Our children are not our project

**Kate Morris is one of the many great speakers and panellists for this year’s Mothers Union Sydney Seminar coming up on February 27 on the theme: The Joy of Enough. Find out more about this FREE parenting conference.**

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I remember looking at my second child the moment she was born. It was my first C-section, and the process felt so abrupt compared to the drawn-out birth of my first child. The doctor held my daughter under the bright surgery lights, her tiny frame cradled in his gloved hands. She screamed—red-faced, wide-mouthed, helpless. In an instant, she was no longer protected by my body, no longer inhabiting a warm, nourishing world. She was pulled into an enormous, shocking, brutal world.

For the first time in her life, she was separate to me.

And for the first time since she was conceived, I was suddenly separate to her.

As I watched her, wailing and scared, held in the hands of the doctor, it struck me that I could not completely protect her from the world. She could be taken from me, and I could be taken from her.

In that moment, I felt very thankful that she was first and foremost God’s child.

They are God’s children

Although our children are born to us or adopted by us, they belong to God, their Creator and true Father. Isaiah says:

‘Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.’ (Isaiah 64:8)

This is an important truth: our children are God’s children. They are individuals before him, invited into relationship with him. While we play a very important role in their lives, their relationship with God is not accessed through us but by their faith in the saving work of Jesus. Our role and privilege is to teach them and point them to Christ, but it is God’s work to open their eyes and hearts to himself. 

The 19th-century preacher and theologian Charles Spurgeon explains this poignantly when he says,

‘Now let me solemnly say that, with all the instruction you give to your children, you must always be deeply conscious that you are not capable of doing anything in the securing of the child’s salvation but that it is God himself who, from the first to the last, must effect it all.’¹

The Bible is clear on this: there is nothing more we need to add to God’s completed work for the salvation of ourselves or of our children:  

‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.’ (Ephesians 2:8–9)

If we believe our child’s relationship with God depends on our parenting, we will inevitably measure our success by their achievements or shortcomings. They become our project, and their actions and attitudes become our report card.

Here is a helpful reframe:

• The best parent will not earn redemption for their child.
• The worst parent will not render their child beyond the reach of grace.

We are all God’s children, and he will work in each of us as he chooses.

Raise the child given to you

Parenting often brings surprises, some delightful and others challenging. Parents of neurodivergent children (like me) will certainly encounter things that they hadn’t expected in parenting. They are often entrusted with someone who has different needs to most other people around them; they may have even more to learn than other parents.

Thelia*, the mother of an autistic teenager, has spent time reflecting on the ministry of parenting. She encourages us in this task, saying,

‘I think that having an autistic child has been a steep learning curve for us as parents to apply the reality that is true for all of us—that we ultimately are not in control of our children and our role is to know them well, and as best we can help them to grow up healthy and responsibly under God.

‘For us in our family, our first and really only desire is for our daughter to know and trust Jesus, to understand who she is and who she is going to be through the filter of the gospel … We are to raise the child God has given us, rather than the one we thought we would have, or the one our friends have, etc.⁠ In other words, parenting requires godly wisdom that responds to knowing the child as best we can with their weaknesses and abilities.’

What a privilege it is to be entrusted with a person handmade by God under our care! Your child is unique, created by God, and called to relationship with him.

Raise them for God’s glory (not your own)

Although our children belong to God, and it is he who works in their hearts, our role as parents is profoundly significant. Marvellously, we are given the responsibility under God of raising them for his glory, not for our own.

As parents, we have the joy and challenge of modelling the truths of the gospel in our everyday lives. This means nurturing our own relationship with God, as we are the tools he uses to minister to our children. Through our words and actions, we reflect God’s unconditional, sacrificial, and secure love, and we model his grace and justice. We display the life won for us in Jesus as we follow him. We show a heart where the Spirit is at work as we repent, learn, strive, stand firm, trust God, share the gospel, pray and depend on God. (See my article,'The most important aspect of godly parenting'.)

Demonstrate these to the children God has entrusted to you, recognising the eternal worth and importance of this God-given ministry. Parenting is not about achieving perfection or control but about seeking God’s glory in all things.

Your children belong to God, the perfect Father who loves them more than we ever could. Who better to entrust them to, and who better to work alongside?

*Names have been changed

Footnotes

1 Spurgeon C (2003), Spiritual Parenting, Whitaker House, p. 100.

2 Spurgeon, Spiritual Parenting, p. 87.

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This article first appeared on Kate Morris’ Substack, ‘An Extraordinary Normal: Faith, Family and Neurodivergence’, https://anextraordinarynormal.substack.com/p/an-important-truth-about-your-child

**Kate Morris is one of the many great speakers and panellists for this year’s Mothers Union Sydney Seminar coming up on February 27 on the theme: The Joy of Enough. Find out more about this FREE parenting conference.**

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