Even the Perfect Parent Failed!

What characteristics would you list for a perfect parent?

Spends time with their child every day. Talking and conversing.

Meets the many needs of their child every single day. Physical, spiritual, emotional.

Provide for their child every day. Food, shelter, even a few little extras to make life fun and enjoyable.

Sets rules and guidelines for their child to follow. To protect them, to give them boundaries, to show them they are loved.

You would think that a parent who did ALL of these things EVERY day would raise wonderful, loving, obedient children who honored their parents and loved and respected them right? WRONG!

God was that perfect parent to Adam and Eve (and every living human being since).

The Bible says that God walked with Adam in the cool of the day.
We know that God met every need Adam had and provided him a paradise in which to live.
We know that he created Eve so that Adam would have a helpmeet.
We know that God gave Adam every tree (except one) to eat from.
And we know that God set up limits and boundaries in Adam and Eve's lives to protect them from pain and death (Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil).
We know that God loved them with all that he had and that he gave and showed his love to them in every way possible.

And we know that he FAILED to raise perfect children. Adam and Eve were disobedient, willful, untruthful, and played the blame game at the first sign of trouble. They brought sin and death into the world. Adam and Eve had the perfect parent, they wanted for nothing and yet their FREE WILL led them astray.

My husband and I pour into our children everyday! We give them all that we can. We give them our time, we give them all that they need and a lot of what they desire, We are in no way perfect or even average! We make lots of mistakes (LOTS) and we stumble and fall.

And there are days that I KNOW I am messing up these kids in the worst way possible. And there are days I KNOW that I am one (just one) mistake away from them hating me and walking out the door the day they turn 18 and NEVER looking back! But then there are days when my oldest comes over and sits by me on the couch, puts his head on my shoulder and says, "Your the best Mommy (yep, he still calls me Mommy) ever!"

I watch my children worship in church, give all that they have to God, spend hours and hours memorizing scripture and I think to myself okay I must be doing a pretty good job at this whole parenting thing!

And then I stop in my tracks and realize that it's not ME! IT'S HIM! It's the perfect parent, loving them through me, through my faults and through my failures. It's HIS love that wins them over. It's HIS blood that covers over my mistakes and lets them see and feel REAL LOVE! It's HIS reaching arms, and loving heart that draws them close to my feeble mistake ridden heart.

HE IS THE PERFECT PARENT! Loving imperfect children through even more imperfect parents and drawing and leading us all to a PERFECT CROSS where PERFECT LOVE gave ALL!