If you have been a parent for more than probably five minutes, you have realized humility and parenting often go together. When those rare minutes occur that allow you to think ever so briefly you might actually be a half way decent parent, something will happen to remind you to be humble. (My personal list is very long!)
The older I get, the more I realize how vitally important godly humility is for Christian parenting our children. It’s what allows us to seek guidance and wisdom from God and experienced Christian parents instead of making unnecessary and potentially devastating mistakes. Humility is also what will keep us and our children following God and not making up our own “bible”.
Pride is what ultimately caused Eve to choose to eat that forbidden fruit and pride can and will cause us and our children to stumble and sin. So what do we need to teach our kids so they will be truly humble and yet avoid being doormats?
Recently, I was offered an opportunity to review the book, The Blessing of Humility by Jerry Bridges. Bridges, recently deceased, was a well known Christian author. He takes the concept of humility and looks at it, first through the lens of the Beatitudes and then through the entire Gospel.
Because of his advanced age, one could assume this book would contain a lot of dated ideas. Yet, Bridges discusses topics like social justice, attaining perfection, God “owning” our lives and the Gospel in ways that would be considered radical by many. I tend to mark passages in books that make me think about things in new ways or are great ways of expressing biblical ideas to people who have not encountered them before. I found at least a half dozen that to me would make the book worth reading.
At first, a reader may be a little surprised at or even unimpressed by the style of the book. I encourage you to continue reading, even though it was not written in the more popular self-help style. The book reads more like a sermon, but it contains many biblical truths and ideas worth pondering. The style may make it a somewhat slower read, but that’s probably a good thing. It will give you the time to actually think instead of the normal skimming many of us do when reading today.
I appreciate that the author didn’t just stop at telling readers how to become humble by only making changes in a few attitudes. He expands the idea of humility to discussing ideas like the need for social justice, but the necessity of pairing it with faith sharing or the concept of the Gospel as not just a door through which to walk for salvation, but a blueprint for the remainder of one’s life.
Taking the time to read this book will give you a lot of great concepts and godly principles to teach your children about humility. It will give you ideas of practical things you can do with your kids to practice humility. It may even give you some new ideas on humility to ponder and compare to scripture for yourself – “Perfection is unattainable, but if we reach for it, we will achieve excellence”. Or reminders like Peter’s instruction to “Honor the Emperor” was probably written about Nero – could change your worldview in some amazing ways.
This book was given to me for free in exchange for my honest review. An affiliate link is included for your convenience.