“The glory of God is a human being fully alive; and to be alive consists in beholding God.”
Irenaeus
This afternoon, I have been looking through photos from the past couple of years. This is one of my favorites—Lilian wanted to dress alike and be friends. The matching scarves and hats sealed it. Children mimic and value what they see in front of them.
The glory of God through me as I am fully alive in His love, reflecting His grace in all the ways I live. I consider the wonder of my grandchildren, full of life and fun, running toward me when I come to visit. All of my grandchildren, must behold the glory of God in the ways that I love them, kissing their sweet heads, pretending with them, listening to their questions and engaging in real conversation—to live in the beauty of Christ in front of them—but it must be given intentionally. Clay wrote this in our book, The Lifegiving Parent.
Despite the seeming circularity of his statement, Irenaeus is saying simply that we will become the “fully alive” people God designed us to be only by engaging with the living God. To put it another way, real life is found only in the life of God. That is, essentially, what I believe Moses was saying to parents in the Shema—real life is found only in God, and the life of God in our hearts must be diligently passed on to our children’s hearts. Godly parenting is heart to heart, but it’s also more—it’s life to life. That’s the relational heart of lifegiving parenting.
But don’t miss a hidden-in-plain-sight truth: If lifegiving parenting is about giving our children real life in God so they can be fully alive in Him, then . . . someone’s got to give. That transfer of the life of God to our children does not happen just by good intent or by accident. It happens for one reason only—because we decide that we are the people who’ve got to give. Not another person, group, or church; not an organization, resource, or influence . . . just us. We are the lifegivers. We are the ones who will give the life of God to our children. When we can get our heads, hearts, and hands firmly around that reality, then we’ll be on the path to becoming the lifegiving parents God designed us to be.
