Be sure to read the previous installments of this series here.
Parenting is hard. You have early-morning wake-up calls, cleaning up messes, changing dirty diapers, and sleepless nights. The list goes on and on. Parents also have the task of raising their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:1-3), teaching them about Jesus, helping them understand the Scriptures and all God has commanded us (Deut. 6:5-6). Considering all these roles and responsibilities, we cannot parent our kids alone. Nor can we do this in our own strength. Instead, we must call on the Lord. But what should we ask him?
It may surprise you that the best thing we can ask our Father in heaven to help us in our parenting is not to be better parents. It’s not to have the strength to love and care for our kids. Rather, the best thing we can ask God is to hallow (make holy) his name in our lives. Here are three reasons why this strong yet simple request will empower us to be faithful parents and ambassadors of Christ to our children.
Proper Ordering
First, asking the Father to hallow his name in our parenting will help us properly order our lives and loves. The word “hallow” means to sanctify or make holy, and Jesus commands us to “hallow God’s name.” God’s name represents his nature and attributes, essentially all that God is. Thus, to hallow God’s name means to honor God. It means to place God’s name above all other things in our lives. Hallowing God’s name means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:29-30). Hallowing God’s name means to obey his commands and to make his name great in everything that we do. This includes the way we love and parent our children.
It is also important to recognize that Jesus teaches us that our first request of our Father should not be for ourselves, but for his glory and renown. Our first desire should not be to be better parents. Rather, it should be to better behold and exemplify God’s glory in our lives. As we desire to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, the Spirit will equip us to better love our children as ourselves, teaching them how to faithfully follow Christ.
When our motivation in parenting is to honor and glorify God, we will be more inclined to show grace and patience with our kids when they complain, grumble, and disobey. The grace God has shown us in Christ will fill our hearts with gratitude. Finally, when our priority is God’s glory and delighting in his goodness, we will be less disposed to finding our identity in our children’s behavior or success. Instead of “living our lives through our children,” we will seek to live our lives through being a part of God’s grand story of redemption.
It is impossible to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord if we are not first seeking to display God’s glory in our lives through our love for him. As God hallows his name in our lives, he will continue to make us holy by the Spirit. Then we can better obey his commands and live out the gospel before our children and love them as he has loved us.
Kills Pride
Second, asking our Father to hallow his name in our parenting will help us kill pride in our lives. The only way we can genuinely cry out to God to make his name holy in our lives and to honor his name above all things, including our children, is by forgetting ourselves. Jesus taught that no one can serve two masters (Matt. 6:21-23), hence we cannot worship God and ourselves at the same time. Yet, if our sole focus is to honor and glorify God’s name in our lives, the Holy Spirit will destroy pride and selfish ambition in our hearts. He will foster selflessness and sacrificial love in us as we daily offer our bodies to God as living sacrifices.
One of the biggest struggles in parenting is fighting against our selfishness and living for our own glory. Personally, this is evident when we idolize the phrase “me time.” For example, I don’t want to have family devotions with our kids because when we get home late, we want to get them in bed so my wife and I can have “time for ourselves.” I get angry with my kids when they wake up early because it leaves me no time to work out or read. I struggle with grumbling and discontentment when they ask me to take them to the park because it will keep me from getting more done at work. The list could go on and on. I am sure you would have some personal ways this applies in your family.
However, when we seek to have God’s name hallowed in our lives, God will, slowly but surely, root out selfishness and mold our desires to his. Instead of seeing another random question at 9:00 p.m. from one of our children, we can see it as an opportunity to demonstrate God’s patience by listening to them. After all, God always listens to our prayers. Instead of seeing a trip to the park as an inconvenience, we can see it as an opportunity to love God and glorify him by loving our children, whom he made in his image. Prayer kills pride, especially when it prioritizes God’s glory over our own.
Fulfills Purpose
Third, pleading for our parenting to hallow God’s name helps us fulfill our purpose. God originally created us to be holy and to reflect his glory perfectly, as those made in his image. Sin has corrupted our nature to the point that we cannot rightly reflect and represent God’s image in our lives as we should. However, because of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, through faith in him, we are justified before God. In him, we are daily sanctified and renewed in the image of our Creator (Eph. 4:24).
By asking God to hallow his name in our lives, we are asking him to complete the sanctifying work he began in Christ. We ask that his name, once defamed among the nations, would be made holy and that Jesus would quickly return. And so, by God’s name being hallowed in our lives, our children, spouse, friends, and all others who see our lives can behold the beauty, splendor, and holiness of the Lord and come to Jesus!
As parents, God has given us a specific role and purpose to raise our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:1-3). Yet, we can only fulfill this task by pleading for God’s sanctifying grace to make his name holy in our lives. When we make this request, our loves will be in proper order. Pride will be killed. We will fulfill our purpose of reflecting God’s glory to the nations.
When we ask God’s name to be hallowed in our lives, we must not think of it as drudgery. Instead, we should consider that it will be our delight when God’s name is made holy. For the more we glorify God by making his name holy in our lives, the more we will enjoy him. The more we delight in him, the more his name is glorified and made holy in us. Our kids need us to be made holy to love, provide for, and protect them just as our heavenly Father does for us.
A Prayer To Repeat
Therefore, let us make this request daily. Father, please sanctify your name in my life so that I can love you above all things. I can only love my children rightly if I love you more than them. Please hallow your name so that I can live for your kingdom rather than for my own. Only by your grace will I seek to serve my children more than myself. Please make your name holy in my life so I can fulfill your purpose for my life. Help me to enjoy you and glorify your name in all that I do. Please use me and the way I parent my children today to be a light and witness of the gospel to other parents, children, and all I come into contact with. May others would worship you and make you the king of their lives. Amen.
For more encouragement in your parenting, check out our Rooted Parent Podcast.
