For the last month, I’ve been working on a master prayer list for each of my four kiddos. I got the idea from the book, “The Power of a Praying Parent.” In the book, each chapter deals with a specific area in your child’s life.
This morning, I was reading through a chapter on rejecting sexual immortality and it felt heavy. I felt the weight of raising our kids in a world where they are constantly bombarded with sex. It’s in front of their eyes (and ours) at every turn, on billboards, tv, in song lyrics, not to mention smart phones.
As I was reading, my mind began to wander down a road of all the “what if’s” for my kid’s futures…
“I have three boys, are they going to be addicted to porn? Or my girl? What about when they have a boyfriend or girlfriend in school? It was hard when I was a kid and we didn’t have kids sexting then or kids sending nude photos back and forth! Will they be able to wait until they are married to have sex? What can I do to stop all this? I need to start having conversations about this all the time! I need to make sure they don’t have smart phone until they are 35 years old!”
My mind would have gone on like this for quite a while if the Holy Spirit hadn’t stopped me. All the sudden, in the middle of my cascading questions and worries, I remembered a thought from a book I’ve been reading. It was something close to…
We are not responsible to produce faith in another person’s heart.
I hadn’t even been specifically thinking about that, but that thought was all it took for me to remember Who is in control of all things…and who is Not. Who knows when my kids sit and when they rise. Who is acquainted with all their ways far better than I ever will be.
I needed the reminder that when it comes to my children, it is not my responsibility (or weight to carry) to save them or to convince them to walk in the ways of the Lord. In fact, it’s prideful to think that I can!
That is ALL God.
Sure, I am responsible to share God’s truth with my kids, love them well, show them how to follow Christ by modeling it, and pray for them.
But I am not responsible to produce faith in them.
But that’s hard having no control over that, isn’t it?! We love our kids so much and we truly want what is best for them. So much so, that we overstep and try to do our job AND God’s job! We try to bear the weight of their future and with that brings hovering, ulcer-ridden, haggard parents.
But God is not asking us to bear that weight. In fact, He’s doing the opposite, He’s telling us to leave the weight with Him.
He shows us this perfectly in 1 Peter 5:7. Peter says to “cast your cares upon Him, for he cares for you.” The Greek word used for “casting” is only used one other time in this exact way. It’s in Luke 19:35 when Jesus is going to ride the donkey into Jerusalem and his disciples “cast” or “place upon” the donkey their cloaks. Rather than carrying them, the donkey carries the load.
What a beautiful picture!
We are not meant to carry these burdens, fears, and anxieties concerning our children. We are not meant to try and control their futures. Peter is saying, (well actually he’s commanding) his readers, to let Jesus be the load bearer. Only He can handle it.
However, this doesn’t mean we can just checkout. This doesn’t leave us useless parents. There’s a lot we can do in the lives of our kids! To name a few…
-We can fervently pray that according to God’s great mercy He will cause our kids to be born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3).
-We can pray that they will walk by the Spirit, not following the desires of their flesh nature (Galatians 5:16).
-We can teach our kids the truth that God is kind and long-suffering. He isn’t willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).
-We can understand that it is precisely God’s kindness that brings anyone to repentance. It’s His kindness that will draw our kids in and make them want to run to Him instead of worldly pleasures. (Romans 2:4).
There is a lot we can and should do and Peter gives us even more…
In the same verse, Peter doesn’t end his train of thought with the command to cast our burdens, he ends it with a promise. “…because He cares for you.”
In other words, the way to practically take our anxieties concerning our children, and transfer them from our back to God’s back, is to trust that He cares for us and He cares for our kids even more than we do! We have to believe this promise…and when that’s really really hard, then we ask him to help our unbelief!
We can do all of this through prayer.
John Piper says, “Prayer is trust turned toward God and spoken.”
It’s turning our minds away from the road of worry that it wants to run down and turning it towards trust in God through verbally pouring our hearts out before Him.
The apostle Paul takes this one step farther and describes the peace of God and guarded hearts and minds we receive when we pour out our requests before the Lord.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all comprehension will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6
What freedom there is when we relinquish our (perceived) control over our kid’s lives! What mercy we receive through Christ bearing our burden, first, on the cross, and then in our daily concerns.
I forget all this too quickly, but I’m so thankful for these daily reminders from the Spirit.
(picture from bigstock.com)
Simple and Sweet 