One of the Best Parenting Moves My Parents Ever Made

FEAST 024 :: One of the Best Parenting Moves My Parents Ever Made

Humility is hard for Millennial kids.

My parents were those somewhat-typical parents who basically built their schedules entirely around my sister and I. They were running us from school to practice, or practice to home for dinner, then to the second activity of the night (and so on). We were the center of their world.

Honestly, as a kid, it was a pretty great. Their world revolved around me and my sister. We had their attention, and to a kid, attention is kind of everything. Attention is…love. Especially at that age. And their attention – we almost always had. Almost.

A NEW PRACTICE

I’m not sure I know exactly when it started, but I’d guess some time around late elementary school for me is about right, but my parents decided to put into practice something new. They decided to start meeting up, about once a month, with two other couple they had known since they were a young married couple. The group of friends had drifted a bit, but the three families made a decision together to make time for a monthly gathering.

ONE time a month, they decided to prioritize themselves over us kids.

And I HATED IT.

AWKWARD

These other two families had kids about our age. And to be honest, they were plenty nice. Sure, there were some pieces that were a little awkward (but who isn’t awkward at that stage), and we weren’t really interested in a lot of the same activities or subjects of conversation. But the issue wasn’t really that these kids were bad to spend time with; that’s not why I hated it. I hated it because they weren’t MY friends. And because I couldn’t do what I WANTED to do.

I HATED IT.

BEST PARENTING MOVE

And that’s why I call this one of the best parenting moves my parents ever made. They prioritized me and my sister almost always, and so once a month, we could “suffer” through a less-than-ideal social situation so that they could connect with friends and be encouraged. What that taught me was that not everything is about me.

HUMILITY

Through this simple act, my parents were teaching me humility. Was it always humility based in a love for, and submission to, Christ? No, but it was starting me down that path (and I had work that needed to be done there to be sure).

Biblical humility is an essential part of following Jesus well. Romans 12:3 talks about it this way: ³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. This passage does work on us (or should) in two ways. First, we must be humble before God. He’s so much greater than we are that it’s almost laughable to compare.

COMPARISON

But for most of us, comparison to God is not the kind of humility we most struggle with. Rather, we struggle with the second kind of comparison: comparison to one another. Romans 12 continues on to talk about the one body with many parts, and that each part needs the other. This kind of humility is toward one another in the body of Christ; we need each other, and since we do, we should be humble with one another.

Philippians 2 digs into that same idea a little more:

 ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Humility is the call of our lives. Why? Well, because it’s good and noble and helpful for starters. But even more so because Jesus, King of the Universe himself, chose humility. His act of selfless humility is what gives every person on Earth the opportunity to be saved.

In other words, humility can do some amazing things.

BALANCE

There is a delicate balance to strike in parenting. On one hand, we are given children as a stewardship to be cultivated and cared for and discipled, so they require a lot of our attention and time and focus. On the other, we are tasked with helping them learn true, biblical, spiritual humility. Humility – acknowledging that God is more important than me, and others’ needs often are more important than mine – is an essential part of growing faith in our children.

You don’t necessarily need to start a social club with your old friends to teach humility. In fairness, I’m not sure that’s even why my parents did that. But we do need to work to make sure that kids care more about Jesus and more about others than always fulfilling their own wants and desires. They need humility to grow.

How can we teach humility to our kids this week?

Until the next Feast,

Brian Martin

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