Mercy is parenting with a tender heart. Mercy is not taking your children’s failures personally, but viewing their struggles with compassion. Mercy is about blessing your children with your patience. It’s about being as careful to encourage as you are to rebuke. It’s about discipline that is kind and correction that is gentle. Mercy is about being firm and unyielding and loving at the same time. It is about refusing to indulge your irritation and your anger. If you are parenting with mercy, you don’t condemn your children with a barrage of harsh words. If you’re parenting with mercy, you don’t compare your righteousness to your children’s sin, letting them know that their problem is that they’re not like you. Mercy means not allowing your heart to grow bitter or cold. It is about always being ready to forgive, not making your children pay today for the sins of yesterday. Mercy is about moving toward your children with love even in those moments when they don’t deserve your love. Mercy is about being willing to do things over and over again without throwing it into your children’s faces that you have to repeat yourself. It’s about refusing to motivate your children by shame and threat. Here’s what mercy means for your parenting: mercy means that every action, reaction, and response toward your children is tempered and shaped by tenderness, understanding, compassion, and love. Parenting is a life-long mission of humbly, joyfully, and willingly giving mercy.

Paul David Tripp