“God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and or a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7).
I am often afraid of things. That fear is expressed through my worry. Sometimes I am worried about work. Other times about my work at home. But most of all I worry about my children.
It is not their safety that concerns me the most or causes me the most worry – I generally trust that they will be kept safe through the Grace of God. Rather, I worry about who they will be when they grow up. You see, as a parent there are many things that I have in mind for my children. I have in mind that they will study hard and (hopefully) have successful careers, and meet loving partners and marry and have happy and easy lives.
And yet – all that happiness, all the study, all the success – it really does not mean a thing if their spiritual souls, their spiritual centre is not secure. In other words, it means nothing to have any sort of personal and material success if a person does not have spiritual success – if they are not a “good” person.
And I have been reflecting on that quite a lot over the last few days. You see, it is a grave responsibility for parents to teach their children good morals and values. It is a responsibility that I take very seriously and certainly one that causes me a great deal of stress, anxiety and fear. You see, when one of my children makes a choice that is sub-optimal, I immediately consider where that choice could lead them. I immediately consider how those choices could reflect on the rest of their lives. If they choose to lie about one thing, I consider whether this is an indication that they are dishonest people who will grow up with dishonest tendencies.
And I was reflecting on that today… because such worries and concerns over such matters are really quite absurd. You see, when my child makes a mistake by choosing something that is not good, when they chose sin, they are learning and it is a process.
Today they could make the wrong choice, and they could chose it again tomorrow. Then the next day they could do the same thing again. But my job as their mother is to tell them what good choices could be over and over and over and over again.
And my job as a mother is to continue to hope that they will one day listen to the words that I am saying and mimic the example I am setting.
And today as I was thinking about that it occurred to me that “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and or a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7).
And I realise that my children are the children of God, and because of that I really have nothing to fear!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.