Trusting God’s Best for Our Children

We all want what’s best for our children.

We take prenatal supplements and track their growth in the womb. We agonize over childcare and schooling options. We advocate for therapies and accommodations. We rearrange our schedules for tournaments and recitals. We work hard so we can meet their needs . . . and often their wants. We give our days to mundane tasks like changing diapers, making dinner, and helping with homework. We carefully choose the best storybook Bibles, the best church family ministries, and the best family devotions to help build them up spiritually.

We try to do everything we can to ensure our children are happy and healthy. Yet sometimes, as Christian moms, we wrestle with hard choices—when what the world says is best for our children comes at the cost of our obedience to God.

We are called to not only lay down our lives for our children, but more importantly, to lay down our lives for the sake of the gospel. Jesus himself said that anyone who loves her earthly family more than him “is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). This may seem an outrageous claim, especially for those of us privileged to raise our children in an affluent Western culture. Yet when we consider the early church, we find Christian moms often had to make excruciating decisions to prioritize their faith over their families’ comfort—decisions of life or death.

Trusting God’s Best Even When It’s Hard

Nearly two centuries after Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection, Christians faced increasing persecution from the Roman Empire. At first, they were ostracized, beaten, or exiled. Soon, though, Christian martyrs were burnt, impaled, or beheaded. In some of the most horrifying cases, faithful Christians were thrown before wild beasts for the sake of entertainment.[1]

Perpetua and Felicity were two such faithful Christian women. While they both lived in Carthage, Perpetua was a noblewoman and Felicity was enslaved. Perpetua was a new mom, still nursing her infant when the Romans arrested her for her faith in Christ. Felicity was eight months pregnant when they threw her into prison. These two mothers waited for their deaths—one cradling her child in her arms, the other holding her swollen belly. Both wondered whether it would be better for their children if they recanted their faith. 

They felt external pressure to recant, as well. When Perpetua’s family would bring her child for her to nurse, her father repeatedly begged her to renounce Jesus: “Think of your child, who will not be able to live once you are gone.”[2]

Yet even then, Perpetua trusted in God’s good and gracious sovereignty: “It will all happen in the prisoner's dock as God wills; for you may be sure that we are not left to ourselves but are all in his power.”[3] She believed that the best thing she could do for her baby was to hold fast to her faith. She trusted that God would care for her child, even when she was gone.

Felicity gave birth to a baby girl shortly before her execution. Bidding goodbye to their young children, the Romans led Perpetua and Felicity to the Colosseum. They grieved the children they were leaving behind yet still hoped in the Heavenly Father they would soon see face-to-face. 

How could Perpetua and Felicity remain faithful to God when it cost them and their families so much? Why did they believe martyrdom could ever be God’s best for their families?

Seeing God’s Best in Light of Eternity

Perpetua and Felicity viewed their motherhood through the lens of eternity. They could have betrayed their faith to provide their children with temporal comfort and security. Instead, they believed their “light momentary affliction” was nothing compared to the glory that would be revealed (2 Cor. 4:17). In their martyrdom, Perpetua and Felicity demonstrated to their children that God’s love is better than anything here on earth.

God’s chief charge to us as moms is not: provide your children with a balanced diet, quality education, and a secure home (though all these things are important applications of showing our children what God is like). He calls us to teach our children to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). We instill in our children that God alone deserves our ultimate affection and allegiance—not our work, not our comfort, and not even our families.

God’s best for our children is only found at the center of his will—in loving and obeying him. Sometimes that means our children will suffer for their faith. Jesus warned his disciples of the cost of discipleship: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it” (Mark 8:35). While our maternal instincts might push us to protect our children from the hardship of discipleship, we can trust our Heavenly Father loves them more than we do.

When we parent in light of eternity, we must be willing to sacrifice everything—our lives and even the lives of our family—for the sake of the gospel.

Choosing God’s Best Above the World’s Good

Few of us will ever experience the kind of persecution Perpetua and Felicity endured. Yet every day, we still can teach our kids that God’s good plan is better than anything this world has to offer. 

Maybe it’s letting our kids see us give up things we want to provide for the needs of others. It could mean sacrificing time with them so we can disciple younger women or declining sports activities on Sunday morning so we can prioritize worship with our local church. Perhaps we open our homes to foster and adopted children. For some moms, God’s call might be even more costly—such as moving away from extended family and a comfortable home to the mission field. We must each pray for discernment about how God will use our family for his kingdom and what we may need to lay aside to follow where he leads.

Like Perpetua’s father, people might balk at our decisions. They’ll tell us our kids won’t get into a good college, be successful at their job, or make a lot of money. Even in the church, we’ll have to fight the temptation to prioritize worldly success and security in our family. Yet it is better for our children to watch us walk in faithfulness to God than to give them all the comforts of this earth. 

As we walk in dependence on and obedience to our God, we can sacrifice the good things of this world for the best of God’s kingdom—both for ourselves and for our children. 

[1] Bruce L. Shelley and Marshall Shelley, "If the Tiber Floods: The Persecution of Christians" in Church History in Plain Language (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 48-58.

[2] Herbert Musurillo, “The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas,” in The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), accessed at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/perpetua.html.

[3] Ibid.