Devotions for Sacred Parenting : A Year of Weekly Devotions for Parents

by Gary Thomas, Bestselling Author of Sacred Marriage

• ISBN13: 9780310255963
• ISBN10: 0310255961
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-03-01
• Publisher: Zondervan

Summary

A companion devotional book to Thomas's "Sacred Parenting." Thomas shares insight and poignant stories of his own experience as a father in these 52 devotionals.

Table of Contents

1. God Is in the Room	9	(3)
2. The Right Person for the Job	12	(3)
3. A Lasting Mark	15	(4)
4. Bringing Joy to Our Heavenly Father	19	(2)
5. Bring the Boy to Me	21	(3)
6. Hiding	24	(3)
7. A Season of Sacrifice	27	(3)
8. What Matters Most	30	(2)
9. The Song of the Barren Woman	32	(3)
10. Fear Factor	35	(3)
11. Rude Is Rude	38	(2)
12. "It Was Like He Never Existed"	40	(3)
13. A Parent to Be Proud Of	43	(3)
14. Cut Down	46	(3)
15. They Just Don't Understand	49	(3)
16. I've Had My Turn	52	(3)
17. Crushed Crayons	55	(3)
18. Hating Sin	58	(3)
19. Eleven-Minute Showers	61	(3)
20. Humble Pie	64	(3)
21. The Happiest Day and the Bigger Blow	67	(3)
22. Farsighted	70	(4)
23. The Vice of the Virtuous	74	(3)
24. Cursed Silence	77	(3)
25. Stop Judging and Start Loving	80	(3)
26. Quiet	83	(3)
27. A House of Love	86	(2)
28. The Eight-Pound Seminary Professor	88	(2)
29. Be Tender, but Be True	90	(3)
30. Nothing in Common	93	(3)
31. "Thanks for Stopping By"	96	(2)
32. Cross Appointments	98	(3)
33. You Complete Me	101	(2)
34. Real Life	103	(2)
35. Finger-Pointing	105	(3)
36. Leading to Righteousness	108	(3)
37. Remember You'll Be Remembered	111	(3)
38. Taken for Granted	114	(3)
39. Treat 'Em Like Grandkids	117	(3)
40. For the Kids	120	(4)
41. The Great Pursuit	124	(2)
42. Pointing toward the Stable	126	(2)
43. Immortals in Our House	128	(2)
44. Overwhelmed	130	(2)
45. Shameful Happiness	132	(3)
46. Cooperative Parenting	135	(3)
47. What You Were Born to Do	138	(3)
48. Divine Disillusionment	141	(4)
49. The Great Transfer	145	(3)
50. The Truth of Tolerance	148	(3)
51. A Little Slice of Heaven	151	(3)
52. A Picture Prophecy	154	(3)
Notes	157

Excerpts

Devotions for Sacred Parenting
Copyright © 2005 by Gary L. Thomas
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thomas, Gary (Gary Lee)
Devotions for sacred parenting : a year of weekly devotions for parents /
Gary L. Thomas.
p. cm.
Summary: “This companion devotional book to Gary Thomas’s Sacred Parenting
works off this simple premise: raising children shapes the parent every bit as much as
parents shape their children. Fifty-two devotions”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-10: 0-310-25596-1 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25596-3
1. Parents—Prayer-books and devotions—English 2. Parenting—Religious
aspects—Christianity. I. Title.
BV4529.T49 2005
242'.645—dc22
2004029452
This edition printed on acid-free paper.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Interior design by Michelle Espinoza
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 11 /. DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We want to hear from you. Please send your comments about this
book to us in care of [e-mail]. Thank you.

God Is in the Room
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139:7–10
I’d like to suggest a motto for Christian family life: “God is in the
room.”
While God is always there, so often we act and think and behave
and speak as if he were not. We fight, we argue, we laugh; we play
games, watch movies, make love, and do just about everything without
even thinking about the implication that God is in the room.
Even though we pray before our common meals, it amazes me
how quickly I can slip back into thinking and acting as if the word
Amen is a kind of curtain that I pull down in front of heaven. I’ve said
my obligatory piece, and now I can carry on as if God has passed
over us rather than taken up residence among us.
Think of how differently we might treat our children in those frustrating
moments if we responded to them with the knowledge that
God is in the room. If we truly believed that the God who designed
them and who is passionate about their welfare was literally looking
over our shoulders, might we be a little more patient, a little more
understanding?
Think of how you might talk with each other, play games together,
support each other, and encourage each other differently—perhaps
much better—if, as you did it all, you consciously remembered that
God is in the room. Our casual compliance with sin is often as much
a forgetfulness of God as it is rebellion against God.
It’s such a simple notion, but it can be so revolutionary: God is in
the room!
This is the straightforward message of a seventeenth-century
monk named Brother Lawrence. In the midst of a busy life, Brother
Lawrence reevaluated his priorities and decided that, more than anything
else in the world, he wanted to practice the presence of God.
At first, he found it a difficult thing to do, though with practice
“[God’s] love brings us to it without any difficulty.” This was no
legalistic exercise, but one born in relational love. “When [Brother
Lawrence] had not thought of [God] for quite a while he did not let
it bother him, but after having acknowledged his wretchedness to
God, he returned to Him with even more confidence for having suffered
such misery in forgetting Him so.”
Over time, “[Brother Lawrence] was more united to God in his
ordinary activities than when he devoted himself to religious activities.”
Indeed, he found that “the best way of reaching God was by
doing ordinary tasks . . . entirely for the love of God.” In Brother
Lawrence’s mind, prayer was not quantifiably different than peeling
potatoes: “It was a great delusion to think that time set aside for
prayer should be different from other times.”
Such an attitude infuses the mundane with the profound: “We
should not weary of doing little things for the love of God who looks
not at the grandeur of these actions but rather at the love with which
they are performed.” Imagine how such an attitude could transform
doing the dishes, driving the daily commute to work, taking care of
the laundry, putting up with a boring or stressful job, or sitting
through yet another soccer tournament.
Brother Lawrence’s goal in life was brilliantly simple: to become
the most perfect adorer (and, I might add, rememberer) of God he
could. But once again, he found it more a matter of delight than obligation:
“We are to be pitied for our willingness to be satisfied with so
little. God has infinite treasures to give us and still we are satisfied
with a brief passing moment of piety.” Brother Lawrence discovered
that “there is no mode of life in the world more pleasing and more
full of delight than continual conversation with God.” It is for this
reason that Brother Lawrence once said, “If I were a preacher, I
would preach nothing else but the practice of the presence of God.”
Though Brother Lawrence didn’t use these terms, he certainly
would agree with the truth: God is in the room.
Tell it to yourself, every morning, every noontime, every evening:
God is in the room.
Tell it to each other, every time you’re tempted to yell, or criticize,
or ridicule, or even ignore each other: God is in the room.
Tell it to your children, throughout the day: God is in the room.
Let’s keep telling it to ourselves and to each other until we practice
it and live it, until we live and breathe with the blessed remembrance:
God is in the room.
God is in the room.
1: God Is in the Room
The Right Person for the Job
But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”
Isaiah 43:1
If you were to ask most seminary professors to name the top ten
preachers of all time, on the vast majority of those lists—if not on
all—would undoubtedly fall the name Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(1834–1892), the celebrated Baptist often referred to as the “prince
of preachers.” His sermons became so popular his church had to build

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Excerpted from Devotions for Sacred Parenting: A Year of Weekly Devotions for Parents by Gary L. Thomas
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.