Psalm 119:89-90 says:
Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.
Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast.
As a parent, I feel like I'm on a perpetual pendulum swing on the spectrum from complacency to fear. Some days, I'm fully convinced that the Lord is totally in control of everything from my kids' health and safety to their sanctification, and that He's making significant progress in developing them into godly, productive future adults. On those days, my temptation is to get complacent and self-congratulatory, believing that I don't need to work at the task of parenting, but rather keep things on autopilot.
On other days, I'm discouraged about their progress, worried about their health, and frustrated at their immaturity. On those days, I'm tempted to give into condemnation about my past failures as a parent, complain about the difficulties of raising children in this world, and make grandiose and sweeping commitments to overhaul my parenting methodology in order to manufacture better results.
Can you relate to those swings? If you can, like me, you may be struggling with a core issue I'll call "Scripture Forgetfulness".
On those days that I swing to the extremes, I am forgetting the truth laid out in Psalm 119:89-90....it's the Word of the Lord that is fixed firmly. It's His faithfulness that endures to all generations. He has established what is true, what is right, what is successful, and nothing I do can or fail to do will thwart his plans. At first reading, it may seem like these truths, while a guard against the temptation to fear and worry about our kids, would only reinforce the temptation to complacency on the other end of the spectrum. But that's the beauty of this simple reminder.
It doesn't say, 'Your power, O Lord, is fixed firmly in the heavens". It doesn't say, "Your plan, O Lord, is fixed firmly in the heavens." It says, "Your Word, O Lord, is fixed firmly in the heavens.". When I put my trust in the Word of the Lord, I am fundamentally submitting to ALL of his Word. And the sure and steady testimony of the entire Word of the Lord is that there is a balance to be struck by parents. We are called to BOTH active discipleship of our children AND active trusting of the Lord for the outcomes of their lives, both physically and spiritually. It's in His Word, his unified, complete, sufficient Word, that we are to place our trust, and as we do, we can be confident that his faithfulness will endure to our generation, our children's generation, our grandchildren's generation, and on and on until He returns. This is good news! And it's a good reminder to get to work applying the Word in our parenting.
May the Lord help us all to put our trust in the Word of the Lord and all the promises it contains.
This Sunday, we'll celebrate both Family Worship and Baptisms. It's so exciting for our kids to get to witness others testify to the work of the Savior to bring them from death to life. Here are the songs and Scriptures that will make up our service this Sunday:
Psalm 119:137-138
Only A Holy God
Psalm 119:89-90
One Foundation
Psalm 119:171-175
Be Thou My Vision
Psalm 119:15-16
Look and See
Sermon from Psalm 1
None But Jesus
And here is a
Spotify playlist with some of these songs, as well as some songs based on Psalm 1 that might help your family "Hide the Word".
Lastly, handouts will be available to grab on your way out, or you can grab a digital copy
here.
