Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas
Week 6: Chapter 5 — The God Who Fathers: Learning to Parent from Our Heavenly Father
Read Chapter 5 of Sacred Parenting by Gary L. Thomas.
Previewing Week 6 of Sacred Parenting
Read 3 of 6 discussion questions below. Unlock the complete 12-week guide when you’re ready.
Thomas turns the lens around in this chapter: rather than asking only what parenting teaches us about ourselves, he asks what God's own parenting of us can teach us about how to parent our children.
Discussion Questions
6 questions1.Thomas explores how Scripture consistently uses parenting language — Father, children, adoption, discipline, inheritance — to describe God's relationship with humanity. Which of these images resonates most deeply with you, and why?
2.He argues that God's style of parenting is itself a model: present but not smothering, guiding but not controlling, disciplining but always from love. Which of these qualities do you find most difficult to imitate in your own parenting?
3.Thomas notes that God allows His children to make choices, experience consequences, and even fail — because love requires freedom. How do you hold together the desire to protect your children with the necessity of allowing them to develop through struggle?
a.Where have you been tempted to remove all difficulty from your child's life?
b.Looking back, what struggles in your own childhood turned out to be formative gifts?