Parenting Moment: Where’s Your Hope?

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13

Set your hope fully. The words jumped off the page at me. I am good at hoping for things. Hoping for a week where we all felt well. Hoping for just a little time to myself. Hoping for a potty trained night. Hoping for answers to health challenges. Hoping for a day when school wouldn’t be a struggle. Hoping I’d eventually figure out this motherhood thing. Hoping for…

But here was the Scripture telling me I wasn’t to put my hope in these things. I was to hope fully in my future eternity with Jesus–in His grace that will one day glorify me to live in a perfect world forever with Him. After all, it’s in Heaven, not in health or me-time or whatever else I tend to think will solve my problems, where all wrong will be right once and for all. The if only I had this things we hope in here and now don’t really satisfy like we think they will–they’re false saviors.

Yet those other hopes often affect our parenting. When I get upset because my child or situation toppled my plan for the day, it’s because I’m really living for some other hope that just got shattered. If on the other hand, my mind is set on eternity, those challenging mom moments become opportunities to bear eternal fruit. God wants to work eternal good in the present, not after we get whatever it is we’re hoping for. Today, whatever is going on and however our children act, is His gift to us. This season we’re in won’t last forever any more than the fall weather outside will–we have an eternal hope that’s coming. May we live this season, this day, for the one hope that will never disappoint.