#26. Children a Hindrance to Abiding in Jesus?
Our knee-high children are not a spiritual tripping hazard. Children aren’t an interruption, they are the little ones we’re not to despise (Matthew 18:10). They are among the “others” who Jesus tells us to love. We show our love for Jesus in the way we talk and think about and interact with these little ones. It isn’t only love for the adults which matters on the Jesus vine.
Often, the way we talk, the way we do women’s ministry, the way we organise our churches, implies that children are an obstacle to the growth of Christian adults. We seem to need to get away from our kids (and our homes) if we are to grow. But we are not test tube Christians, removing context to protect and purify growth. When we try to reduce the variables, by removing the children, we get rid of the life. We create a wider chasm between our Christian discipleship and the stuff we spend most of our time doing. We send the message that the Bible is brittle and the Holy Spirit can’t possibly be heard over the babble of a toddler. We sterilise all the challenges, when in fact, learning to trust and obey Jesus in the breathless dependence of those challenges, is God’s gift to all of us. Abiding in Jesus, is abiding in him while we’re in the situation he has put us. For mothers of young kids, that means abiding in Jesus while we’re with them.
Yes, it’s hard to study the Bible and pray and listen to a sermon and meet with other Christians—without interruption—while doing the work of early motherhood. It’s cumbersome and fragmented. There is a long season when it doesn’t look the same as it did before. A lot of our difficulty comes because we expect things to be the same as they were before kids.
Maybe we imagine that the only way of being nourished as a Christian is using the methods which helped us ten or fifteen years ago? So we keep trying to do church life as if the children aren’t there. Perhaps we think the best way of loving other believers is to join programs/activities/events run by our local church? Being keen for Jesus gets equated with zeal to serve on every roster and event. We try to maintain the same sort of presence we would have if we didn’t have young kids. I’m thankful to be in a church where there are ample opportunities to serve, but there’s also a stated respect for the seasonality of our capacity. Even in such a generous culture, I think many of us still feel the pull towards structured activities—structures which displace our present duties.
This leads to a rivalry, where one obedience to Jesus (abiding in him) is set against another obedience (discipling our children). God didn’t invent that dissonance. If our ways of hearing God’s word and serving him rely on us being child-free, we’re separating things God designed to be together. If our picture of abiding in Jesus only works when the children aren’t around, then things are disordered.
When you’re in the middle of Ladies Daytime Bible Study, and enjoying the deep delve into a passage only to be interrupted by your three year old rushing in to tell you about another three year old who is plastering a baby with mud, he is not a wicked device to distract you from the Bible. He is bringing a legitimate reminder that the children need parenting, not just supervision, and that God has entrusted that task to their, um, parents. It’s a reminder that when we are ignoring the work, there isn’t anyone else there to do it for us—even if there is competent supervision. Taking a good gift (like Bible study with friends) in a way which stops us doing the obedience that God has put before us (training our children towards godly maturity) is not good.
I wonder if we underestimate the way these small years fit into the long term process of children growing into mature gospel godliness? We’re content to tread water, keeping the kids safe and occupied, while we wait for some future moment when they seem ready to understand the gospel, at which time we imagine someone in kids or youth ministry will lead them to Jesus. After that point we assume they will start to figure out godliness. In the meantime, we miss the steady, gentle force of millions of minutes training our children in the habits of being Jesus’ people. For children raised by Christian parents, the habits of Christianity are to precede their understanding of Christianity. We’ve been commissioned to teach our kids not just about Jesus, but to obey him (Matt 28:18-20).
Each hour has its way of shaping our children, and it’s our role to proactively direct them into all the good they’re free to do. To set that foundation, we need to be near them and paying attention. (It’s the opposite of helicopter parenting, by the way, but we’ll hold off on this topic for now. By the end of this year we will be tackling that line of thought*). For now, the point is, if we think our job is merely to make sure our kids are supervised while we do our grown up things, then our grown up things will be frustrated AND we’ll be missing one of our prime duties. We’ll also miss one of God’s great provisions for our own growth right now.
When we do set aside other activities so we can be free to train our young children in the rhythms of obedience, our kids actually become easier to enjoy. The season of saying no to many other things is an investment in future freedoms for the children and parents. A few diligent years of consistent habit formation leads to being able to say yes a whole lot more, both to our children and to others. When a three year old has learned to respond to parental instructions most of the time, then it’s possible to read the Bible while he’s nearby. When a four year old is trained in the norms of self control, it’s possible to pay attention to most of a sermon while she is with you.
I wonder if our dependence on being child-free in churches is a bandaid for the trouble we have teaching our children to obey? And much of our trouble helping our children learn obedience comes from not having consistent days where our children learn the norms of living that way. The answer to our distractedness is not to send the kids away to their specialised safe spaces, but to bring them closer and to teach them Jesus’ ways. To work out how to parent while we’re abiding in Jesus and to abide in Jesus while we’re working out how to parent.
The daytime Bible study, running the playgroup, teaching Sunday school, leading youth group, hosting evangelistic events are not the only way to model for your children how to abide in Jesus. The kids will see it when your ordinary life, for years on end, is lived trusting him, shaped by his word. They will see Jesus matters when you take living under his authority seriously. They’ll see that Jesus matters when you make the time to teach them what it means to live in obedience to him. What they’ll learn from being treated like a hindrance is that this vine is not for them; that they are free to rule themselves. Which is not what we’re aiming for.
Next up are some practical suggestions for feasting on God’s word while we’re in the absorbing years.
* Later in the Light Duties Project, I am looking forward to introducing a Christian educator from Victorian England, Charlotte Mason (1842-1923). Her whole educational philosophy and method is built on the implications of Jesus’ command to not despise children. If you’d like to get a head start, you’ll be well served by the A Delectable Education podcast.
