Ibid., 49.
- Ibid., 49.
- Ibid., 50.
- Ibid., 51.
- Ibid., 51.
- Ibid., 52.
- Ibid., 55.
- Ibid., 55
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