A special word of exhortation for mothers this month; I want to remind each of you of the serious responsibility you have (alongside your husbands) to guard the doors of your homes.
I was reading an article early this morning about a young girl who completely lost her way in adolescence and strayed further and further from God’s design for her life. She was lamenting that nobody approached her to tell her she was on the wrong path until years into her waywardness. Finally, one day her grandfather sat her down and, with tears streaming down his face, spoke truth into her life and begged her to turn from the destructive path she was on. That was the beginning of healing for this young woman. Pray for this precious lady (her first name is Sydney) that she would come to know Jesus and fully embrace God’s best for her future.
This article disturbed me greatly on several fronts. First, it troubled me that so many adults (including counselors and medical professionals) could watch a young person head down a path of destruction and not only refuse to offer a word of correction but even go so far as to encourage a young woman to continue in sinful and hurtful behaviors. Oh, that the Lord would help us to be different! If a young person in our lives needs to hear truth, may we be bold to speak it.
Second, it reminded me how we need to be so vigilant. Satan wants our children. He will use whatever means he can to get at them, be it books, magazines, television programs, movies, video games, i-phones, Internet sites, or poorly chosen friends. Please take time this weekend to look to the state of your flocks, mothers. Use the following questions as discussion starters or as food for thought so that you and your husband can make sure the hedge fences around your children are all in good repair.
- Do we hold the Word in high esteem in our home—reading it, memorizing it, discussing God’s precepts, lifting up the Bible as our final authority and our standard for all decisions?
- Do our children spend the bulk of their time with us? Do we know what they are doing?
- Do we know what our children are reading? Are there books that have crept in that are worldly or would be otherwise displeasing to the Lord?
- Do we know what our children are watching and how often? Are there better things they could be doing with their time?
- Do we know our children’s friends? Do we spend time together as families or are the children often alone unsupervised with other young people? What kinds of games are we playing / allowing?
- Do we have concerns about certain friends that we’ve been shrugging off rather than addressing?
- Do our children have access to i-phones, texting, e-mail, Internet? Why?
- Are we mindful of the content of our children’s conversations and correspondences with those outside the home?
- Are there any magazines, newspapers, or other reading material coming into our home that we might need to cancel?
- Are there things about our children’s appearance and moral / spiritual development that we should be keeping a better handle on? (dress, manners, tone, responsibilities, etc.)
- Are there things in our lives that make us inconsistent models of godliness? How can we change that?
- Have we made sure lately that our children know they can come to us anytime with questions and concerns?
- Have we been taking seriously the duty we have to protect our children? We make sure they have food to keep them from hunger, clothes to keep them from cold, medicines to keep them from illness . . . what have we been doing to keep them from loving the world?
This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a place to start a conversation. I’m not going to tell you which books, magazines, programs, activities, and technologies you should or shouldn’t allow; those are choices each couple must make for their own home, but I am going to encourage you to hold everything up to the Word and evaluate it again. And I am going to urge you to guard the innocence of your children as long as you can. Allow them to be children—to know stability, to know familial love, to know all that is good and lovely and pure, to know that Dad and Mom make decisions they believe to be best for the family—not just for today but to ensure (inasmuch as anyone is able to) a godly progeny as well. Pray for your children, mothers. Build hedge fences around them with Scripture’s precepts. And tell them over and over again that God loves them, that He has a plan and a purpose for their lives, and that if they will only humble themselves and follow Him, they will be blessed.
“And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”
Copyright © 2020
* Note of explanation for those who might misunderstand my meaning in saying we should keep our children from “loving the world.” I am not referring to the people in the world. God gave His only begotten Son to save people; and He wants us to love them every one. But the world itself and the things that are in it are not to become stumbling blocks to Christians. Rather we are called to pursue righteousness. God says in I Peter 1:16, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” The fact that we can’t do that perfectly is no excuse for not trying!