"We concentrate on our behavior: earning the A's, grabbing the gold stars, saying and doing just the right things to make everyone around us ooh and aah at just how good we are. We forget that God weighs perfection on a much different scale. We think perfection is all about what we do; we forget that it's about who we are."

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48. With the pursuit of this perfection, Jim Daly wrote that we will give ourselves ulcers trying to be that picture of perfection and to demand that same perfection from people closest to us. What we don't fully comprehend is that God's perfection is developed through our misses, mistakes and even failures. How do we model God's perfect grace? His perfect forgiveness? His patient, perfect love?

There's nothing bad to want to do our best and to encourage our children to do the same; and to celebrate their successes when they do well. It must not, however, cross that invisible line from celebrations of their successes to accepting nothing less; for them to reach the lofty expectations set for them. Then, the emphasis will border on achievements and fears of failures & setbacks, rather than the development of character, values and virtues.

Learn from firsthand experiences and practical tips of these authors to sharpen your parenting skills.

Parenting Pursuit

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