Parenting is hard work. It has demands and challenges that test the resolve and dedication of the best of parents. Sickness, handicaps, learning disorders, cultural pressures, conflicting temperaments, social adjustments, even academic excellence can frustrate parents. This is especially true if we do not know God.
Seek to Know God
“Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). This is one of the wonderful promises in the Bible. The wise man Solomon wrote that to find God, and to learn the wisdom of God, is worth more than rubies, silver, and gold (Proverbs 3:13-15; 8:10-11; 16:16). God is love, light, truth, holy, and righteous. God is also forgiving when we repent of our sins and turn to Him.
We can see God in the created universe. All nature speaks of His almighty power and wisdom. But it is in His Holy Word where we find Him best. Open the Bible each day and pray for a revelation of God’s truth to your heart. Read how He promised a Redeemer and Saviour, to save us from our sins. Read how the Redeemer was His beloved Son that came to earth, and lived, and taught the truth of God.
Jesus, the Son of God, was both the suffering servant, and the triumphant King, who is coming again to reward those who believe in Him and love Him. The very best thing we can do for our children is to follow in the steps of our blessed Saviour and Lord, and teach them the wisdom of God’s Word.
God is also found among His disciples—His followers. Find a Bible-believing, Bible-practicing church and make yourself accountable. Psalm 89:7 says that God is “greatly to be feared [reverence, worshiped] in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.” Being accountable to other Christians is a safety check, as well as a spiritual and emotional stimulant. All of us need encouragement and direction. In a faithful, God-fearing brotherhood, you will find both.
Express Christlike Love to Every Family Member
Christ’s love for us was self-sacrificing. He gave, and gave, and gave till there was nothing left to give. He gave His very own lifeblood in death, on Calvary’s cross. It is as a poet once expressed: “It was love that held Christ to the cross. There were no nails strong enough to hold the Son of God on the cross. It was love, only love that could do so.”
You mothers know, in a measure, this self-sacrificing love, when you enter intomotherhood and give birth. You express it when you spend sleepless nights and weary days feeding, nurturing, tending, and caring for your little ones. You express it when you give yourself unselfishly to meeting your husband’s social and emotional needs.
Yet it is the husband’s role to image the self-sacrificing love of Jesus. You do this by loving your wife unconditionally. In my wedding vow, I promised to love my wife, “cherish her, to provide and care for her, in health and sickness, in prosperity and adversity, exercise patience, kindness, and forbearance toward her, and to live with her in peace, as becometh a faithful husband, and forsaking all others, to keep myself only unto her, as long as we both shall live.”
To keep such a promise is only possible with the enabling strength and power of God. We husbands cannot love unconditionally unless we really know the love of Christ in our own experience. Honesty and humility require us to acknowledge our failures and our inability to love perfectly, in and of ourselves. All the counselors, all the instruction booklets (as helpful as they are) cannot make us be self-sacrificing, loving husbands and fathers.
Let Jesus Rule
If we let Jesus rule in our heart, He can and will teach us to listen, to feel, to be patient, to be kind, to be forgiving, and to be understanding. By following the Bible, we learn to be responsible for the care our spouse requires. We learn how to teach, train, and nurture our children. We learn how to set the example of obedience, faith, cooperation, trust, forgiveness, and accountability. Self-sacrificing love considers no sacrifice too great when that sacrifice contributes to the spiritual, emotional, and physical benefit of the family.
Begin 2009 with these two basic goals: seek to know God, and seek to know the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ. The path to this knowledge may not be easy; in fact, Jesus said it wouldn’t be easy. Hear His words in Matthew 16:24, 25: “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
-by J. Luke Martin