A friend of mine recently emailed a question pertaining to the parenting-faith dynamic. I thought I’d share her question and the response my wife and I gave. Below is a just a slightly modified copy of the email conversation we had.
I was reading a devotional today about idols. It was more focused on what idols are and what constitutes an idol in our daily lives. I started to think it sounded an awful lot like being a good parent. Example: putting something as the most important thing in your life, what you live for, what gets your time and energy, etc…
Now, I know that God SHOULD be the most important thing in my life, be what I live for, and get my time and energy but realistically…I think [my son] and [my husband] seem to fit that description more (yikes).
I guess here are my questions:
Is this idolatry?
Is there some portion of this that IS worship to God by serving my husband and son or am I just justifying making my family an idol?
How do I keep God first in a very child centered world?
Wow. We really are going big here.
Ok, I’ll write down some thoughts, and then have Merry add some thoughts.
There are definitely some similarities between a description of idols and of good parenting. I think it is impossible to be a good parent without making your kid(s) more important that your own life. I suppose there are some semantic/hair splitting/distinctions to be made. My children are infinitely more important to me than my own life. In actuality, Merry and the kids are more important to me than anything on this earth. So in the context of this temporal life, they are the most important things. That does not mean they are the absolute most important thing to me. It is possible for me to distinguish between the most important thing to me in this life (family) and the most important thing to me (Jesus). Being a good husband/wife/parent absolutely requires placing your family above yourself, loving their well being above your own well being, delighting in their joy, etc. There is nothing antibiblical about this. Paul himself commands husbands to love their wives like Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25). And how did Jesus love the church? In a way that valued the church above his own life so that “he gave himself up for her”. That is the biblical command for us to follow: to love in such a way that the other is more important than me. That is not idol worship. It is biblical family life. This brings glory to God.
Here is the key to distinguishing between this God-glorifying selfless love and idolatry. It becomes idolatry when the love of family becomes more important than obeying God. Here’s an example. As stated, I love my family more than my own life. I would take bullet to the face for any of them. Yet if I sincerely felt God calling my family to a hostile mission field in which they have a higher likelihood or suffering, I would go. They are more important to me than anything on earth, but not more important than God. Yes you invest more time in them than anything else. That can, but does not necessarily indicate idolatry. The average person spends 8 hours a day sleeping, that doesn’t necessarily mean the bed is their idol. The simple, practical reality is that parenting takes more hours of the day than we can devote to praying. This does not mean God is not important. It’s simply a practical reality. I think the level to which you agree with these statements may help differentiate between godly family service and idolatry:
1. I’m confident I would follow God’s leading in my family, even if it took us somewhere I wouldn’t choose.
2. If the things I treasure on this earth were to be taken from me, devastated as I may be, I could still call God my good King.
3. My identity is rooted more in Jesus than in being the spouse of , and the parent of .
From Merry. Fsheew! Good question and great response! I can remember my mom telling me about when she was first married going through a time of great fear that my dad would die. I don’t know if this period of time went on for weeks or months. She told me that she had to really work on giving my dad to God and determining that she would trust God with his life and trust God if He took his life. I have never been much of a worrier, but I have had moments when paralyzing terror has tried to creep in about Nick or one of my kids dying. In those moments I have to rededicate my family to Him. I say, “God, I don’t know how I could survive losing one of them, but I trust that if you choose to have me walk that path that you will give me the strength and grace to handle it. But please don’t make me!”
For me the daily parenting becoming an idol isn’t as much of an issue because I’m past the stage of them being itty bitty. I’m in the stage where if I’m not asking for God’s patience and help I find myself getting too frustrated by them and irritable. I have to ask God to give me wisdom and patience constantly! I think that by God being my source of ability to parent it is putting Him first. I don’t get to spend much time in solitude with Him so I take as many moments as I can while I am alone driving or in the shower or whatever to pray. I also try to take as many opportunities as I can to bring the kids into my relationship with God. I ask them to help me pray for things or we talk about what we are thankful to God for. We talk about telling others about Jesus. Nick and I try to find opportunities in daily life to explain life with God to our kids.
Ooh! One last thought. The parents I see whose kids have become their idol have spoiled their kids more often than not. It is very hard to discipline and limit them when they are on a pedestal.
We hope this helps.
werdguys 