Will Motherhood Change Your Walk with God? Teaching Our Children the Habits of Grace
Maybe you’ve heard the name Methuselah. He’s mainly remembered for his long, long life—so far as we know, the longest in history. According to Genesis 5:27, he lived 969 years.
People lived much longer back then, prior to the days of Noah, often more than 900 years. Perhaps the atmospheric conditions were different before God sent the global flood, and before the effects of the fall took greater and greater root. Regardless, though, God declares in Genesis 6:3, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
But Methuselah’s remarkably long life is not the only fascinating thing about him. His father was a man named Enoch. In the New Testament, Hebrews celebrates Enoch’s life like this:
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. (Hebrews 11:5)
Even more interesting than Methuselah living 969 years is that his father did not see death. That’s rare company. The only other human in history to not experience death is the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 2:11). So, what might have contributed to such an end (or lack thereof) for Enoch?
Parenthood as a Catalyst
Here’s what we know from the genealogy in Genesis 5:
When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. (Genesis 5:21–24)
We should be careful not to read too much into a few enigmatic lines in a genealogy. But I can’t help but wonder whether becoming a father somehow became the catalyst for Enoch walking with God in a way that he had not before. “Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah.” No mention of anything special before that. Enoch became a father; then he walked with God. Perhaps, sensing the weightiness of the parental calling, he became all the more desperate before God and earnest in his walk. At least it’s been enough to inspire me to pray this way for myself as a father these ten years:
Father, make this precious gift of children to be an occasion for my walking all the more closely with you, not further away. May this awesome gift, and weighty responsibility, lead me to take you and your word and eternity all the more seriously, and let me walk with you on previously untrodden paths of nearness.
Cultivating Habits of Grace
How do we, as fathers and mothers, walk closely with our God, and seek to raise children who want to walk closely with him as well?
An October 2017 LifeWay study interviewed 2,000 Protestant churchgoers and sought to identify the best predictors of spiritual health among young adults. The findings were remarkable—for being unremarkable.
What were the best predictors in children and teens of spiritual health as adults? It wasn’t special programming and events and emphases. It was the stuff of everyday Christianity—the everyday “habits of grace”—those timeless practices often called “spiritual disciplines.”
First on the list was regularly hearing God’s voice in his word. “The biggest factor was Bible reading,” writes LifeWay’s Trevin Wax. “Children who regularly read the Bible while they were growing up were more likely to have a vibrant spiritual life once they became adults” (“Parents, Take Note”). Second, and equally unsurprisingly, was regularly accessing God’s ear in what we know as prayer. Third was belonging to his body in the life of the local church—and not simply attending (as a consumer) but covenant fellowship to the point of serving the needs of others.
In other words, three relatively simple, unspectacular, time-tested practices are proving more fruitful in the long haul than newfound bells and whistles. It turns out that the very same “means of grace”—Bible intake, prayer, and covenant fellowship—that supply ongoing spiritual health and power in adults also are the means God uses to raise up children and teens who walk with him when they’re grown.
So, where does this leave dads like me, and moms like you? Here are my three main takeaways.
First, Live These Yourself
What Genesis 5 mentions about Methuselah is that his father walked with God. First and foremost in teaching my children to shape their lives with the habits of grace is my own walking with God. How well will I teach them to read a Bible I don’t read for myself? Or offer prayers I don’t offer myself? Or be genuinely committed to local-church life if I am not?
For me as a dad, the first step in raising up children who learn to lean on God, in the ways he has appointed for ongoing grace in the Christian life, is my doing so. My walking with God happens first. If I really mean to teach the ancient recipes to my children, why would I not first learn and practice and enjoy them myself?
The relentless demands of parenting are no reason to let our walks with God decline. In fact, the weight and call of being dad or mom are all the more reason to draw near and walk with God with as much earnestness and diligence as ever, even as doing so will have some fresh manifestations in this new season of life.
Second, Live These as a Family
Next, I want the habits of grace from my walk with God to shape our family culture, our family walk. I don’t think the next step is (yet) telling my kids how to read the Bible, pray, and take the local church with covenant seriousness. Next is showing them. Creating a family culture and matrix of grace, enveloping them in rhythms of life in which we, as a family, hear God’s voice in his word, avail ourselves of his ear in prayer, and belong to his body in the local church.
What we do daily and weekly as a family—not as irregular events, but as regular habits—will most deeply shape our children. On the church front, that means I want to lead and grow a church-friendly family. I want our family to belong, not just attend—to the point of serving others, not just being served.
Third, Live These with Joy
My final takeaway, for now, is to live these habits of grace with manifest joy. What we manifestly enjoy most leaves the greatest impression on our children. I want to be intentional about being contagiously happy about Christ himself and the means of grace he has given us in his word, prayer, and the church.
I want to lead by winsome example, not with heavy-handedness. With delight, not demands. With a winsome example, not just words of instruction. I want my children to see how happy Daddy is, and come to know deep down that it is God’s word and prayer and the church that feed such joy—joy that is full enough to give rise to song. I assume Enoch did a lot of spontaneous singing around the house. How could someone who walked so closely with God not sing?
Has becoming Mom already been a catalyst for your walk with God, driving you afresh to his word, to prayer, and to the local church? If not, might now be the time to turn the corner? Do it for joy—first for your own, then for your children.
