My main goal as a mother is to teach my children to love, trust, honor, know, follow, and obey the Lord. As much I treasure them, they are mine for a season; they will go back to, and they will answer to Him.
Although I truly understand and deeply desire to do this for my children, and for Him, there are times when I know I fall short. Life interferes and times are so busy.
I also know that Satan is ready to distract and discourage me. I don’t let Him. I want to keep my heart and mind fixed on the Lord and remember my goal…and His commandment to me as a parent.
I need to make time to reflect. Then keep moving ahead. Even if I am moving forward with tiny steps of obedience daily, and I am asking God to bring my children to Him, the burden is off me.
How freeing!! So do I want to hold onto the pressure of trying to do everything on my own?
Or do I want to allow God to work?
I believe God wants us to live a life of love and obedience to Him for our children to mirror.
Then leave the rest to Him. So easy. Yet so hard.
This doesn’t mean we can just go on and think He will magically make them obedient believers. We need to bring Him into every day life.
Our responses and attitudes must be purified to reflect His.
Our heart must be in alignment with His.
We must desire and read His word.
Prayers must be offered throughout each day as we yearn for our hearts to be yielded to His to enable us to reflect Him. Our prayers must lift our children to Him daily, as well as ourselves. We need to crave and allow God to perform a good work inside of us as He is working in our children.
Those prayers must search the desire of our heart – is it for God to show Himself to our children and allow them to be strong followers of His?
“In you, O Lord, I put my trust; Let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape; incline Your ear to me, and save me. Be my strong refuge, to which I may resort continually; You have given the commandment to save me, for You are my rock and my fortress.” Psalm 71:1-3
We must seek Him in all we are and do. Then let our children see and hear this lifestyle modeled every single day.
That’s the challenge. We are a work in progress.
Yet the beauty in that fact is the single truth that our children are also a work in progress.
We let them see that no one is perfect. Only God. He doesn’t expect any of us to be perfect.
God desires our whole heart. Are we instructing our children to seek Him with a pure heart? Or are we modeling this world we are in?
I think one of the challenges we must face as parents is what we do each day. Do we read books, listen to music, wear clothing…the list goes on…that reflects our desire to yield to this world – or to yield to Him?
Do we allow each day to run us? Or do we run to Him and seek His ways and ask for Him to guide and time our days?
What would our world be like if we all had a true heart for Him? If we forced ourselves to slow down and face what lies in our heart.
I believe most of the problems in this world stem from our heart condition. We can each change that by seeking Him daily and allowing ourselves to be humbled and corrected.
“The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7b
The best way we can bless our children is to allow ourselves to love, trust, honor, know, follow, and obey the Lord. Let God complete His work in and through us because we deeply trust and desire Him.