A Random Thought on Raising Children 😏

Once again, Bay and I are in the Philippines 🇵🇭 serving at a variety of venues: Sunday church services, leadership training conferences, evangelistic outreach events, university evangelical ministry, a women’s conference (in which we are partnering with Compassion International), and connection with government officials for a possible large future crusade. 

This trip, we brought friends, who pastor a church in Greenfield, IN. What a blessing to have them share responsibilities with us…

(Pastor Theo and Randy Griffin)

…and, what a gift to experience what Paul expressed so well:

It is right for me to feel this way about you (full of thanksgiving)…for you are all partakers with me of grace in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

Partakers, by definition, are companions who help achieve more together than either could “doing the work” alone. 

We certainly saw this in action this week (Theo and Randy left us this afternoon to head back to Indiana, and we will miss partnering with them).

At the leadership conferences, we zeroed in on the biblical purposes and character of those who are called by God to serve Him among His people. 

One of the leaders assigned to me was Samuel - one of the greatest prophets Israel has known!

At different times of my life, certain aspects of Scripture hit me in diverse ways depending on the current season in which I find myself. 

So as I reviewed Samuel’s story, I was taken back to a quiet time where God spoke to me years ago. 

Steph, Adam, and Mandy were quite young. 

Bay and I were waiting on raising the support we needed to head to Africa. 

Our home had sold. 

All our earthly possessions, except for Bay’s grandmother’s piano and his saddle, were safely ensconced on board the ship heading to Kenya. 🇰🇪 

We were staying with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law as we looked expectantly toward our future in Africa. 

This particular morning, the words from a letter that had arrived in the mail from my parents, played like a recording over and over in my brain. 

“Why would you take your children so far away to a primitive country where there is so much disease, potential danger, and lack of amenities? What about the things you can’t give them there that are prevalent here in the US? How are you going to feel if they want ice cream and you can’t get them something as simple as ice cream?” 

Of course, it occurred during the middle of the night when things always seem bigger and “badder” than they ever do in the day light.

What is it about night that causes our brains to shut down and not think the thoughts of God as easily?

Yet it happens to us all.

For me, those words translated into “What kind of parents are we?” “What kind of future life were we giving our children?” “What if they grew up to resent us for taking them away from the life they had in America?” And, most of all…”What if our act of obedience in saying ‘Yes” to the Lord had damaging repercussions and they chose not to follow Jesus because of us?”

😟😟😟

The next morning in my quiet time, I was slated to read the first few chapters in the book of 1 Samuel. Here’s the back story:

• Samuel’s mother, as we know, was Hannah.
• Hannah was one of two wives to Elkanah.
• While his first wife bore him several children, Hannah was barren and it grieved her heart.
• When the family went to Shiloh to the temple to sacrifice, as was their custom, Hannah went into the quiet of the temple in the early morning to pray.
• Her desperate tears; her crying aloud to the Lord, caused Eli the priest to think she was drunk.
• As he approached her to rebuke her, he listened to her petition, and prophesied that, indeed, she would have a son before the next year.
• She did. 
• Her declaration to the Lord upon Samuel’s birth proclaimed that she would “give her son back to the Lord” once he was weaned. (I can’t imagine!)

Here’s the thing…

Hannah took Samuel and left him with Eli, the priest. 

What Eli lacked in parenting skills (“Now the sons of Eli were worthless men…1 Samuel 2:12”), he also lacked in the priesthood - a terrible father and, perhaps, an even worse priest. 

Because of this, the Lord rejected the house of Eli and revealed that He would strip the priesthood from this family.

However (!) the Lord also told Eli, He (God, Himself) would “raise up for himself a FAITHFUL PRIEST, who would do according to all that is in God’s heart and in His mind (1 Samuel 2:35)”

These words from the ancient books of the Old Testament comforted my heart from God’s Holy “Rhema.”

The Lord, in spite of Eli, raised Samuel up to be a great man of God, a faithful servant, a minister in the house of the Lord.

Like Elkanah and Hanna, Bay and I dedicated our children back to the Lord as babies.

We covenanted with God to raise them the best we knew how with the education and information we had in those days.

Were we “perfect?” 

Ha! Far from it…but our hearts were committed to do what we believed was best, all the while serving the Lord ourselves, as we placed our children into His loving hands. 

Here’s what the Lord spoke to me that morning following my “long night” - 

If the Lord could do a great work in the heart of Samuel under the tutelage of a worthless priest, who wasn’t even a good father figure, I could surely trust Him to ‘raise up’ my children, as well - no matter where He might lead us.

Hannah’s example held the keys: desperate praying and total surrender of her child into God’s hands.

XXXXX

This was simply a random reminder to me this week.

I honestly don’t know who needs to read this…if anyone…😏

But, I was thankful to reminisce that the Lord is (no matter how old) still THE ONE who does the “raising up” of my adult children (even to old age and gray hair) and my grand kiddos…as well as, future generations to come!

In this, I continue to trust His sovereign hand.