# 289 05/09/05 Your ‘parenting plan’ should include a covenant

The most important job in the world -parenting -requires no training. Most people learn only what they see their parents do. If we knew what a big responsibility parenting was, we might put more thought into our overall plan. In the past, I have suggested that expectant parents should spend time laying out a foundation for their child rearing practices. There is something else they should do for their children. They should make a covenant.

The study of covenant relationships in Scripture reveals their important characteristics. Some examples of covenants are God with Abram, Genesis 15; Jonathan with David, I Samuel 18:1-4; and God with those who accept Christ as their Savior, John 3:16. These covenants, made between a superior and a subordinate, are one sided. They are made because of love, and they involve sacrifice by the one making the covenant.

A parent/child covenant is one-sided because only the parents make it. They do so because of their love for the child. Finally, as any parent knows, it involves sacrifice.

What should a covenant with your child include? It is obvious that it should include a promise to provide food, shelter and safety during the growing years. It should also include a pledge to teach the foundations of the faith as well as instructions about how to love God and fellowman. And, an often-overlooked responsibility of parenting is to love unconditionally.

God provides the perfect model of unconditional love. Our imperfect attempt to love our children in the same way helps them understand God’s unconditional love.

Sometimes it is hard to love children unconditionally. When we have instructed them again and again, they may still choose to disobey. They refuse to talk to us when we long for communication. They often seem ungrateful for all we do. They only seek us when they need something. They act so - human! In fact, they treat our love exactly the way we treat God’s love.

I am grateful for God’s covenant with me, and that it includes unconditional love! A child is indeed blessed if his parents’ covenant with him also includes unconditional love.