Parenting Quotes

“God hasn’t just sent you to do his work in the lives of your children; he will use the lives of your children to advance his work in you.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“in every moment when you are parenting, you are being parented. In every moment when you are called to give grace, you are being given grace. In every moment when you are rescuing and protecting your children, you are being rescued and protected. In every moment when you feel alone, you are anything but alone because he goes wherever you go.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“When you think your job is to change your child and you’ve been given the power to do it, your parenting will tend to be demanding , aggressive, threatening, and focused on rules and punishments. In this kind of parenting you are working to make your children into something rather than working to help them to see something and seek something. In this form of parenting, it is all about you and your children, rather than you being an agent of what only God can do in your children. Your hope is that you will exercise the right power, at the right time, and in the right way so change in your children will result. That process is profoundly different than working to be a useful tool in the hands of a God of glorious transforming grace, who alone is your hope and the hope of your children.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“This means that my biggest, ongoing problem as a dad is not my children, it’s me. My children don’t cause me to do and say what I do and say. No, the cause of my actions is found inside my own heart. My children are simply the occasion where my heart reveals itself in words and actions. So I need much more than just rescue and relief from my children; I need rescue from me. This is why Jesus came, to provide us with the rescue that we all need but that we cannot provide for ourselves.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“So your hope as a parent is not found in your power, your wisdom, your character, your experience, or your success, but in this one thing alone: the presence of your Lord. The Creator, Savior, Almighty, Sovereign King is with you. Let your heart rest. You are not in this parenting drama alone. Your potential is greater than the size of your weaknesses, because the One who is without weakness is with you, and he does his best work through those who admit that they are weak but in weakness still heed his call.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Parents, if your eyes ever see or your ears ever hear the sin and weakness of your children, it’s never an accident, it’s never a hassle, it’s never an interruption; it’s always grace. God loves your children and because he does, he has placed them in a family of faith so that you can be his tool of convicting, forgiving, and transforming grace.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“As a parent you are never, ever dealing just with the words and actions of your children. You are always also dealing with the thing that controls their words and behavior: the heart.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“The ambassador doesn’t have any authority in and of himself. He has authority only because he represents a king who has authority. Here’s God’s amazing plan. He makes his invisible authority visible by sending visible authority figures as his representatives. This means that every time you exercise authority in the lives of your children, it must be a beautiful picture of the authority of God. In the lives of your children, you are the look of God’s face, you are the touch of his hand, and you are the tone of his voice. You must never exercise authority in an angry, impatient way. You must never exercise authority in an abusive way. You must never exercise authority in a selfish way. Why? Because you have been put into your position as parent to display before your children how beautiful, wise, patient, guiding, protective, rescuing, and forgiving God’s authority is. This”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“God didn’t give you your children to build your reputation but to publicly proclaim his.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Change is about learning what is right, acknowledging that it is right, confessing that you have been wrong, committing to a new way of living, and seeking the help you need to do it. (66)”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Your job is be God’s tool for the purpose of forming the image of God’s Son in your children.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Parenting is about being God’s ambassadors in the lives of our children.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“He knows that parents who admit that they are inadequate and run to God make the best parents.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“When your child wonders about what is right and what is wrong, don’t just threaten him with the law of God; woo him with the sweet music of the grace of God. When she is struggling with what”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get my children to believe.”“I will discipline the hell out of my children.”“It’s my job to ensure that they do what is right.”“If I do nothing else, I will send children out into the world who are prepared to live right.”“After I’m done with him, he’ll never even think of doing that again.” The assessment in these statements that children need to change is right. The deep desire for that change which motivates a parent is right. The commitment to work for that change is right. Then what is wrong with each of these statements? Each of them assumes power on the part of parents that no parent has, and that assumption creates all kinds of parenting trouble. If you are going to be what God has designed you to be as a parent and do what he’s called you to do, you must confess one essential thing. This confession has the power to change much about the way you act and react toward your children. It is vital that you believe and admit that you have no power whatsoever to change your child.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“When you’re disciplining your child, you are being afforded a God-given opportunity to talk about his heart. Since it is true that his behavior reveals the true condition of his heart, his misbehavior gives you a picture of what controls his heart, and you have been given an opportunity by your Savior of grace to”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“they want their children to believe in God, to go to church, and to do what is right, but the primary focus of their parental energy is on producing children who are mannerly, do well at school, and succeed in sports and music. So they try to control all of the behaviors that will get in the way of these goals. Because of this they do not focus on the heart and what rules the heart. And because they fail to think about the heart, they miss those wonderful moments of grace where God is revealing the heart of the child so that his parents can be God’s tools of rescue, leading our children to insight, confession, and repentance. They are left with trying to get their children to do what is right without addressing the heart, failing to understand that if they could do that, Jesus wouldn’t have had to invade earth on his mission of rescue.