This Sunday is Children’s Day weekend, and it is also the start of Reformation Month. To commemorate both, here’s an article1 on how the doctrine of justification can offer rest to parents who labour in love and weakness to raise their children in the Lord.
Ps Luwin Wong
Rest is part of working well in any kind of labour. For parents, rest can mean taking some time away from the kids to do something that replenishes and energises us.
But more than a physical or mental break from attending to our kids’ needs, there is a kind of deep rest for the heart. We who are united with Christ are able to enjoy this rest for the inner person in the present moment.
Through Jesus’s death on the cross, he paid the penalty we owed for our sin, and his perfect righteousness was counted to us (Romans. 3:21-24). The Bible calls this justification, which simply refers to the legal status that God grants us because of Jesus’ completed work on the cross. Given to us by grace, our justification begets countless other blessings that hold us so securely, we can have rest in all circumstances.
As parents, we can labour in and through this kind of rest, because this rest is the peace of mind and soul that comes from Jesus’ finished work for us.
We can rest because our task is clear
There are few things more disorienting to me than not knowing what I’m doing or why I’m doing it. Equally stress-inducing is hearing the constant stream of voices telling me what parents need to do and how if I don’t do it, my kids’ lives will be terrible. I slip into frenzied guilt, with fear of failure driving me to try to heed all the advice, which is neither restful nor sustainable.
We really need the reminder that as people justified by grace, we already have a clearly defined purpose that cuts through the noise of parenting-advice-overload. We can take a deep breath, step back and return to who we are and what that means for us as parents.
As a people justified, we are reconciled to God and he calls us his very own. It is God’s will for us to train up our children in the ways of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). We are to teach and guide them, in word and deed, directly and through our own example, how to live as people who are loved by God. Bodily health, happiness and stability are all important, but they are important to the end of living as God’s people who love him and love others. They’re not the end unto itself.
But living as God’s people who love him and love others is a function of a changed (and changing) heart. And growing a mature, God-oriented heart cannot happen apart from God’s work (Philippians 2:13). This is just as true for our kids as it is for us.
When Paul speaks of growing his spiritual children, he says, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6).
Likewise, our task as parents is clear. We plant and we water the seed of God’s Word with our hearts and hands, words and deeds. And through all of it, it will be God who gives the growth. So we can trust Jesus to work his good purposes for the heart-growth of our children as he uses our imperfect, grace-thirsty parenting labours.
We can rest because we labor presently in grace
Even if we’re clear what our task is, raising children to know God is still a huge task. Watering and planting according to shifting needs and stages is indescribably hard. And things can, and do, go wrong.
It’s not restful when our kids rebel. It’s not restful when they make self-destructive choices. It’s not restful when we cannot see how the current trials will resolve.
But as people who are justified, we know it was grace that got us here, it is grace that keeps us going, and grace that will bring us and our children home (Ephesians 2:8-9). We presently live and parent with grace that is sufficient to make up for our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9). There is grace for all the difficult, unexpected and unknown.
Here are a few ways living in grace means we have help:
We love our kids, continuing in exhaustion and heartbreak, confusion and weakness, by God’s strength (1 Peter 4:10)
We are promised wisdom when we ask (James 1:5)
We can approach the throne of grace to plead for our children, and we will receive grace in our time of need (Hebrew 4:16)
The Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray for our children (Romans 8:26-27)
We have the support and encouragement of brothers and sisters in the church body, both locally and personally.
We can rest because we labour with an expectant hope
We care a lot about our children’s futures. We know we should trust God to do what only he can do, but sometimes we trust him with the same attitude that we have paying our taxes – begrudgingly, like we would rather not have to but we don’t have much of a choice.
But we can trust God restfully with our kids’ futures. God is for us parents. He loved us before the foundation of the world. Jesus’ work justified us and brought us into God’s family (Ephesians 1:4-5). “How will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)
Parents, let’s remember that however much you crave your children’s ultimate good, God desires it even more. Nothing will stop God from enacting his good plan for your children.
And he will use your labour, your love, your skills, and your prayers to do it.
So our labour and our prayers are always girded with expectant hope. We can rest in the knowledge that God’s purposes for us and our kids are good. He will finish the work that he started (Philippians 1:6).
(1) Connie L. Nelson, (August 15, 2024), Three Ways We Can Rest as Parents Who Are Justified. Rooted Ministry. Taken from: https://rootedministry.com/three-ways-we-can-rest-as-parents-who-are-justified/
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