<\/p>\n
I have a son who is beginning to think about college, and it\u2019s not only nerve-wracking for him, it\u2019s nerve-wracking for me! There are many factors to consider and elements to prepare, and the competition is so tight it\u2019s overwhelming! That\u2019s when I encourage myself to take a deep breath and step back. God created him, and he knows what\u2019s best for him. God is holding everything in his hands. I remember Proverbs 16:3, \u201cCommit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.\u201d Also, Proverbs 16:9 says, \u201cIn their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.\u201d We are not parenting alone, and God can be trusted.<\/p>\n
While modern culture might paint a complicated picture of to-do\u2019s, faith provides us with the tunnel vision to see what\u2019s most important. We have three main jobs as Christian parents. First, our children must know that we unconditionally love them as parents. They depend upon it. Second, our children need to know the unconditional love of God. Knowing the Perfect Parent opens the door to a God who can love them whole when we as parents aren\u2019t perfect or our children make mistakes. Finally, we as parents are called to provide our children with resources within our capability to help them fulfill their God-given destiny. When we support God\u2019s vision for our children\u2019s lives, as opposed to sometimes our vision, we achieve the sacred task of parenting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This advice is contrary to modern parenting today, which can paint parenting as an exercise of ego. In other words, parents live vicariously through their children and their performance. In her book Never Enough<\/em>, New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Wallace writes about how parents are apt to pick colleges or activities based on their prestige rather than an honest assessment of their child\u2019s fit. This makes their children unhappy and ultimately less successful. By tuning into our children and who God created them to be, we augment their happiness and reap the reward.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a hard time to parent, but faith affords us the necessary vantage point to focus on what\u2019s most important. When we successfully navigate these five modern challenges, we serve as channels of blessing to our family. God can use our willingness to be salt, or something different, in his service and usher in our reward. Happier marriages, healthier families, and safeguarded intangibles are the first steps in the right direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Photo Credit \u00a0\u00a9iStockGettyImagesPlussamritk<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have a son who is beginning to think about college, and it\u2019s not only nerve-wracking for him, it\u2019s nerve-wracking for me! There are many factors to consider and elements to prepare, and the competition is so tight it\u2019s overwhelming! That\u2019s when I encourage myself to take a deep breath and step back. God created<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[273,72,1002,528,1107],"class_list":["post-23947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-challenges","tag-christian","tag-face","tag-families","tag-modern"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}