Before becoming a parent, I had a lot more time to read, so I'd plow though quite a bit of stuff, trying to figure out what was good and what was bad. Now that I am a parent, my time to read is significantly...reduced...and I have to be a bit more careful with what I read, to make sure it's valuable. I've started many books and not finished them because they turned out not to be worth the time.

So with that in mind, I'd like to recommend the absolute best book on parenting I've ever read, and the best book I've read (start to finish!) in a long, long time: Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus.

Far from a how-to book that promises perfect kids and instant results, Give Them Grace is primarily a theological book, dealing with the "why?" behind not only your child's actions but your responses to them. It focuses on getting to the heart of the matter: our broken and sinful hearts. It's only when we understand WHY we're doing something, why our kids are doing something, that we can respond with words and actions that will point them towards Jesus and the cross, not towards morality becoming their ultimate ideal. Or ours.

Now you might be saying, "A theology book? How is that going to help me unless it's thick enough to use on their backsides?" Trust me, I was in the same boat when I picked this book up. I'd just started (but not finished!) another book on raising strong-willed children, and as godly as I'm sure the author is, the book (what I managed to get through) left me lacking. It offered a few tips on how to curb, control or deter unpleasant behavior, but never addressed how to stop the desire for the bad behaviors. Give Them Grace, however, hits the nail right on the head.

Perhaps the biggest responsibility we have as parents is to be evangelists to our children. It's our job, not the children's church worker, the youth pastor, or anyone else in the church's job, to point our children to the loving, open arms of Jesus they all need to find themselves in. As parents, however, we can find ourselves focused on more immediate tasks: getting them in bed, stop the hitting, the biting, the back-talking, having them eat the dinner you made the first time, choosing the right friends, respecting you, etc., etc. You know, the kind of things you're REALLY worried about when they're going nuclear in Target and everyone's watching.

Yet politeness and manner, good friends and good grades should not, cannot, become our goal and measurement of our kids or our parenting. It must, MUST, be our primary goal to explain their broken state before God, how that leads to bad actions and attitudes, and how only turning to Jesus, over and over again, will transform not only their actions but their DESIRE for those actions.

If you want peace and quite, focus on their actions. If you want children passionately pursuing Jesus in thoughts and actions, focus on their hearts.

Nothing I've read is more helpful in teaching me how to do this than Give Them Grace. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

-Pastor Clayton