Representing Him

Once, after an especially hard day with my boys, I was in worship at a meeting and I felt God speak to me about representing Him to my children. I believe He said, "Do not misrepresent Me, because the view they have of you is the view they will have of Me. You determine in a very large way how they see Me and how they choose to trust Me for all of their lives!" I knew I hadn't handled some situations well that day. I was disappointed in myself. I loved my boys, but why was I showing little love towards them?

More than anything in the world, I want my children to believe that they are loved by a good God who wants to have a loving relationship with them and who wants to bring forth only good in and out of their lives. But how will they believe that if my relationship with them is anything but believing, building up and loving? Second Corinthians 5:20 talks about how important this is: "We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us" (NIV). The Message Bible puts it this way: "We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women....We’re speaking for Christ himself now." So I started asking myself what representing Him would look like and what it might entail. 

The way we represent God to our children is directly determined by what our own view of Him is. It is hard to represent God well if we don't know Him very well. It is hard to represent God well if we believe things that aren't true about Him. As I have been searching Him out, I have discovered three powerful truths about God's character that I want to reflect to my kids. I know there are innumerable qualities that make God who He is, but I will pick just three for now.

First, I came to realize that God is full of joy! For so long I thought He was extremely serious! But Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing" (NIV). And in Luke 15:6-9, when Father God finds His lost children, He cries out, "Rejoice with me!" One of the greatest reasons He is full of joy is because He is not worried or fearful. He is not surprised or afraid by all the plots of the devil and all the ways the devil brings chaos into situations. Instead, "the One enthroned in heaven laughs" (Psalm 2:4) and "in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). He is also unafraid of my failures and my poor choices. He believes in His redemptive power to restore all things, and this is available to me when I seek Him first.

Second, I came to see that God loves His children unconditionally. He created us already knowing all of the choices we would make that were not the best for us, but He never withdraws His love from us. And He always believes that we would turn around and choose Him. It's His kindness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). In the story of the prodigal son, we see a father (who represents God) freely blessing his son. The son chose to abandon his father, went and wasted his father's inheritance, lived against all that his father had taught about what is right, and disgraced the family name. In the story, that son represents us. Eventually, the son came to his senses and came home, expecting his father to treat him with contempt—because he deserved it. But the father ran to him, kissed his face, threw an extravagant party for him celebrating his return, and gave him his position back in the house—instead of focusing on what the son did wrong. That is the love of God for us. It is unconditional.

Third, I came to understand that God believes in us. "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). God, in all His wisdom, did not spare His only Son when He sent Him to the cross to die for all the sins we have committed. That's the value He has set on us. We are worth the trade! Leif Hetland puts it this way, "Jesus didn't die to make you valuable. He died because you are valuable." We tend to focus on our mistakes, but He is looking at what we can become with His Spirit in us. "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6). He believes in us so much that He calls us out of darkness and into light every single moment of every day.

My kids need me to reflect these things to them. I am God's representative to them. That's not prideful. God has appointed mothers to be His representatives, reflecting all that He is. That's our duty and our calling.

We haven't proven that we are worthy of God's love, yet He loves us. He doesn't love us "if" we behave a certain way; He just loves us. And I want to let me children know that they don't have to earn my approval and my love. They have it because they are mine. When they behave the worst, that's when they need me to love and believe in them the most. In correcting poor behavior we need to ask ourselves if our correction is from a place of anger and impatience or from a place of believing in them and loving them nonetheless. There is a huge difference in how the two play out.

We can create an atmosphere of joy in our homes. Just like God is full of joy, I need to be full of joy too! How can we talk about a good Father if we are not joyful mothers? I need to be able to renew my thinking every moment of everyday so I can laugh at the attempts of the enemy to discourage me, just like the One who is seated in Heaven laughs (Psalm 2:4)! Our children are very perceptive! If we are not filled with joy with the work of Motherhood, they will see that. It will affect the way they perceive their own value and worth, and they will not be able to trust that our God is a good God. (If we don't trust God completely, our children will see that, and it will determine their trust in God too.)

Our kids also need to know we believe in them. They need me to remind them how amazing they are. We are the first ones speaking into their hearts. I want them to know that they are not "accidents" but that they have a purpose that comes from heaven. When they behave the worst, I can look into their future and remind myself and them that they can be powerful men and women of God because they are chosen and set apart from before conception. That's what God says about all of us! "You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made....Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139). There is no reason not to prophesy these things over our children, because God has already planned my child's future, and I get to repeat the plan to my child! If I walk in His ways, my child's God-given destiny is set in stone!