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Good parenting lives at the intersection of a humble admission of personal powerlessness and a confident rest in the power and grace of God.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Parenting is not first about what we want for our children or from our children, but about what god in grace has planned to do through us in our children. to lose sight of this is to end up with a relationship with our children that at the foundational level is neither Christian nor true parenting because it has become more about our will and our way than about the will and way of our Sovereign Savior King.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“God's grace frees you from having to deny your weaknesses.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“successful parenting is not about achieving goals (that you have no power to produce) but about being a usable and faithful tool in the hands of the One who alone is able to produce good things in your children.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“God knew that our calling would be so huge and our weakness so deep that the only thing that would help us was himself. So in an act of incredible grace, he has unbuttoned us and gotten inside of us. Now think about this as a parent. This God who has the ability to do things that are way beyond your ability to conceive, who has perfect wisdom and unlimited strength, right now lives inside of you.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“If God’s plan really is to make his invisible grace visible by sending parents of grace to give grace to children who desperately need grace, then I am called not just to preach that grace but to live and model it for my children every day.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Thousands and thousands of children are handed over every day to people they don’t know because success in work and career has become too important for their parents. Since neither parent is willing to step away from their work outside the home for fear of its long-term implications on their career and finances, no one is left to take care of the children, so someone else must be hired to do it. I know this is controversial, and I would never judge a couple who have their children in day care without knowing the details of why they made that decision, but I am troubled that we are not talking about this more. I am saddened by the numbers of children who are not with their parents for the bulk of the day during their formative years.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Living in regret robs you of your confidence. Living in regret renders you timid. Living in regret kidnaps your courage. Living in regret weakens or steals your hope. Living in regret drags the past into the present. Living in regret even drags the past into the future. And for all of its remembering, regret can be tragically forgetful. What is it that regret tends to forget? Regret tends to forget the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus bore the entire burden of our guilt and our shame. On the cross, Jesus purchased, by the shedding of his blood, our complete forgiveness: past, present, and future. This means that we can boldly come to him in our failure, receive his forgiveness, deposit our regret at his feet, and move on to new and better ways of doing what he has called us to do as parents.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“The reality is that there are few struggles in the lives of my children that aren’t in my life as well (materialism, relationships, wanting my own way, attraction to the world, subtle idolatries, etc.). This admission transformed my parenting. Instead of approaching them with self-righteous outrage, I moved toward them as a sinner in need of grace needing to confront a sinner in need of grace. God’s plan is to make his invisible grace visible to children by sending parents of grace to give grace to children who need grace. And parents who know they need grace tend to want to give grace to children who are just like them.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Inability doesn’t mean that God has made a massive mistake by giving you children, that somehow he’s gotten the wrong address and your children would be better off elsewhere. Rather than your inability being in the way of God’s plan, it is part of his plan. He knows that parents who admit that they are inadequate and run to God make the best parents. You see, he doesn’t ask you to be able; he asks you to be willing. If you are willing, he will meet you in your weakness and change you, and as he changes you, he will work good things through you into the hearts and lives of your children.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Why would a God of perfect wisdom ask inadequate people to do such an important job? The answer is so important to grasp. God calls unable people to do important things because ultimately what he’s working on is not your immediate success, but that you would come to know him, to love him, to rest in his grace, and to live for his glory. Let me put it a different way. God calls unable people to do important things so that he will get the glory and not them. He isn’t working so that your life as a parent would be easy, predictable, and free from struggle. He calls you to do the impossible so that in your search for help, you would find more than help—you would find him.”
― Paul David Tripp, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

“Si obtienes tu identidad, significado, propósito, la razón para levantarte por las mañanas y la paz interior de tu ministerio, le estás pidiendo al ministerio que sea tu mesías personal, y al hacerlo, será muy difícil para ti decir que no y, debido a ello, acostumbrarás a descuidar tiempo importante que deberías dedicarle a tus hijos.”
― Paul David Tripp, La crianza de los hijos: 14 principios del Evangelio que pueden cambiar radicalmente a tu familia

“cuando están constantemente descuidando una parte significativa del llamado de Dios. Tristemente, sus hijos crecen creyendo que Jesús alejó una y otra vez a sus padres de ellos.”
― Paul David Tripp, La crianza de los hijos: 14 principios del Evangelio que pueden cambiar radicalmente a tu familia