Raising Children to Walk with God

Written by: Bridget Deschner

As Christian mothers, one of the most worrisome questions we ask ourselves is, “will my children grow up to walk with God?” We know at some point our little ones will be big enough to move out of the house and make their own decisions. Even if that day may be years down the road, it can be a terrifying thought if we are spending too much time looking out at the world around us and all its corruption. However, we can find comfort and direction from God through the Bible.

We can follow its instruction to best equip our children to deal with all the evils that exist around them. Equipping our children begins within the walls of our homes, where we mold their hearts and minds through our own words and actions on a day-to-day basis, in the little moments that we share with them.

Bringing our children up to know God does not happen passively – we must be very intentional every step of the way to train them up correctly. If we take a passive role, there is a high chance that they will go their own way after they’ve left the security of our walls. Below are some key areas that will play major roles in the spiritual and mental growth of our children, and ones we should pay close attention to while we have strong influence on their development.

Discipline

Ah, the dreaded “d” word. This task seems one of the hardest to do for parents, but it is especially for mothers. We find ways to show love to our children through nurturing, hugging, and kissing scraped elbows, but employing consistent, appropriate discipline is one of the largest ways we can show our children that we care about their eternal souls. Discipline may look different household to household, but we can turn to the Bible to see how discipline helps our children. 

Proverbs 13:24 states that “he who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” Discipline teaches our children to not act foolishly (Prov. 22:25, Prov. 29:15), and will help bring peace and rest to both of your souls (Heb. 12:11, Prov. 29:17). It won’t feel pleasant in the moment for either of you, but ultimately there is much benefit. The best example we have is God, our Father, who has chastened his children time and time again in order to bring them back to Him so that they might be with Him eternally (Heb. 12:5-6). 

If we care about our children’s souls, we will discipline them.

Daily Bible Study

We know that our focus on living a godly life is best tuned-in when we spend daily time in His Word. 

Why would we want to deny our children those blessed words and lessons?  Reading the Bible daily with our children also helps them develop the habit of daily study, which will do them much good as they grow older and more independent with their use of time. 

Deuteronomy 6:7 is a great example of how we should prioritize scripture reading, study, and memorization.

 After all, the Bible is the best place to go to know how we can live lives that are pleasing to God, and the more our children know about that, the better off they’ll be. (Eph. 3:14-17)

Homeschool

These days, there are plenty of reasons to homeschool your children, but teaching them to walk in the light overshadows all the rest. Despite all the terrible propaganda and wordly wisdom taught in schools today (1 Cor. 3:19, 1 Cor. 1:20), our children need to know how to put God first in all they do, how to be the selfless servants He has called us to be, and how to love in a godly manner (Romans 12:2). 

We cannot have the influence we need to have on our children if they are spending 8+ hours away from home, no matter how much we instill in them during the short time they have at home at the end of the day (1 Cor. 15:33, Prov. 13:20). It really boils down to this, simply; the world is evil, and we cannot send our children out into it until they have been properly equipped to deal with it. 

Now, homeschooling may seem like an incredibly daunting task, and many mothers may have jobs or other circumstances where their children are outside of the home much of the day. I implore you to assess your situation and do everything in your power to get to a point where you can homeschool – there are so many resources that make it much easier and less stressful than it has been in the past!

Love and Grace

Doing all the right things for our children will amount to nothing if we are not showing them love and grace along the way. It may seem like common sense, but there are definitely moments where it is hard to do. Patience quickly becomes in short supply, and our frustrated sighs and harsh tones relay more than we realize.

 In those moments, we need to remember passages like Ephesians 4:29-32, Colossians 3:12, and Galatians 5:28; we need to take captive EVERY thought (2 Cor. 10:5) and make sure we are not letting our emotions control us. Our children are little people with even less patience and even bigger emotions, and we need to teach them how to navigate those things through our interactions with them. 

What if we do mess up and act very unloving toward them in a moment of weakness? This is a great opportunity to show humility and ask for forgiveness, another lesson that is important for them to learn. Our children don’t need to think we are perfect, but they need to know we are striving to be Christ-like, and what that looks like.

Godly Examples

Tying into the previous point, we mothers need to set the example for our little ones to follow. Daughters especially will be looking to you as they grow up in this feminist-saturated culture, wondering what exactly a God-fearing woman looks and acts like. We need to be sure we are living out the role that God has called us to be in, that we are submissive wives, meek and shamefaced, modest, gentle, and doers of good works (Titus 2:3-5, 1 Tim. 2:9-15, 1 Peter 3:1-6).

 We need to dress our daughters modestly, teach them how to discern modesty by the Bible’s standard themselves, and guide them to develop these qualities of the heart as we live it out ourselves. Although our sons will need to learn some different lessons only their fathers can teach them, they will still one day look for a wife and will need to know what a godly woman looks like, or what red flags should cause them to run in the other direction.

Our sons will grow up to be better men if we make sure our home is orderly (both physically and mentally) and peaceful, allowing them to develop without trauma that unfortunately so many children today deal with. Our example, for both our sons and our daughters, will affect them in a very big way as they grow into adulthood.

Opportunities

Though setting a godly example is imperative to the spiritual growth of our young ones, giving them opportunities to fulfill their God-given roles themselves will help cement who they are and what God expects from them as Christian men and women. 

Are you including your daughters when you cook meals, sew a dress, or tidy the house? Are you giving your sons the chance to lead a prayer before Bible time, or letting them go help Daddy out in the garage with his latest project? Sometimes it takes extra effort to seek out these prospective teaching moments, but it is well worth it.

“Gender roles” are heavily criticized in the world today, but we can see in the Bible that God created male and female equally in His eyes (Gen. 1:27) with different functions to carry out (Eph. 5:22-33, 1 Peter 3:1-7). We need to make sure our children learn the biblical truths of this subject before society’s skewed, sinful views can be impressed upon their hearts. Give them practice being godly young men and women, and lots of it!

Psalm 127:3-5 announces that children are a heritage from the Lord, a reward! How blessed we are to have them. 

Despite knowing this, it can be discouraging to see the world around us and worry about their futures and their souls. In those moments, we need to make sure we are looking to the Bible for direction and comfort. 

We need to be sure we are being vigilant as mothers to raise our children to walk through the narrow gate, to be confident enough in Christ to go against what society is screaming into the megaphone, so they may, too, one day raise their own offspring to follow the Lord.