Once we discover the truth about who God is and what He is like, there will be no stopping us from showing the same love we have so freely received from our Father to our children. Then we can change our behavior—and our children will notice. We can celebrate our children like God and heaven are already celebrating them.

So who is He to you? Ask yourself, "Do I see Him as a joyful and good God? Is He happy to see me? Does He celebrate me?" We need to set our eyes on Him, change our way of thinking, and renew our minds with the truth. My old thoughts and behavior patterns need to melt away with each revelation of God. This happens when we seek Him first. Then we can truly represent Him to our children.

Heaven Has a Plan

I believe that motherhood can be amazing! And I don't say this lightly, because I am a mother myself—fully acquainted with the challenges this calling in life brings. But it depends on where we are looking. There is a plan for motherhood that comes from heaven, and motherhood can be amazing if we follow it.

Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will." Motherhood truly can be amazing, but it isn't found in any of the patterns we see around us in the world. Our views of motherhood could use a makeover—a total transformation. And it starts with renewing our minds to think like God thinks.

I am so passionate to see us rise above what we have seen and heard around us about motherhood from the world. The world is constantly screaming in our ears, trying to give us a viewpoint of what motherhood is like, recalling the worst-case scenarios and showing us images of the mothers who have been beaten down and battered with a seemingly hopeless task! To ever experience something better, we need to shut out these other voices and tune our ears to hear Heaven's plan. Then we will be able to begin hearing our good, good God giving us a picture of what motherhood looks like to Him. He has a perfect will—and it's a good and pleasing will—that we can test and approve—and then declare to the world that it works! That is very hopeful!

Our society has made motherhood look like such a burden in so many ways. Nearly all of the comments that people make about what it's like to be a mother are laced with sarcasm. I believe all this grieves the heart of the God so much! In a very real sense, He is the very first one to be in the role that we label "Mother." He gave us all life, bringing us into the world and giving us everything we need to survive. Genesis 1:27 says, "in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them" (italics added). Men and women, fathers and mothers—they are created in His image, an image that He calls that "very good"! I'll say it again: mothers were created in His image. That is why I believe it grieves God when we paint motherhood in a poor light.

When we search the scriptures, we find out what a mother looks like to Him: Proverbs 23:25 says, "May your father and mother rejoice; may she who gave you birth be joyful!" And in Psalm 113:9 it says, "He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord."

God intends for us mamas to be filled with joy doing what we are doing. He enjoys being our parent and loving us, and He hopes that we would look to Him to find that in our motherhood as well. Please understand, I am not saying it will all just happen automatically. He has a way for motherhood to be joyful and happy, and we have to discover that. But it is absolutely possible. It begins with turning to Him for answers in everyday situations.

I think it's such a unique ability to give birth and to be a parent! He designed women in a beautiful way to be just like Him! We give birth just like He does, and we create a new being just like He does. He is the only perfect Parent. Can you begin to see how beautiful this gift is? And so there is a way, I believe, that God has in His mind for motherhood. He says, “As the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9).

If we decide ahead of time to love our role as mothers—because God has chosen us to be like Him—and we understand that He chose our children for us, that is when we step into the joy and happiness He destined for us to have. When we understand that our children are a gift from heaven, He will keep giving us revelation after revelation about our child's destiny and the plans that He has for them. This is so much better than the world's pattern of being overwhelmed by the daily struggles! As we renew our minds to the truth that motherhood is amazing, we will no longer look at the present situations as hopeless. Rather, it will cause us to be in absolute awe of God and in awe that we get to train up little world changers. We will be thrilled to be with these little warriors of God—instead of agonizing that we're stuck with "terrible two" year olds. He will cause us to look at them as not merely children who make messes, but as individuals whom He has chosen and set apart from birth, whom He plans to reveal to the world for such a time as this.

This unique and beautiful period in our lives pulls us to live completely for others, being challenged in every way we've known up until then or been familiar with.  It causes us to dig down deep into the One we depend on and get life from.

My challenge for us all is that we renew our minds—getting rid of our old thoughts and opinions about motherhood and trading them for higher, heavenly understanding. Let's focus on the good. There is no calling like the calling of being a mother! This calling of motherhood isn't something earthly. It's not something that was done to us. It is something incredibly good that comes from Heaven, from our good, good Father. He considered us capable and more than able to do the task. When we renew our minds to these things, we start to experience joy that comes from Him. Doing it another way is very hard, devoid of joy and also devoid of the strength that he promises us. When we renew our minds, He is able to renew our strength. On our worst days, days of sickness and days filled with seemingly endless tantrums, we can ponder on those things and keep our spirit lifted up, high above all the voices of the earth. As we listen to our Father, we will understand that Heaven truly has a good plan for us to be mothers.