Daily Devotional

Embracing Your Lifelong Calling

By Deb Graham

From the moment the pregnancy test confirms that you are going to be a parent, you enter the first stages of what will become a reality for the rest of your life. Many parents think their job is done the moment their child reaches eighteen or twenty-one, but whoever said that parenting comes with an expiration date? I do not believe this is what the Bible teaches or that God our Father turns us over to ourselves and checks out when we reach a certain age.

In fact, I have discovered that the opposite is true. The older I get, the more dependent I am upon my heavenly Father. With age I need His guidance and wisdom more and more in my life and long to be with Him more often. Someday I will find complete happiness when I can sit at His feet and worship Him for all eternity.

So don’t tell me that a parent’s job is over when his or her children reach adulthood. Being a parent is a lot like being married. You are committed to be there in sickness or in health, for richer or poorer, till death do you part. And even after death, a parent’s skills or lack thereof continue to influence future generations.

But there are different and distinct seasons of parenting, just as there are seasons of life. The problem in America is that many parents grow frustrated or disillusioned in one season and never move on to the next one. The challenge we face is to learn to trust God in each season, and the joy is to see Him equip us in unique ways for each unique season.

Today’s young families have more books, CDs, DVDs, self-help programs, and other materials available on the subject of parenting than any previous generation. Yet, while we are giving our children input to make them Baby Einsteins, we are breeding ignorance of the Bible. We are technology-savvy but out of touch on how to pray. We are leaving a legacy of tolerance but are leaving a void in the understanding of truth and its power. In reality, we don’t seem to be getting any better at being parents.

So what can we do? How can we succeed at the most cherished calling anyone can have? To meet the challenges, we must be armed with every weapon that God has available for us. We must be smarter than the devil and protected by the Holy Spirit. We must be committed for a lifetime of service, knowing that it will cost us our freedom, leisure time, money, and tears to be good parents, but that it is worth every sacrifice.