Impress your Children

I have been reading lately some parenting books.  Why? One, I am a parent and I am looking for insights and help to become a better, more Godly parent!  Two, I am a preschool minister and I have parents constantly asking me for books that could possibly help them out.
(let me add this: the only book that we truly need as a guide for parenting is the Bible. God has also gifted some godly men and women to write with wisdom in this area as well)
The most current book that I have completed is Parenting Beyond Your Capacity, by Reggie Joiner and Carrie Nieuwhof.  An incredible and challenging book on how we parent.

I think, as parents, we all have this hidden (or maybe its not hidden for some) desire for us to prove to the world how great a parent that we are.  We take pride when are kids sit in public and are behaving great, and then the person that is sitting beside us comes over and shares with you how great your children are and how well behaved they have been.  It makes us feel so good.  We love that.  But then there are those instances where they are running all over the store and we feel that everyone is looking at us thinking, she has 'no control' over her kids, 'he can't even keep his kids in their seats', or whatever else it may be.  And we don't leave from those situations with any sense of pride at all, but rather shame and embarrassment.

One of the first lines that stood out to me in this book was this:
"Your role is not to impress your children or anyone else with your ability to parent; your role is to impress your children with the love and nature of God." - page 29, from Parenting Beyond Your Capacity

WOW!!!  We tend to go through parenting as this social club that we have to impress our kids and others with our ability, but the responsibility that we have been given is not to impress anyone else, but to impress your kids with the love and nature of God.  If that doesn't change how and why you parent, then I don't know what will!

Impress your children with the love and nature of God!!!  That's good stuff!