Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. As parents, this [fifth] petition of the Lord’s Prayer might bring up a variety of responses. Perhaps it is so well-known that the language of forgiveness rolls over you without much effect. Or maybe this request for forgiveness sucks you down into the weighty darkness of shame and condemnation, where a carousel of your parental failures spins out of control in your mind’s eye. Or it could be that the million tiny trespasses against you—the ignoring, the arguing, the disobedience, the looks!—bubble over into a barely-contained rage, which sometimes bursts out in a fit of wrath and other times cools into bitterness. It is exhausting.
Father, forgive me my trespasses, as I forgive my children who trespass against me. Fellow parent, fellow sinner, fellow child of the heavenly Father—in the perfect gospel, there is rest for weary moms and dads. If you’re like me, that sounds wonderful. But it can tend to stay in the realm of head knowledge rather than personal, day-to-day experience. So walk with me, if you would, down the familiar trails of the gospel with the Lord’s Prayer as our trail map. The Lord has something good in store for us along the way. He offers us rest as we experience his forgiveness, and as we extend it in turn to our children.
Resting in the Truth of the Gospel
The gospel forces us to be honest, and the Lord’s Prayer brings this into focus. When we ask God to forgive us for our parental sins, we are admitting that we have failed in our charge to love and shepherd our kids. We admit that we have nowhere to turn except the gracious arms of our heavenly Father. The good news starts out as difficult news.
But while it might sound counterintuitive, there we find much rest in admitting what we know is true about our sinful selves. The gospel releases us from pretending that there is nothing wrong with us. God loves us too much to leave us ignorant of our dead, sin-sick souls. As a skilled physician will often start a life-saving surgery by making a careful but painful incision, so Christ in the gospel opens up our hearts to reveal the sin inside, so that real healing may begin. The truth actually does set us free (John 8:32)!
Responding to Gospel Truth
This is why parents can and should be the chief repenters of their family. Our gut instinct might be to shy away from admitting when we’ve done wrong in front of our children (especially the sins we’ve committed against them), but trust me—they know. We know. God knows. Resting in the hard truth of our brokenness revealed by the gospel happens when we reject the impulse to hide or rationalize our sin in front of our kids, and instead confess it honestly. Is this your practice as a parent? I promise you that, though the sting it brings is real, so is the healing.
At the same time as the gospel confronts our sin, it also provides an answer for the pain we experience when others sin against us. We can expect that this will take place, because we live in a world filled with broken, sinful people (Rom. 3:23). And while, for kids and teenagers, the processes of social, biological, and intellectual development are significant and can play a role, we still feel the hurt and anger that accompany our children saying something cruel, or making a show of disrespect, or blatantly disobeying. We find rest in knowing that God recognizes these hurts as something wrong, something sinful. Just as our own disobedience is a sin against our holy God, so too is our children’s. In the gospel, these truths are inescapable.
Resting in the Grace of the Gospel
But just as inescapable is the immeasurable grace that God himself offers us in the gospel. What blessed rest there is for the one whose sins have been forgiven (Ps. 32:1)! When we pray the Lord’s Prayer and ask for forgiveness, we do so not with trepidation and terror, but in humble trust and joyful gratitude, for we know that we are truly and fully forgiven. After all, our forgiveness is rooted in Christ’s perfect, complete, unchanging work. We can approach the throne of grace with confidence when we confess our sins (Heb. 4:16).
Jesus’ abundant grace serves also as the foundation for our own practice of forgiveness, especially toward our children. Seventy times seven sure sounds like a tall order when it comes to passing over the hurts and sins against us (see Matt. 18:22), but it diminishes to the tiniest speck when compared with the infinite well of grace found in Christ! Our own efforts to forgive our kids can actually start long before they sin against us, when we are grounded first in the forgiveness Jesus has given us.
Responding to Gospel Grace
A small, practical habit that might help develop the muscles of grace within your family is to intentionally use the words “forgive” and “forgiveness” when you sin against each other. This might sound silly, but the fact is that language shapes how we and our kids view and understand the world. Shifting from the “I’m sorry” / “It’s okay” refrain to something like, “Will you forgive me for using unkind words with you?” / “Yes, I forgive you” invites a healthy sense of weight to both sides involved. It allows everyone to more fully rest in the grace of forgiving and being forgiven.
This is not to say that living in light of this reality is an easy thing. My wife and I are in the midst of learning what it looks like to faithfully shepherd and discipline our young daughter. She often responds to instruction that she doesn’t like with a rude look or comment. We reached seventy-times-seven opportunities to forgive her a while ago. And yet, my sinful heart is still instinctively drawn to respond to her disobedience or disrespect with a cutting word, a cold shoulder, or callous indifference. I desperately need the forgiveness of both my child and my Savior, each and every day!
Father, forgive me my cruelty toward my children, as I forgive their disobedience against me. This petition is not asking for the Lord’s forgiveness in light of the ways I have done a good job of forgiving my child. Not at all! We are rather, in the same moment as we request forgiveness, asking for this very petition to shape us. We are asking the Lord, in his grace, to help us live in light of the forgiveness we receive from him, especially when we offer forgiveness. Resting in the settled knowledge and experience of being forgiven, we are equipped to forgive our kids, giving them a glimpse of the very heart of Christ.
Resting in the Power of the Gospel
It’s normal as parents to seek out new checklists, new habits, new schedules or mantras or friends or places that might make our jobs as parents a little easier. But the power to change ourselves or our kids doesn’t actually lie within us and our abilities. It’s all Christ. It’s always been Christ. And he doesn’t leave us on our own. He gave us his Spirit, who dwells in us and forms us into truer imagers of God’s own parental love and forgiveness. This is what happens as we behold the glory of the Lord in our day-to-day lives, delighting in his grace—we are transformed to be more like him little by little, or “from one degree to another,” as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 3:18.
When we model repentance to our kids, it isn’t our perfectly-ordered words that help them understand grace. When we try to develop habits of asking forgiveness within our kids, it isn’t the repetition that writes the truth in their hearts. These are the (often mysterious) things of the Holy Spirit, the Helper Jesus promised and has sent as a gift to all of God’s children (John 14:16-17). Were it up to us, our efforts would be in vain. But praise the Lord, in whom and from whom is every good thing, that he delights in taking the feeble efforts of faltering parents and using them to make something beautiful in the lives and hearts of their kids.
Fellow wearied parent, the Father is for you and your kids. When we ask his forgiveness for our failures, he stands before us not with a grim frown but with a delighted smile, arms open wide. His love for you is boundless. After all, before you are a parent, you are his precious child. May you find rest in that wonderful, unchanging truth of the gospel.
Interested in learning more about The Lord’s Prayer? Check out our friend Youth Pastor Theologian’s curriculum on it!
