Lesson 5
God told us to be fruitful and multiply and we’ve been doing it since the commandment was spoken. With great excitement we bring our bundles of joy home! Then we go through years and I do mean years of FEAR! No matter how small it’s still FEAR.
Our fears can deal greatly with sickness and disease. We hear of children today who are diagnosed with fatal childhood diseases and pray fearfully that it will pass over our children. Then with the crazies today, we fear sexual predictors who just might live in our neighborhoods. We see parents weeping on the television begging for their child to be returned home. Well, I have written enough just in the beginning of this paragraph to get us to step over the line of trust God with our children to absolute panic! But let’s get this settled once and for all or it will eat at us the entire time we are parents, which by the way is decades. Parenting doesn’t stop when our children leave home. Every age of our children can bring on different circumstances, but the root we are talking about into today’s lesson is FEAR of not being my child’s everything.
Have you been—are you there now—will you be one day? Some in the list below may seem silly to many of you, but to others you will check the boxes and totally understand.
Early childhood:
1Your child is diagnosed with a life threaten disease.
1Your child isn’t eating properly and doesn’t rest well.
1Your child has only one parent to be both mother and father.
1Your child shy and doesn’t make friends well, others pick on him/her.
1Your child isn’t as “shape” in school as his/her brother or sister.
1You have to tell your child he/she can’t have something like other children because of lack of money.
1Others _____________________________________________________________________________
Pre-Teen childhood:
1Your child seem fearful especially at night and has nightmares, could there be something going on?
1Your child seems to have a gender problem.
1Your child is beginning to not talk to you about everything going on.
1Your child is staying more and more in their room and less time with the family.
1Your child wants to grow up too fast…why?
1Others _____________________________________________________________________________
Teen childhood:
1Your teen is driving and you know how crazy drivers are.
1Your teen is mixed up with the wrong crowd and where is this leading.
1Your teen is not truthful with you and you don’t know what to believe.
1Your teen is sneaking out at night and has been returned home by the police.
1Your teen is not doing well in school and has such a short time to turn things around.
1Your teen has a questionable girl/boyfriend.
1Your teen has chosen to live with your husband/wife and you are so hurt.
1Others_____________________________________________________________________
Adult children:
1She/he has left home over an argument over character values.
1He/she is out of church and shows no interest in what you raised them to believe.
1She/he is on drugs and you don’t know where they are today or if they will ever change.
1He/she is living with someone who is not a believer and is sexually involved.
1She/he will be leaving for deployment in a dangerous situation. The enemy is real will they die?
1He/she can’t manage money very well and he/she is putting a strange on you financially.
1Others_____________________________________________________________________
Jesus encountered parents who were in deep distress over a real situation and listened to their pain. They begged, pleaded and gave their best case to Him. Knowing He could do something about it.
Mark 5:22-23 (Amplified Bible)
22Then one of the rulers of the synagogue came up, Jairus by name; and seeing Him, he prostrated himself at His feet
23And begged Him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, so that she may be healed and live.
Matthew 15:22 (Amplified Bible)
22And behold, a woman who was a Canaanite from that district came out and, with a [loud, troublesomely urgent] cry, begged, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is miserably and distressingly and cruelly possessed by a demon!
Mark 9:24 (Amplified Bible)
24At once the father of the boy gave [an eager, piercing, inarticulate] cry with tears, and he said, Lord, I believe! [Constantly] help my weakness of faith!
Satan knows the bond God creates between parent and child. He knows this can become a fear that is acceptable to society. Acceptable– how? Because we are suppose to worry about our children. We are suppose to be prepared to answer all the “what ifs” in their lifetimes…right?
WRONG! Of course we are to be responsible; their teacher, protector, and guide. But we are not to become fearful to the point we blame ourselves for decisions their make, even as small children. God gave them a free will also.
