Give Them Grace: Gospel-Centered Parenting

In a recent blog post, Pastor Tullian Tchivdjian recounts a conversation with his son after a crushing basketball defeat.  It's a great example of what gospel-centered parenting could look like and what it means to "pursue the heart" with our children in the lives that they live.

“Dad, I played terrible.”

I said, “I know you don’t think you played well but why does not playing well make you so sad.”

He said (with tremendously keen self-awareness), “Because I’m a basketball player. That’s who I am.”

Somewhere along the way he had concluded (due to success on the basketball court over the years) that his self-worth and value as a person was inextricably tied to his achievements as a basketball player. If he was a good basketball player, then he mattered. If he wasn’t, he didn’t. So a bad game was more than a bad game. It was a direct assault on his identity. I realized in the moment that any attempt to assure him that he was a great basketball player wasn’t going to help him because basketball wasn’t the issue–identity was. He was suffering an identity crisis, not a basketball crisis. A basketball crisis is easy to solve–a little more practice and a lot of encouragement typically does the trick. But an identity crisis is deep. It’s an under the surface problem requiring an under the surface solution  .  .  .  .

.  .  .  .  When most of us stop long enough to consider what establishes our identity, what really makes us who we are, many of us naturally assume the answer is “our performance.” This is precisely what my son was facing.

There are different ways to face a "basketball crisis" with our kids - or in our own lives, for that matter.  We can try to build an environment where they/we will never face the  chance to fail - and with it the chance to experience victory or overcome challenges.  We can try and talk the failure into significance: "It's just a basketball game!"  We can rev them up to work harder, do better, fly higher and leap buildings in a single bound.  We might even move beyond the "basketball crisis" and try deal with the question of identity by trying to change their sense of identity: "Who wants to be a basketball player when you are already the best piccolo player in the school!"

In the end, truly Christian parenting is not just about more time practicing basketball with our kids and cheering them on in their endeavors, though we could all stand to do more of that I'm sure.  Gospel-centered parenting is about reminding and inviting.  Reminding our kids of who Jesus is and the new life He offers us from the cross, and inviting them to place their faith - and their identity - in that Gospel at every step of their life.  And it helps them to see it in us.

Click Here for Tullian's entire post.  It's worth getting the entire story - ESPECIALLY the last paragraph!  It reminded me that I too need to be reminded and invited to live my life "in Christ" every day.