Through the Eye of the Needle: Parenting by Faith When Your Husband’s an Unbeliever

The screen near the pulpit read, “In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper.”[1]

That sentence singled me out like a spotlight. The Father’s Day message meant to rally men in the pews only left me feeling shrunk, defensive, and discouraged. My sons, both teens at the time, were not at church with me but home with their dad . . . who doesn’t go to church. 

My life seemed to validate the statistics, and I wondered where God was in my family. I had poured out prayers, sang hymns, read Bible stories, and tried to infuse the gospel in my sons’ lives since the day I knew I was carrying them. But I had also often been short-tempered, manipulative, and unbelieving. I wondered if my situation was too messed up for God to work with.

Maybe you’re feeling like the odds are stacked against you and your children too. Your husband doesn’t go to church and you know you’ve failed to be a perfect model of faith. But when we find ourselves feeling defeated by our situations, we can instead remind ourselves of the truth.

Not Up to Us

In Mark 10, there’s a story about a man who seemed to have all the right credentials and circumstances. The young, rich, religious man, seeking what he could do to be saved, was challenged by Jesus to give his wealth to the poor and follow Jesus. But the man couldn’t do it. Jesus’s followers must have thought this young man was the ideal candidate for God to save. But Jesus turned their math on its head, telling them it would be easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter God’s kingdom.[2]  

“Then who can be saved?” the disciples responded. Jesus answered them with the truth we all need to hear: “With man it is impossible, but not with God.”

We—and our kids—aren’t saved by our goodness, wealth, or ideal circumstances. But with God, neither our goodness nor our badness, neither our wealth nor our poverty, neither our ideal home lives nor our messed-up ones make it impossible for God to save.

The truth is, we should all find ourselves desperate before God, pouring out our desire for him to save our children and seeking wisdom in how to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—leading them through the eye of the needle. 

Planting and Trusting 

So, shall we throw our hands in the air and give up teaching our kids about Jesus or nurturing them with the gospel because it depends on God not us to save our kids? God forbid! 

Like a faithful gardener, we’re called to plant the truth in love in our kids’ lives and leave the outcome to God. He alone has the power to make them alive in Christ. Gardening is very practical. There’s work to be done. Soil to water, seeds to sow, and weeds to pull. But gardening is also magical, speaking to us of a power beyond us that makes dead seeds rise green and fruitful. 

As moms married to unbelieving spouses, we are responsible before God to do the practical work of keeping God’s words in our own hearts and repeating them to our children—talking about them when we wake, eat, commute, and lie down.[3] There may be an impulse to shrink back since our husbands are not united with us in the faith. But we must be courageous. Like Gideon, we can go in the strength God provides and not shrink back.[4] The odds against us are no obstacle to God. He has called us to this holy work. Let’s trust him who is able to do more than we can possibly ask or think.[5]

God’s Gives the Harvest

A few years ago, I planted my first garden. I live in the low deserts of Arizona, where the soil is clay and the temperatures from May through October can be brutally hot. For years, I avoided planting here because I figured it would be a waste. The heat would come and I couldn’t see how the plants could survive. Thanks to a faithful gardening friend, I decided to repent of my gardening unbelief and do the work of preparing a plot of soil—watering it regularly and researching which plants would grow best. Then I knelt in a posture of prayer and pressed my seeds into the earth. Every day, I’d water and check for signs of life. And eventually, a perfect row of little green heads peered up from the dirt. 

Our work as moms—raising children we long to see walking with Christ—is a work of faith. We scatter the gospel like seed in the soil of our children’s lives. We water with prayerful tears. And we do not do this alone. We seek the counsel and practical support of wise, experienced gardeners in the Church. God has provided us with fellow workers in the harvest of souls. With fellow sowers of the gospel, we freely give of ourselves to tend and nurture, willing to suffer the pain of loss or the sting of sin. We do not wait for our husbands' belief to begin planting. 

My little garden plot has produced more than I ever expected out of the hard, hot desert. But even though the plants flourished for a time, they also eventually died. This will never happen with God’s Word:

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). 

We cannot know how or when, but we can do the work of praying, loving, repenting, and speaking the Word of God into our children’s lives, trusting that he will bring about the harvest he intends.[6] 

So, take heart, dear one. Lift your head. Remember it is Christ who saves, not you or your husband. His arm can reach into the statistical impossibility of our situations and save our children. Remember: God’s Word can never fail to have its impact for good on you and your children. Trust the Lord of the harvest and don’t grow weary in doing good.[7]

[1] The Truth about Men and Church, June 2003; https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-05-024-v&readcode=&readtherest=true#therest

[2] Mark 10:17-27

[3] Deuteronomy 6:5-7

[4] Judges 6:14

[5] Ephesians 3:20

[6] Isaiah 55:11

[7] Galatians 6:9