For this boy I prayed, and theLord has given me my petition which I asked of Him. So I have also dedicated him to the Lord; as long as he lives he is dedicated to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.

1 Samuel 1:27-28

So after digging a little into the context of 1 Samuel and looking at the value of children and honoring God over honoring our children we come to the conclusion of my thought process as I worked through 1 Samuel preparing for my Mother’s Day message… 

As I pondered praying for our children and was asking the Lord for direction and seeking what He would have me share and how… He gave me my outline while in the shower one morning. He often meets me there. It’s one of the few places that a mother can find at least a few moments without interruption… sometimes anyways.

When I am seeking the Lord’s direction for a speaking engagement, He always gives me His outline first… and then I study with Him to fill in all the blanks. While in the shower the Holy Spirit brought a verse to me…

For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well. For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

2 Timothy 1:5-7

Here is a verse discussing the spiritual influence of Timothy… and that influence came from His mother and grandmother. From there the Lord took me to the part of the verse that discusses the laying on of my hands… and I began to ponder on the hands of a mother.

With these hands I gently held my child for the very first time. With these hands I wiped away tears, spit up, snot, and even caught vomit while I rushed to get a sick child to the bathroom. With these hands I have bandaged boo-boos and tested foreheads for fever. With these hands I have clapped and cheered on my children finding their feet, taking first steps, putting together a first puzzle, going potty for the first time, and running the wrong away around the bases in their first attempt at sports. With these hands I have popped almost tantrum throwing legs and swatted rebellious little bottoms… and with the hands I have wrote thousands of pages of prayers for my children in my journal and folded them together in prayer, or placed them in my own hair about to pull it out as I found myself face down on the floor in utter desperation and frustration praying that my God would help me maintain my sanity and keep me from killing them.

As I looked at my hands, the Lord brought to my remembrance an old classic song…

 

That’s right… Where is Thumbkin 😉

This would be the basis of the outline that the Lord would use to teach me what I believe He wanted me to share concerning praying for our children. The Lord led me to teach prayers that would relate to children of all ages in all circumstances.

We begin with Thumbkin himself. When I thought of the thumb, my mind went to the phrase “has them under their thumb”. This is said about someone who appears to have the ability to control someone else or at least is trying to control someone else. Many times as a mother this could be said of us. Moms let me assure you now… you will not always be able to control your children. Yes as babies, as toddlers, and even up into the early teenage years you have the power to excerpt a certain amount of control over the external acts and circumstances… but their comes a day when they begin to think for themselves and they become accountable for their own choices and actions. You might already be in that place where this realization is hitting like a ton of bricks.

Perhaps you are watching your child begin to walk down a path of destruction… or perhaps they are already running, not walking, down that road… let me assure you that God didn’t miss that. He sees. You mom, might not be able to control the circumstances of your children… you can’t keep them under your thumb… but God most certainly can.

Mom begin today to stop placing your children under your thumb and place them under God’s. Trying to keep them under your thumb will only cause them to rebel and push away from your hands that have loved and cared for them. Remember how you held them with your hands that very first day. You did not hold them with clenched fist… you held them with soft, tender, OPEN hands. The way you received them from God must be the way you always hold them… with open hands. God loves them more than you do anyway… and His plans for your children just might not be what yours are for them. So trust Him. He has it under control.

Impress His Words and His will on them… not yours.

And remember sometimes God has to let them crawl around in their insanity and rebellion and pride in order to get them to come back to their senses and remember that He alone is God. This is where you lean hard into the sovereignty of God and know that He is indeed sovereign over all things… even sin.

 Thumbkin

“You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be asfrontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.

Deuteronomy 11:18-21

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For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. 

2 Chronicles 16:9

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I am the Lord, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You

Isaiah 42:6

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For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord,
And He watches all his paths.

Proverbs 5:21

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“But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’ At that time my reason returned to me.

Daniel 4:34-36

Where is Pointer? Where is Pointer?

We will take a look at Pointer in my next post…