What a gift it is to be a parent. Oftentimes, we can get caught up in the mundane tasks of adulthood and parenting and forget what a gift it is to steward another person's life. Maybe it is because we forget what it was like to be a child. Or maybe it is because we start to take on all the burdens of the world.

Can you remember what it was like to be a child? Did you carry around the burden to care for yourself?

Unfortunately, for many of us, that very well could have been the case. We never had a worldly model of someone who took care of our needs. Now we find ourselves in the position of taking care of another's needs and the burden feels heavy, just as we figured out how to carry the burden of our own needs.

This is why we must parent with God. Whether we experienced childhood with parents that shouldered the burden of our care or we learned how to care for ourselves because there was no one else. We all must learn to depend on God’s care and provision. This is what it means to be childlike.

Matthew 18:2-5 NIV He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

It is when we take the position of a child that we can be humbled to know that we do not have anything figured out, except that we need our Father in Heaven to care and provide for us. When we take this posture we are able to have a new outlook. One that leads with gratitude for the gifts in our lives. This is an opportunity to see what God does for us through what we get to do for our children.