“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33
Think of His Kingdom as what life would look like if God was fully honored as King. Our interactions, our display of love, justice, etc. (Psalm 72 paints a beautiful picture of life with God as King).
Think of His Righteousness as who He is as King, His character, what He is like, how He rules His Kingdom, etc.
Let the idea of these two concepts digest in your heart and brain a little…
As our hearts and minds are transformed by the truth of who He is and what He is like, we gain a heavenly perspective. How beautiful! Let us parent from this place. As we do, I believe there will be changes in three main areas.
1. The way we pray for our children– When we pray for our children, remember 2 things. First, we are going before a perfect and just King and second, we are going before our children’s ultimate Father. He is the maker of their body and soul and knows them more intimately than anyone on Earth ever will or ever could. Approaching Him as a loving Father who loves our children more then we do, we feel obligated to take every concern, trouble, hope and dream to our loving King who can enact change and holds all things in his hand and under his control.
2. How we see ourselves and our children– Let’s start with us. When we understand how much God loves us, we are freed from pressures and expectations to give ourselves a little more grace (or hopefully a lot). We come to terms with the fact that on this Earth we will never be perfect. We love that we are saved by Jesus and know that He is continually growing us to be like Him. Additionally, we realize the ultimate burden is not ours to bear. As we pray and entrust our children to God, we are regularly placing our confidence in Him and taking it off of ourselves.
Secondly, when we understand who God is and what He is like as King, our eyes are opened to see our children the way He sees them. We see them according to what scripture says about them and also with insight from the Holy Spirit. Seeing my own children through God’s eyes has saved them from many a yelling. Furthermore, when we are set free by God’s love for us, we can set our children free because of God’s love for them. Ask Him daily to enable you to see your children the way He sees them. Ask Him for Holy Spirit eyes and insight into their hearts and minds.
3. How we problem solve– So much of society has quick fixes for things and strongly upholds a “can-do” attitude, yet the conflicts we face as parents rarely have a quick fix. As Christians, we must resist the knee jerk reaction to fix problems immediately. When conflicts arise, we can slow down to pray, ask God to show us ourselves and our children through His eyes, and then move forward in love. When we seek God to better love our children even through conflict we are doing an amazing thing for them. We draw from a giant well of love from the one who is Love Himself, in order to lovingly work towards a solution. Furthermore, we can reject the notion that there is one right answer and embrace that sometimes finding a solution unashamedly involves error, time, practice and consistency.
The true beauty of Matthew 6:33 is not just the first half that says “seek FIRST His Kingdom and His Righteousness” but the second half that reads:
“and all these things will be given to you as well.”
We have no need to be anxious about the future or about making the right decision the first time every time. Our priority is simple. Let our worry turn to prayers and our fretting return us to our King. Let us place our kids and our confidence in Him and allow all other things to find their place as well.
1 Comment
I loved this!