Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why that Matters for Our Parenting

By Christina Fox

Reveal God to your children by parenting them like He parents us.

Tired of all the parenting books full of strategic checklists, how-to advice, and quick tips? If so, this book is for you. Instead of focusing on parenting techniques, it’s about who God is, who we are in light of that, and how God’s character gives form and shape to our parenting.

Christina Fox wants you to explore the Scriptures with her and discover the goodness of the God who makes us His own. As God’s beloved creatures, we bear His image—that is, we show others who He is as we glorify Him. Is anything more important to pass on to our children than this? In Like Our Father, you’ll learn to parent in light of the timeless and profound truths that God:

• Is our adoptive Father
• Is consistent
• Provides boundaries
• Teaches and trains us
• Disciplines us
• Gives us what we need
• Responds patiently
• Loves us unconditionally

Though it’s tempting to want a step-by-step instructional manual on how to raise kids, what you really need is a clearer, grander, bolder vision of your Heavenly Father. When you’ve got His character before your eyes, you’ll live it out in front of your kids. And as they share in your magnified vision of God, they’ll begin to live as the image-bearers that He made them to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Release date: Mar 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9780802477439

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Istill remember the day we brought our first child home from the hospital. He was five days old and had already endured a difficult delivery following a category 3 hurricane that brought our seaside town to a standstill. I had complications following his birth, so we stayed at the storm-damaged hospital for a few more days while we both underwent tests and visits from multiple specialists. Friends and family came to visit and reported the wreckage Hurricane Jeanne left in her wake.

The morning the nurse came in and said I was ready to be discharged, I nearly blurted out, Who says? Those first few days of parenting had already left me feeling like a failure; what would happen once we were set free from the safety of the hospital where knowledgeable staff appeared at the click of a button? Wouldn’t it be safer to just remain there?

My husband carefully placed our nearly ten-pound son in his blue plaid carrier for the first time and buckled him in. As we walked down the hall toward the elevator, I kept turning around, expecting a nurse to come running down the hall to give us final take-off instructions. No one came. We left with nothing but the lingering promise from the nursing coach that she would follow up in a few days.

We arrived home to a yard filled with debris from the storm and a living room with stacks of boxes, packed with our most important belongings that we’d brought with us when we sought shelter during the hurricane. Our cluttered and disheveled home mirrored how I felt: like everything had been flipped upside down.

I looked at my son and then at my husband. Now what? I asked.

I asked the question most of us ask when we first become a parent: What do we do now? Just how do we do this parenting thing?

Those first few weeks (okay, months) we focused on survival. We were like a blind person stumbling about in unfamiliar terrain. Everything about parenting was new and scary and uncertain. We reached out and grasped at whatever we could find to lead us in the darkness. We had so many questions, many of which were left unanswered.

What I wanted most was for someone to come in and write out a step-by-step plan I could follow. While there were some helpful tools and resources available, I still felt uncertain. I often looked at my son and wondered, Am I doing this right?

These days, our children are older (and far taller than I!) but our parenting questions continue. Some days, the teenage years seem harder than those first days with our newborn. Often, parenting feels like the blind leading the blind. We still wonder: What should we do? Should we say yes to this request or no to that one? How do we respond to this situation? How do we help our teen navigate this challenge? Indeed, there are often more questions than answers.

Every parent has questions, and this book is about the questions we ask as parents; but as you’ll soon see, its focus is on one important and foundational question. It is this question that helps shape how we respond to all the others. For that reason, this book is different than many other parenting books.

A Different Kind of Parenting Book

I don’t know about you, but I have at least a dozen parenting books sitting on my bookshelves, and I’ve read many more besides. Maybe you have too. Each of these books provides methods and solutions to parenting challenges. They promote specific ways to parent children at different ages and stages. They include rules and checklists and anecdotes. They all seek to provide insight into the mysterious club we suddenly find ourselves in when our child is first placed in our arms at the hospital or at the courthouse following an adoption.

Some of these parenting books are written by seasoned parents who discovered an effective method for their three children and want to share it with us because, after all, if it worked for them, surely it will work for us too! Many are written by parenting gurus and professionals whose worldview is far different from ours, so we find ourselves weeding through the pages to find out what is true and helpful while setting aside all that is not. Others are written by medical professionals who throw around frightening statistics and warnings but provide little in the way of encouragement.

This book is a different kind of parenting book in that it is not a how-to book. There are not ten steps to follow. There is no list of ways to get your child to stop doing something. That’s because this book isn’t about techniques, strategies, or methods. I’m not a parenting guru. I’m not even one who has a personal method I’ve used that I want to pass on to you. Instead, this book is about who God is, who we are, and how that gives form and shape to our parenting.

What to Expect

So, what can you expect from this book? You can expect to learn about God and yourself. You can expect to reflect on your relationship with God and what it means to you that He is your Father. You can expect encouragement from the gospel. You can expect to close the book at the end, refreshed from the glorious truths of how God works in your life. And you can expect encouragement and insight into imaging God to your children.

More specifically: Chapter 1 focuses on how we were created as image bearers and what that means for us in terms of who we are and our purpose in life. Chapter 2 looks at our adoption as children into the family of God and what a wonderful privilege it is to call God Father. The remaining chapters look at specific ways God parents us and how, as image bearers, we can image Him in our own parenting.

