As a mother of 3 daughters this is a question I’ve often thought about, and obviously if you happen to be the mother or father of daughters or sons or a mixture of sons and daughters you will have the the same question. I don’t think there is a parent who does not look at a newborn baby and think “I wonder who will you be? We’ve welcomed you into our family, but who are you, who are you going to be?”.
Thankfully God knows, and thankfully He chooses usually not to tell us. When we hold our baby in the hospital for the first time do we really want to know? Maybe we do want to know that this child will grow up to be healthy, wealthy and wise. But maybe we don’t want to know the trials that this child will go through, we don’t want to know the heartache they are going to have, the heartache they are going to bring to us, the pain that they are going to suffer. Those are questions that God knows, and God only shows them to us at the point where we need to know.
So what do we wish or pray for our children, if we aren’t going to know what is going to happen? What does God want us to ask for our children, how should we pray for our children?
The world would have us to believe that what we want for our children is that they be healthy, wealthy and wise, whether that is because they go to bed early and rise early, or whether they buy the right sort of insurance, or whether they buy right sort of shoes, or whether they buy the right sort of car. The world would have us think that these are the things that matter. But are they the things that matter to God? Are they the things that God wants for our children?
God sees life differently. God sees the important thing as our relationship with him. In the answer to the “Why isn’t life fair?” question we talked about the need to have a right relationship with God, and it is that right relationship with God that we should most want for our children, because that is the thing that will have eternal consequences. And we can start sharing that truth with our children right from the moment when we first hold them in our arms, as we pray for them, as we get to the point where we can read a story to them, to answer their endless questions. Whether they are 3, or 13 or 33 there still seem to be questions they have and we can still do our best to give them godly advice.
Timothy was one of the people that Paul disciples. Paul talked about Timothy’s relationship with his family and we know that his grandmother and his mother were both people who taught him the Scriptures and that ought to be our aim as parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends, to be able to share the Scriptures with our children at whatever opportunity we get. So Paul wrote about Timothy, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 3:14,15 ESV
Now if we are going to do that we need to know Christ Jesus as Lord ourselves, because we can’t lead our children where we haven’t been ourselves. But as we trust in God and as we pray for our children and give godly answers to the best of our ability, and encourage them to read the Scriptures, which are infallible, when we certainly aren’t infallible, then we will have children who are blessed by God and will spend eternity with Him.
0 Comments