Parenting by God’s Design: A 5-Day DevotionSample

Day 5: Our Hope Is in the Lord

Our kids don’t always follow the script we’ve written for them. The truth is, we don’t always follow our own scripts. We hope things will work out a certain way, and they often don’t. We want our kids to follow God’s design, and sometimes they don’t. We make goals and don’t always meet them. We teach and instruct our children, and sometimes they don’t do what we say. We envision the way something will turn out and sometimes we’re disappointed.

Parenting is full of off-script moments. We find ourselves embarrassed, discouraged, worn out, or afraid. We put all of our hope in our children following our script, and when they don’t, we feel hopeless. We say, “This isn’t working out as we planned.” Or even if it does work out, we say, “What if it doesn’t last?” We begin to fear and doubt and long for a better plan. In those parenting moments, we acknowledge that we need something more, something bigger, someone to put our hope in who will not fail us.

How many times has the sun risen since you were born? We’re going to go out on a limb and say the sun has risen every single day for your whole life (unless you live in the Arctic Circle). There has not been a single time where the sun failed to come up. If you are 40 years old, that means you have seen 14,600 sunrises. As long as you get to wake up tomorrow, you will most assuredly see sunrise number 14,601. We don’t worry about the sun rising. We know it will happen. It’s predictable. It’s certain. It’s trustworthy. The sun is going to rise.

Those who trust in the Lord hope with more assurance than that. Look at Psalm 130:6, “I wait for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning — more than watchmen for the morning.”

This Psalm illustrates and teaches us a necessary parenting lesson. It’s not a lesson that we just learn once and never forget. Our hope is not in our job, our position, our marriage, our possessions, our children, or our social status. We continue to learn this lesson again and again as we parent our eight children. It’s hard not to put our hope in the success of our children. So much of who we are is wrapped up in who they are. When they hurt, we hurt. When they struggle, we struggle. When they succeed, we are proud to cheer them on. We love them fiercely, but we can’t put our hope in them. We can’t even depend on our boys to take out the trash or pick their wet towels off the floor half the time, so putting our hope in them doesn’t seem very wise.

There was a time when our parenting confidence was sky-high. We thought we could manage, control, and scheme enough to avoid big struggles with our children. When you have eight children you learn quickly that they are all so different. Those of you who have multiple children know what we mean. You figure out that certain ones are going to be easier to parent than others. Some are more compliant and teachable while others want to figure everything out on their own (which for the Scroggins kids means doing it the hard way).

We are all tempted to put our hope in things or people other than God. Some of you may have lost hope entirely as you have watched your children sin or struggle. We pray the words of Psalm 130 will remind you that God is with you. He has plans for you that are true and sure. God’s redemptive plan that he unveiled for the children of Israel is the same plan he offers to you and to your children. Through the gospel, God makes a way out of brokenness and allows us to recover and pursue his design.

We hope this plan encouraged you. Learn more at fullcircleparentingbook.com.