We’ll see how God is consistent in how He relates to us and what it means to image God as we are consistent with our children. We’ll look at the boundaries and limits God sets for us and what it means for the limits we set in our home. We’ll look at how God teaches us, disciplines us, and provides for us and what this means for our own parenting. We’ll also look at God’s love and patience for us and how we image those characteristics to our children.

At the end of each chapter, you’ll find discussion questions for personal or group use. Consider meeting with a friend who is knee deep in the trenches of parenting and discuss each chapter together. Meet with a mentor, one who is further along on the parenting journey, and talk about what you learn. Discuss the book in a small group with other parents.

As a fellow parent, join me as we set aside all our how-to questions about parenting and consider the fundamental question: Who?

1

IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

What is your most pressing parenting question right now? Whatever age and stage your child is currently in, you likely have a question at the forefront of your mind. A question that nags at you throughout the day. A question about what to do and how to do it. A question about how to help your child with something. A question about what to say yes to and what to say no to. Not knowing the answer likely leaves you feeling frustrated and helpless.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had questions about parenting since the moment my first child was born. Sixteen years later, the questions continue. These questions change with the child’s age and stage, situation and circumstance, and even with what is going on in the world around me at the time. Often, I’ve wanted someone to step in and just tell me what to do.

Perhaps some of these questions resonate with you:

• When should I expect my child to crawl, walk, speak, or ____?

• How do I get my child to sleep through the night?

• What do I do when my child won’t do ____?

• How do I talk to my child about ____?

• How do I help my child make friends?

• How do I teach my child to ____?

• Should I let my child ____, listen to ____, watch ____?

All parents have questions about raising children. I once had a job working as a counselor for families in crisis. One of my main tasks was to meet with families in their homes, observe the parents’ interactions with their children, and then teach them parenting skills.

During our first few sessions, I liked to help these parents create a foundation upon which they could build their parenting. I wanted them to think through their purpose and goals for parenting. I wanted to help them see the big picture before we zeroed in on the specifics.

What I quickly found is that most parents did not want to look at the big picture. They wanted me to help address the current problem at hand. They often said things to me like, Just tell me what to do when my son says ____ or does ____. Or, Tell me what to do to get my daughter to stop ____. They wanted me to answer their most pressing question: How?

Fast-forward a number of years. I had my first child and found myself flipping through the pages of parenting books at the bookstore wondering the same thing those parents once asked me: How do I get my baby to sleep longer stretches? How do I keep my toddler from touching things that can hurt him? How do I handle conflicts during playdates? And most importantly, How do I keep my patience in all the chaos?

While just about everything in life seems to come with an instruction manual, our children do not. This does not mean people haven’t tried to develop such manuals. Bookstores are lined with them. There are magazines focused entirely on parenting. Browse online and you’ll find plenty of blogs providing how-to lists like Ten Ways to Get Your Child to Eat Vegetables or Three Steps to Getting Your Child to Pick Up After Themselves. You know those blogs. You click on them in anticipation, follow the steps word for word, only to find that the solution simply did not work with your child. Or perhaps it was helpful with one child but not the other. Or maybe your child responded positively at first, but then the method fell flat and you were back to where you started.

Perhaps you’ve opened your Bible hoping for some parenting help but found little in the way of step-by-step instruction. There doesn’t seem to be an answer to the How? questions of parenthood. That’s interesting, isn’t it? As much as we would like it to, we can’t open the Bible and expect to find a verse or passage that says, When your child will only eat chicken nuggets three times a day, do this: ____. Or, When your child has trouble making friends in school, do these three things: ____. Or, Two steps to get your child to say please and thank you. This is true for many things in life, including questions about employment and marriage and the future. That’s because the Bible isn’t a step-by-step manual on how to live life. It’s the story of God’s redemption for His people. It’s the story of who God is and what He has done for us in Christ.

Yet don’t despair, dear friend! God’s Word does have things to teach us as parents. The Bible may not answer the question how? but it does answer the question who? God’s Word teaches us who He is and who we are, and these truths both have a significant impact on how we parent. While the Bible may not provide steps and procedures to follow, it does point us to truths that can shape the whole of our parenting.

Let’s start exploring this question of who? by going back to the beginning, to the book of Genesis. There we’ll get a picture of who God is and who we are.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, God … (Gen. 1:1).

As the first book of the Bible, Genesis lays the foundation for all that is to come. Its name is telling, for the word genesis means beginning, and the book tells us how everything came to be. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible to instruct Israel about the God who rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They had been in bondage for four hundred years, living in a land ruled by pharaohs and filled with idols to thousands of gods. They needed to know not only who God is, but who they were as well.

Genesis 1 and 2 recounts the story of creation—how God spoke this world into being, filled it with life, and placed humankind on it. Genesis 1:3 tells us God merely called forth light, and the light appeared; He spoke, and there it was. When we walk into a dark room, we have to toggle on the light switch before the lamp comes on. Yet, God, the Maker, speaks and all life appears ex nihilo, out of nothing. These beginning verses of Genesis are fundamental to our understanding of who God is: He is the Creator and sustainer of all things; He is the first cause to our existence. We are His creatures and are dependent on Him.

The creation account then tells us how God brought shape and form to the earth and then filled it with plants like grass, trees, and flowers, and with creatures like fish, birds, and bears. The Bible tells us the plants and trees were to sprout forth more plants and trees according to its kind (1:11). It also tells us that God made birds and fish and other animals according to their kinds (1:21). God then looked at His creation and called it good.

Then the Bible tells us about the creation of human beings. This account stands out from the rest of