I remember coming home from the hospital after having our first baby and being hit hard with the reality that this parenting thing was not temporary. She was OUR baby; we somehow needed to figure out how to care for her every need and no one was going to come and rescue us. The exhaustion was rough at times, but the joy was indescribable. Fast forward twenty-nine years, with four more children added as the years went by, and that joy has been abundant—with God’s grace carrying us every step of the way.
There’s not much that humbles a person faster than becoming a parent. Wouldn’t it be helpful if each child came with a handbook that explains how to handle their uniqueness? But the blessing for the Christian is that we do have a loving Guide. His Word has what we need to show us the way in our parenting; He also promises us that He will give us an abundance of wisdom (James 1:5), and the fact that each child tends to be quite different from the one before keeps us in a place of dependency on Him for His help and strength.
I’m thankful to have a husband who takes his role as spiritual leader of our home very seriously. It was important to me that the man I married would have a godly vision for his family, just like my dad did. I grew up with the blessing of having family devotions every evening. What a gift that was! But I do remember times when I was in the middle of something, Dad would call out that we were going to do our Bible reading together, and I would feel annoyed. I came to understand my need for a Savior when I was seven years old, and I was quite tender to the things of the Lord, but I wasn’t mature enough to understand the importance of what my dad was being faithful to lead us in as a family. So don’t be discouraged when your children don’t jump up and down with excitement about spiritual disciplines and the habits you are seeking to instill in them. The prayer is that with time they will come to a deeper understanding of His greatness, and that’s what happened with me as I grew in spiritual maturity.
“Pray for your children and never give up hope, even when you don’t see much fruit. We don’t always know what’s going on in their hearts and what’s happening with the seeds that we have planted.”
We must teach our children the value of knowing God’s Word and filling our hearts with it daily. Not only that, we are also commanded to be diligent to converse with them about the Lord throughout each day as we go about our lives (Deuteronomy 6:7). We are to train them up spiritually, to make sure that they gain as much knowledge about God and His ways as possible while they are under our roof. To add to this, we must model to our children a life of obedience. J.C. Ryle warned, “He that preaches to his children what he does not practice, is working a work that never goes forward. It is like the fabled web of Penelope of old, who wove all day, and unwove all night. Even so, the parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand, and pulling down with the other.”
The responsibility of the Christian mother to teach her children well and be a godly example can feel daunting at times, but there is so much hope and help in the Lord. Humility and repentance should be what we’re known for in our homes. There will be many opportunities as we are discipling our children to bring up the gospel again and again—and our own sinful behavior will be a part of those occasions, as we model for them what it means to repent and make things right with others. The goal is not perfection, but faithfulness, and not allowing our failures to paralyze us as we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord. And it’s not too late to apologize to your adult children if you realize that there are aspects of your parenting that you should seek forgiveness for.
By God’s grace, our five adult children each came to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior at a young age. We continue to pray for them to be sustained by God and for them to walk with Him all of their lives. While we sought to be faithful parents, we were far from perfect. And as we all must remind ourselves, it is the Lord who saves. Pray for your children and never give up hope, even when you don’t see much fruit. We don’t always know what’s going on in their hearts and what’s happening with the seeds that we have planted.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite and most consoling encouragements for Christian parents; a beautiful truth that we all must cling to: “No matter how excellently we teach and model gospel leadership, we parents are not the decisive influence in whether our children come to faith and walk in what we have taught. We are a huge influence, but we are not the decisive, final influence—which is why we soak everything we do in prayer and why we do not load ourselves down with the burden of being God, which we simply cannot bear.” John Piper
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