Like Our Father: How God Parents Us And Why That Matters For Our Parenting (Book Review)

With my first pregnancy, though there were many things I didn’t know, I had some confidence. I had worked three summers in a row at Christian summer camps. For nearly a year, I worked at my pastor’s wife’s home helping her care for her newborn twins. I was a Sunday school teacher for four- and five-year-olds. When I wasn’t working at my pastor’s house, I was babysitting my neighbour’s two youngest children. I knew about diaper blowouts, creating schedules, and breastfeeding. I felt ready.

Yet when I brought my tiny baby home, I suddenly didn’t feel ready at all. My experiences prepared me a lot and I’m ever grateful for the mentorship I received through them. But there’s only so much an experience can do for you—most things you can only truly understand once you’re on your own. 

I learned in the following months that just because something worked for one child didn’t mean it would work for me. My baby didn’t adapt to the schedules my pastor’s wife was able to use for her newborn twins. My baby was a terrible sleeper, even when I tried all the same skills my pastor’s wife taught me. Despite watching and assisting her with breastfeeding, I struggled through getting my child to latch right. I observed such grace and patience in my pastor’s wife as she taught and disciplined her children, and I rarely lost my patience with the children I watched—yet I became frustrated much more quickly with my own. I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was.

When our second healthy pregnancy came along, I felt like I finally had an upper hand. My first son was already nearing the age of two, so I had much more experience. I fumbled my way through the first child, but this time I would move with much more grace.

But the upper hand I thought I had was quickly snatched away from me. We learned I was pregnant with twins. They came premature—by c-section. I wasn’t able to breastfeed them and had to switch to formula (and I didn’t even know where to find formula in the grocery store). And I didn’t realize how much my first child would struggle to adapt to not just one brother but two. 

I tried to gain the upper hand again through reading, listening, watching, and asking. But it seemed no matter how many resources I consumed about parenting, I still failed much more often than I wanted to. So many times I wished I could ask one of those parenting gurus to come live in my home and watch over my shoulder all day to instruct me how to parent perfectly. 

While parenting resources and being mentored by other parents are good gifts from God (and even wise sources to pursue as we learn to parent), they can only do so much. They can’t sanctify us. They can’t change us. And, ultimately, they’re all founded in a sin-tainted world by sinful and limited people.

As a Christian mother, perhaps you tried turning to the Bible to provide answers to the hundreds of parenting questions that fill your mind each week. Yet when you searched for the words “parent” and “children” in the Bible, you found (like me) that there’s not a lot of specific Bible verses about childrearing—and they don’t come close to answering all your questions of “how”, “why”, and “what.” Yet we know our parenting, as believers, should look different from the world’s. Where do we turn? We can do a Google search or scroll through Instagram hashtags, but we’ll soon be overwhelmed by the many (often differing) results we find.

Christina Fox points us to a greater example for our parenting: Our Heavenly Father. In her latest book Like Our Father, Christina shows us how God parents us and how we, as his image bearers, can reflect such attributes to our children. She writes in the first chapter,

Because we are image bearers, we image God to those around us. We reflect Him to others as we do what He does and as we display His character in our lives. And who do we see most often in our day to day life? Our children. As parents, we are often the first glimpse they see of who God is. In our responses and actions, we point our children to the God who made them and saved them. When we image and reflect God’s communicable attributes, they learn more of who God is. When we parent our children the way God parents us, they see God through us. (p. 26–27)

In the first two chapters, Christina lays the groundwork for such a parenting approach. She begins by expounding on the first few chapters of Genesis—how God created us in his image and what that means for us. She explains in the following chapter that God as Father is more than just a metaphor but a true reality for us as his adopted children. In the rest of the book she examines specific ways God cares for us as his children (such as his discipline, how he sets boundaries, and his consistency) and how we can specifically image him in those ways as we raise our own little children. 

Many parenting books I’ve read seem to fall into one of two categories: 1) Either specific and practical to parenting with little to no gospel applications in their pages, or 2) solely focused on how the gospel generally applies to our parenting without touching on practical advice. While both have their merit, I appreciate that Christina’s book seeks to draw on both of these categories. As a Bible teacher, she teaches us from Scripture about God’s attributes, the gospel, the story of redemption, and our calling as believers. But as a seasoned mother and counsellor, she also guides us in practical ways we can raise our children as image-bearers and believers.

I’m thankful for Christina’s book in how it’s not only instructed and guided my parenting, but also for how she’s reminded me of God’s fatherhood. I often think of the intimacy I have with the Holy Spirit living inside me and of Christ’s love in dying for me, but when I think about the Father, I sometimes feel distant from him. Part of that may be from my own experiences with my earthly father. This book comforted me with the truths from Scripture about God’s perfect love and tender care for me. Where my earthly father failed, God’s faithful love is never ending, compassionate, and merciful. 

Mothers will find this book to be a theological, biblical encouragement to their weary and confused hearts. It will equip them with ways they can image our Heavenly Father to their children each day as they create schedules, make rules, discipline, work with, and overall raise their children. Rather than raising an impossible standard for me as a mother, Like Our Father has reminded me of God’s grace towards me and how he overcomes in my parenting where I fall short.