Parenting is an uphill battle. Do any parents ever win? I have yet to meet anyone who has raised children without regrets. And really, how could we? Our very humanity means that we will fail, and fail again. Plus, we all know that this crazy journey doesn’t end when they move out! I know that my parents still worry over me. And as a Christian mother, I am called to a higher standard. I am teacher of more than just the three r’s. I am the first line of defense, I am the layer of the foundation of faith for them. I know that salvation is God’s work, but He has tasked me with living and breathing and teaching a testimony of His love and grace and mercy to the fallen little people in my life. Can I tell you how scary that is? How inadequate I feel? How I already feel like I am failing in a thousand ways, and there is still so much more to do? Where do I start?
There are so many approaches to teaching children about God. Reading the bible every day, using unique children’s bible studies, placing them in Christian schools or after school programs. There are some pretty set ideas about how often we should be praying with our kids, how we should be speaking to them, how to discipline. But what is the biggest, most important thing? If I am can do nothing else, what is the one thing I can teach them that will best set them up for success? To me, the simplest place to start is where God started. Obedience. The whole of Scripture calls and compels us to obey, not so that God can control us like puppets, but so that we can be spared pain and heartache and bitterness. So that He can lavish us with good things. And the call to obey did start at the very beginning, with Adam and Eve. And their sin, their failure to obey, has been the curse of the world.
I get up every morning and know that there will be challenges. With getting everyone to eat breakfast, get dressed, get out the door. Making sure they hold hands in parking lots, and speak kindly to each other, and are polite to people they meet. There are so many, many ways for it all to go wrong. And it does. Some days more spectacularly than others. But the heart of all the problems is truly obedience. It is the theme in my home just as it is the theme throughout the Old Testament stories. Just as it is the focus of Christ’s teaching and examples. Obey God’s call to repentance, obey the leading of the Spirit to grow in faith and knowledge, obey in asking for forgiveness and forgiving others, obey Christ’s commands to love God and neighbours, obey in the same way as Christ to the loss of all else. Obey, obey, obey. Writing it out like that makes it sound dull and monotonous. But if you look through the accounts of the New Testament, you can see how God took the obedience of average men and created something amazing and beautiful. Obedience is not a burden, disobedience is. And that is the point of parenting. I am tasked with teaching my children the importance of listening and adhering to the rules. They need to learn that stepping outside the boundaries will cause some type of pain. Because sin causes pain. And isn’t it the desire of every parent to spare their children from hurt? I want them to see the joy and bounty that accompanies obedience. And I start when they are young. I need them to know the safety of obedience. I need them to learn to listen to a voice that is not their own. I need them to see me as a caring mother who wants to shield them from hurt by drawing a circle around them. Not sheltering them from the world, but teaching them to find joy in the security of guidelines so that they can face potential pitfalls and successfully navigate around them. So that they can learn compassion for those who have fallen and need a hand up, so that they can learn steadfastness in the face of temptation, so that they can learn love.
I hope that in teaching them the little lessons now, in all my bumbling efforts, that they will grow to value the perfect and true Father who will honour their obedience in greater measure than I can. I hope when they get older, when they have obeyed the call of God in their hearts, that they will feel relief and joy to be under the authority of the One who will never be inconsistent. I pray that the contrast of obedience to a limited mother vs obedience to a limitless God will open their eyes to the joy set before them. I long to know that my efforts to teach them to shore up and follow the rules, instead of yielding to their desire to sin, will be an anchor as they continue from my home in the years to come. So I start, not with scheduled prayers and rote studies, but with obedience.
faith from the stove 