“I have one regret of how I parented,” my friend David Towne told me. I leaned forward. David is a godly man married to a godly wife. He’s kind and gentle and wise. As an educator, he’s witnessed a lot of parenting, good and bad, in his day. His adult children have had their struggles but are good people. I would ask him for parenting advice in a second. What was his greatest regret?

“I wish I would’ve shown my kids my need for Christ more. I worked so hard to show them my godliness that I didn’t show them my need. I should have been more transparent. I should have shown them just how much I needed Jesus.”

In the early years of parenting it’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of strategies. You can parent with a positive approach, the whole-brain approach, the attachment method, the Montessori method or the Waldorf method, or the love and logic philosophy. The options can feel overwhelming. Proponents of each method tend to focus on methodology. As a young parent, it’s easy to think that your decisions around how to respond to your crying infant or how to discipline your disobedient toddler are definitive forks in the road.

I don’t want to diminish what is at stake at these junctures. The Bible is clear that part of our responsibility as parents is to discipline our children. We are to “train up a child,” not give our children free rein. Recognizing that we are all born in sin and in need of redemption ought to shape how we parent (you can find more on that in our recent sermon on what Proverbs says about the family and discipline here).

As a parent, transitions keep coming. As soon as we’ve figured out the infant stage, the toddler stage is on us. As soon as we’ve figured out how to parent our toddlers, they’re into early childhood. And on it goes! Once you enter into the middle years of parenting, you transition into a coach, and finally into a mentor. There are challenges at every stage, but my friend’s advice is valid at every stage.

If the true north of our parenting is drawing our children to God, there is nothing more powerful at every stage than showing them that we desire God every bit as much as we want them to. If a healthy parent-child relationship is characterized by trust, vulnerability is a must. Few things strengthen trust in any relationship more than entrusting the other with intimate stories of our failure and hurt. A parent-child relationship isn’t exempt from this reality. Discretion is undoubtedly needed. A child should not be asked to wield burdens too heavy for them. And yet, withholding our failures from our children stunts our relationship with them and their relationship with God in profound ways.

I hope my kids learn from me that God has refined me through the years. By God’s grace, John the 42-year-old man is more sanctified than John the 15-year-old teen. And yet, John the 42-year-old man is still a man who is in need of sanctification. I daily sin and I desperately need Jesus, hour-by-hour, day-by-day. If the discipline and wisdom I offer my kids comes from a place as a fellow sinner and fool it is offered and received from a completely different posture than if I offer discipline and wisdom to my kids as one untouched by sin and failure.

If my kids learn nothing else from me but our deep need for Jesus, I will feel pretty good about what I’ve passed on to them.

Show your kids your need for Jesus. And let him do the rest.

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash