PARENTING - A THANKLESS JOB!

This morning after I had dropped my children off at school the thought crossed my mind that “sometimes it is quite a thankless job being a parent”.  God immediately replied “Tell me about it Noel. I totally agree with you! You didn’t even greet me when you woke up this morning and it has been quite a while since you have taken the time to just sit and look at the wonderful world I created for you, never mind thank me for it.  You take a lot of things for granted, my child”.

As I reflected on this I realized that God must sometimes feel exactly the same way about my attitude as I do about my children’s attitude.  He must look down at me and think “My child, why are you so thankless”.

We provide a home for our children, work hard to feed and clothe them and give them a good education.  We love them and care for them and yet at times we feel discouraged when it seems that everything we do is just taken for granted and there is little sense of appreciation of what they have.  Can you just imagine how God must feel?  He gave His only Son to die a horrific death on the cross so that we could have fullness of life here on earth and eternal life with Him and yet how often do we just take that for granted?

We grumble and complain that we don’t have this or that.  We constantly ask God to bless us and help us and give Him a list of demands of our ‘needs’ and then get upset when those ‘needs’ are not met in the way we want them to be.

God disciplines us because He cares for us and does not want any harm to befall us and yet we rebel against Him because we want to live our own lives.  We don’t want to have to love and care for everybody.  We don’t want to have to practice self-control and not swear at the taxi driver who is blatantly breaking the law and driving dangerously.  We don’t have ‘time’ to pray and meditate on God’s word on a daily basis.

That last ‘we don’t’ brought me up short as I realized that my children must feel exactly the same way about me as God does at times.  I often don’t have ‘time’ for them.  I am so busy working, cleaning, lifting, cooking and doing a myriad of things that are actually not that important that I don’t have time to just ‘be’ with them.  The two most common sentences that they hear me utter are “not now, I am busy” and “I am so tired”.  Basically time is all we have and we can either use it well or waste it.

“I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation”.

(2 Corinthians 6:2)

 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1)