A child is born a sinner. A beautiful toddler given the right situation will tell you a lie. Why are you shocked, why do you blame yourself? When your child fails to the family rules no matter what age and does the opposite, why do we immediately become anger/frustrated? Anger and frustration is an outward showing of FEAR…fear of nothing being our child’s everything. For some reason they must not respect us as parents or are just doing it to be disobedient. And that is probably true, but our response must not come out of FEAR of our failure and how it reflects on us. It’s not personal most of the time. Even at a young age they are doing what a sinner does best….SIN!
Remember this…our children were first God’s in heaven. He knew them before they were formed in our bodies. He loves them more than we can possibly love them.
So what can we do to relieve this fear? If we aren’t a woman of prayer, FEAR will overcome us at different stages of our children’s lives? We become their trainer; we become their advocates before God…just as Jesus is our advocate before the Father God for us as parents.
Satan doesn’t want you to pray because it stirs within you HOPE which brings you to FAITH, and FAITH not fear please God
We as parents will face some of the situations mentioned in the lists in the beginning. And we will be afraid. We will hear the whispered words of despair and hopelessness, but we can’t afford to pray FEARFULLY. We must pull out the sword of the Lord and ask for strength from the Holy Spirit and meet in the battlefield with our Lord Jesus as Captain of the Host and let Him fight for us. Know what God’s will is for your child in the word of God and stand on it.
What if you find yourself in a cemetery standing over your child’s grave. Nothing could be so awful for a parent. No pain so deep. Remember God loves your child more than you do…why would He let you go through that? Well, God knows the future and He knows what is best for all involved. God watched His Son suffer at the hands of evil people. Jesus was made fun of and humiliated before the crowds. Our Lord even went to the house of drunks and whores and kept Himself on the mission of His Father God.
God never dismisses parents’ prayers!
Dear Father God,
Its me________________________, here I am praying for my child ____________________.
You know her/him better than I do. You have been in all their tomorrows…yesterday, and I praise You for that. I can’t be my child’s conscience neither their “everything”. I gave them to You when they were just babies. You are my everything and also theirs.
But today/tonight I place them in Your loving hands with this situation __________________________. I admit I don’t know what to do, but You, my Lord, do. Please according to Your unchangeable Word found in________________________________________ (read it back to Him and put your child’s name in it). I depend on You to hear my prayer and do Your perfect will in ___________ life. I won’t let go of Your Word and I praise You that today it is still ALIVE and ACTIVE in ________________________________situation.
I bind __________________________________to Your will, and I loose him/her from the problem of ______________________________________. Bring me and my family peace that passes all understanding so we can be an example to all around us. I am Your child and so is my son/daughter _________________________________________.
We love and trust Your holy wisdom and word. May we learn from this and share with others the journey we are on. In Jesus’ name, blood and resurrection I pray….AMEN
Now take this prayer and tape it up where you go regularly (refrig., bathroom mirror, car) and when you hear words of discouragement from yourself or satan you begin to praise God when you look it over again.
- Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:5-7 (in Context) Proverbs 22 - Galatians 3:25
But now that the faith has come, we are no longer under a trainer (the guardian of our childhood).
Galatians 3:24-26 (in Context) Galatians 3 - Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and admonition of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:3-5 (in Context) Ephesians 6 - Titus 1:6
[These elders should be] men who are of unquestionable integrity and are irreproachable, the husband of [but] one wife, whose children are [well trained and are] believers, not open to the accusation of being loose in morals and conduct or unruly and disorderly.
Titus 1:5-7 (in Context) Titus 1 - Titus 2:4
So that they will wisely train the young women to be sane and sober of mind (temperate, disciplined) and to love their husbands and their children,
Titus 2:3-5 (in Context) Titus 2 - 2 Peter 2:14
They have eyes full of harlotry, insatiable for sin. They beguile and bait and lure away unstable souls. Their hearts are trained in covetousness (lust, greed), [they are] children of a curse [ exposed to cursing]!
2 Peter 2:13-15 (in Context) 2 Peter 2