I hope to encourage mothers to shift their perspectives about motherhood and encourage you with how to see your children the way God does.
You can go onto Instagram for five minutes and I’m positive you will stumble upon a post about a mother expressing a sense of disdain or sarcasm about her children.
It can be something as simple as ‘I need a break’ or ‘It’s time for a much needed night of self-care’. Or the more painful phrases like ‘these kids are driving me crazy’ or ‘I need to go hide in the closet to get away from my kids’.
If you have been a mother for more than a week, you understand the toll that motherhood can take on you, mentally, emotionally and physically. So, many of these posts and comments are relatable to say the least.
However, these kind of comments about motherhood, while relatable, are often degrading and belittling of the children that God has kindly blessed you with.
Psalm 127:3-5 tells us that “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”
If children are a heritage from the Lord, we should never publicly make complaints about our children, especially if we want to emulate Christlikeness. Notice that I emphasise ‘publicly’. I believe that there are times when it is okay to complain about sin associated with our children, not the children themselves. However, it’s so important to whom we address these complaints to.
This is just one example of the cultural norm of motherhood that does not reflect Kingdom culture.
How many other cultural norms do we accept and even have a little giggle about in regards to our God-given role as mothers?
Lately, I have been checking my own heart to see where I have shown ungratefulness or discontentment in my own motherhood journey and I would encourage you to do the same, fellow mama friend in Christ.
This post is purely to encourage you to refrain from giving in to cultural norms that make our children the joke or make them out to be the problem. Rather, I want to encourage you to look up and ask God to see children the way He does, especially on the ‘I want to drink some wine and hide in the closet’ type of days.
What I will cover in this post
- Bible verses that highlight children as a blessing
- 7 ways you can change your perspective on how to see your children the way God does
Bible verses that highlight children as a blessing
Genesis 1:28: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”
Mark 9:37: “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”
Proverbs 17:6: Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.
3 John 1:4: I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
John 16:21: when a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
7 ways to change your perspective on how to see your children the way God does
- Embrace the current season of your children, don’t resent it.
How often do you hear the phrase, ‘I can’t wait until my child is that age?’ As if to say that the mother wants to skip the current season she is in with her child.
This is not to disregard her real feelings of struggle as she navigates a tough season of parenting – I get it! But all seasons come to an end, for better or for worse. If we want to see children through God’s eyes, we must embrace and be grateful for the season our children are in. While we can focus on the hard parts, there are still often good aspects that we can be thankful for in that season. You don’t want to one day regret resenting time with your children, no matter how hard.
2. Welcome your children to partake in whatever activity or task you are doing.
Jesus himself says, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me”, and although Jesus is talking to his disciples about welcoming and looking after the least of these, like children, I think we can learn as mothers to welcome our children into our daily rhythms and not shoo them away.
Welcome them to help you cook dinner or to sit and read with you. Welcome them to wash and dry dishes with you or to accompany you on a walk. Whatever it is, I have learnt the beauty in welcoming my children in to whatever I am doing. It doesn’t mean they have to be with you all the time, but it means that when they wish to be with us, the message is clear that we want to be with them, too.
3. Delight in your children.
Zephaniah 3:17 says, The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.
Just like the Lord delights in us, so we should delight in our children. Not in an obsessive, overly dramatic kind of way, but in a way that tells them that you love who they are and you love to be with them. This could be through encouraging them with a compliment about their positive attitude or giving them a warm hug. I love when my kids want me to watch something that they are doing. They desire to be delighted in, so let’s delight in them.
4. Train them up in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6).
If you want your children to be a blessing, then teach and discipline them according to God’s Word and with a whole lot of prayer and thought.
I often get told that my children are well behaved. I feel very blessed to have children who are a blessing to be around, but it does not come without a lot of discipline, discipleship, wisdom and prayer. My husband and I have been very intentional about how we raise our children and have given them boundaries and clear consequences from very early on.
If you want to have children who are a blessing and not a burden, then it is so important to train them up in the ways of the Lord. Seek God and ask for His wisdom, look to the Word, seek counsel from other godly parents you admire, read helpful books. And most importantly, be consistent with your approach to teach and disciple them.
5. Pray for your children.
Whenever I feel angsty or annoyed by one of my children due to a variation of things, then I find that praying for them helps me to remember all the wonderful qualities about them. Even on the good days, or when they are asleep, pray over them. Remember why you had them in the first place, remember that God has blessed you with them and that they are born for such a time as this with a purpose.
Praying can mitigate any sort of ungratefulness and anger in our own hearts and cause us to view our children the way God does.
6. Raise them to be helpful.
I often tell my children, that if they are a part of this family, then they are responsible for their mess and they won’t complain if I ask them to do additional tasks. Most of the time, my children know what must be done and do it without complaining. I know that this is good training ground for when they grow older and take on more responsibility.
I also want to raise children who are helpful and hospitable towards others. This is a blessing to me when I see my children helping other people because they learnt from the very beginning how to be helpful in our home.
7. Remember that they ultimately belong to God.
I often remind myself of this, because I can get caught up in our every day menial tasks and get frustrated with my children for small things, like making messes in the house, squabbling with each other or not giving me some space to clear my head.
My children belong to the Lord and what an honour it is to be their mother here on earth. This reminder often diminishes any sort of ungratefulness or frustration I have and I remember what a blessing it is to have them as my children.
I know that we are never going to have this sort of perspective perfect every day. However, I believe with consistency in doing a heart check on ourselves and allowing the Holy Spirit to challenge us, we can begin to see our children more clearly the way God sees them. How much fuller and sweeter our lives will be when we do.
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