What Does a Childless Christian Woman Know about Parenting?
Happy new week everyone! I hope you are excited about Monday. I had a good after Church nap on Sunday, that is why I feel pumped for the new week (haha). By the way, if you are in Lagos, how have you been surviving the heat? My goodness! At this point, I don’t mind sleeping in my car since Nepa has refused to give us light to alleviate our suffering. How I long to hear the sound of the siren that let’s us know that all hope is not lost.
Speaking of receiving a well-deserved nap after church, let’s talk a little bit about what happened in church. At my church, we had another thought-provoking message, this one was centered on Christ requiring more from you - that is even your life. We talked about some of the martyrs of the faith, and the barest minimum most of us living in non-disruptive parts of the world put in to sharing the gospel with others. It was such a heavy message, but a welcome one. God help me with all these messages that I don’t remain a hearer only, but also become a doer. Let’s get right into today’s article.
You must be familiar with phrases such as: a single person cannot give a married person marriage advice; a childless person cannot give a parent parenting advice – and the list can be as endless as you want it to be. Well, there might be legitimacy behind such sayings because there is no personal experience per se to draw wisdom from to proffer such advice.
And so, when an older woman (who is married and has adult children by the way) tasked me with creating an article about parenting, I was surprised, considering I am not currently a parent. I no even get boyfriend; I thought to myself. I was immediately reminded of Mary; I couldn’t help but empathize with her bewilderment when she said: how can this be, seeing that I know not a man? (paraphrased), in response to angel Gabriel’s message to her that she was going to be with child as a virgin.
Putting humor aside, when presented with this assignment, I considered reaching out to parents for their insights and wisdom, stemming from their experiences. Although this would have been a valuable source, I opted not to pursue it, perhaps due to a touch of laziness. Consequently, I spent more than a week contemplating the question: If I were a parent, what approach would I take in raising my children?
In recent years, I have become more passionate about children and raising them in the way the bible calls Christians to raise their children. As such, when I have the opportunity to teach children in church, it is not one that I take lightly. So, to be great Christian parents (which I hope to become one day), we must look to scripture, to see what God has said about raising godly children.
What does God Expect from Christian Parents?
Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, the world has a way it wants to raise children - even our own children. It is no secret because we see what they include in “children entertainment,” what is on social media, and what they add to their curriculum, especially in the western world. The world is demanding your child’s attention. It is seeking to groom them, so they would become rebellious towards the things of God. And as a Christian parent, you must be awake to the subtle ways the enemy uses to pull your children away from the truth of God’s word.
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 says, “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
If you read further along in the passage, it also says that when their children ask questions about why their parents carried God’s matter on their head, that they should simply tell them all what God did for them when they were slaves in Egypt and how he rescued them.
This passage also applies to Christians living today. If you are a Christ follower, that means God has brought you out of the pathway of death, and into his kingdom. As such, God is also telling us through passages like this one, that we should also speak to our children about what he has done for us, because they are going to ask questions. The picture Deuteronomy 6 paints is an important one. It gives no room for parents to be slack in their parenting when it comes to the things of God.
Catch them young
The best time to do it is when they are young. There is this song that I began singing to my niece when she was two years old. It is a made-up song (which songs aren’t? Give me my Grammy nomination now, haha) which I sing to let her know that she is my baby no matter what. When I began singing the song to her, she would watch my lips, trying to mimic what I was saying. My niece is almost four years old, and she still knows the lyrics to that song because I never stopped singing it to her. It made me realize how malleable children’s minds are.
Starting at a young age enables you to guide them in the right direction. I can’t help but think about how many Christian parents waste the formative years of their children. This time, a gift from God, provides a crucial opportunity to instill teachings about God. Dismissing its significance can be misleading, as it is essential to recognize that the enemy is actively working to influence and shape the minds of children.
Especially with the rate at which many people have japa’d from this country - they are mostly taking their children into school systems which seek to destroy them. Places where they expose them to sexually explicit content and lies. Places where they teach them that it is okay to have two mommies or two daddies, or to have people (as parents) who are confused about their identity.
God is saying to the Christian parent, that all he has taught and commanded them, they should now teach them diligently to their children. He doesn’t say that you should outsource spirituality to your pastors, one parent, or the teachers in the church. He doesn’t say that you should wait for their grand parents who are devout Christians to talk to them about Christ; God is speaking to you a Christian parent to raise your children diligently in the ways of the Lord.
If God emphasizes something, it means that we should pay closer attention to it. And Deuteronomy 6, couldn’t be more emphasized. The way verse 7 is structured it is as if to say, give them no breathing room because their lives depend on this truth, and news flash, it does.
What does God Desire from the Marriage Union?
In Malachi chapter two, while God addressed faithless husbands, he reiterates what he desires from the marriage union. Verse 15 says, “And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.” As such we cannot divorce having children from the marriage union, because this is what God desires. If you do not want the responsibility of having and raising children, then do not get married.
Within marriages, people most times let their careers, hopes, and dreams, get in the way of raising godly children. They abandon children to the care of their carers and technology designed to distract them (as they do us), with no intention of nurturing them.
Parents are so consumed with providing their children with the life they did not have that they buy them things and fly them across the world while completely neglecting what God says about training up a child in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6).
We must recognize that we are raising or will raise children in a time when truth is being challenged. The enemy is counting on you to be lackadaisical about your parenting so he can destroy your children. As such your children, our children, need to be armed with God’s truth to be able to stand firm against the schemes of the enemy.
As Christians, we must not only reject anti-biblical ideologies but also equip our children and (or) future children to do the same. God, who created everything, including sex and marriage, also provided a safe environment in which children can be loved, nurtured, and raised with a complete understanding of the truth. And how can this be accomplished? By speaking to them about God’s word daily. Tell them how God rescued you from the slavery of sin and death and has now brought you into his kingdom.
In 2 Timothy 1:5, the apostle Paul was addressing Timothy. Somewhere along the line in his letter to him, he said, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.”
The sincere faith that was found in Timothy was not accidental. His grandmother did something right and passed it on to his mother, who must have passed it on to him.
Back to our beginning scripture, where God addressed the people of Israel before they were taken into the promised land. He gave them all those rules and commanded that they taught their children as well. And if we know the story, we know that rebellion happened along the line, so much so that God gave them into captivity, something that he had previously delivered them from.
It wasn’t the originals who left Egypt that were now carried to Babylon (The book of Jeremiah). It was generations after them. So, what happened? How did they lose their belief in God and turn to other gods? If we trivialize the commands God has given us, we stand the risk to lose our children to unbelief, and eventual destruction. A lot of this is already happening.
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