God is Able
We all face parenting challenges that demand more of us than we ever could have imagined. But the reality of our inadequacy shines starker than ever as our children begin to consider the claims of Christ and the Bible. They ask questions about evolution and the book of Genesis; they confess their faith while simultaneously confessing doubt; they ask why God didn’t answer their prayer; and they voice questions many of us have likely wondered about the Trinity, heaven and hell, and why God even put that tree in the Garden of Eden.
I can listen and try to answer their questions, point them to Scripture, and pray for and with them, but I’m still deeply aware of how incapable I am to do the work for them (and more importantly, in them) that they need the most. That work requires an actual miracle from God that, even on my best days, I can never perform. Jonah 2:9 both comforts and sobers me: “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” Making dead souls live is a work that can only be accomplished by God alone. So, knowing that our biblical responsibility is to bring up our children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” how do we respond to the weight of our insufficiency in light of the depth of our children’s needs (Eph. 6:4)?
The Bible’s biography of a young man named Joseph beautifully illustrates this truth that motherhood drives home to women who recognize their own insufficiency: I can’t do it, but God can. After unjustly spending two years in an Egyptian prison, one day Joseph is ushered in haste before Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world. Pharaoh expects Joseph to have the supernatural ability to interpret dreams, but Joseph knows that he doesn’t possess the power this task requires.
Pharaoh expresses hope that Joseph will be capable and exceptional, but Joseph is a man who sees himself rightly. “It is not in me,” Joseph replies to Pharaoh (Gen. 41:16). He knows that the ability to do the work that God has given him must come from a source outside of himself.
Joseph is also a man who sees God rightly. Through years of trusting God in life’s difficulties, he has developed a faith-reflex that boasts in the truth that God is able. Joseph doesn’t flinch in confessing to Pharaoh, “It is not in me. God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer” (Gen. 41:16). God reveals heaven’s secrets to Joseph in order to rescue a country from starvation, as well as preserve the family through whom God had promised to send the Messiah.
God used Joseph’s very ordinary life for great eternal purposes, but it’s worth noting that God orchestrated his entire life to crescendo to this moment of human insufficiency. If Joseph’s life were a movie, this is that memorable scene where stringed music fills the air and Joseph is majestically flung into Pharaoh’s presence, only to declare, “It is not in me.”
And aren’t these words the very core of the gospel message we believe for ourselves and teach, sing, and pray over our kids day by day? “Would you like to be saved?” we ask our children. “You cannot do it; it is not in you. But there is Another who has done it for you, and he is able to forgive your sins and give you life.” And in their acknowledging they “can’t” but God “can,” God will make our children his own, forever. This message is the essence of our living the Christian life, as well. I can’t do it, but God is able, so I depend on him in every situation to do for me and my children what we cannot do for ourselves.
Some days I feel it so keenly, how “it is not in me” to do and be for my kids what they need the most. But rather than despairing over my inadequacies, Joseph’s example invites me to boast in God’s sufficiency.[1] I lack the strength, ability, and power to do the things that will make an eternal difference. No mother can truly soften her child’s heart to the things of God; no mother can give her child spiritual understanding; no mother can make her child believe the gospel. But every Christian mother can teach her child the gospel, seek the mercy of a compassionate God through prayer, and unflinchingly declare that God is able.
Maybe we’re still blinking in amazement at the tiniest blue or pink bundle placed in our arms, or maybe we’re in the middle of motherhood somewhere, sensing the depth of our inadequacy more than ever. What a deep well of blessing awaits those of us who embrace both truths: “It is not in me,” but “God is able” (Gen. 41:16; Eph. 3:20).
We trust him, both to strengthen us for the daily work of mothering, as well as to do his greater, life-giving work of sovereignly shining in our children’s hearts to give “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Motherhood extends countless invitations for women to imitate Joseph and exercise our own faith-reflex: to recognize our inability, to acknowledge God’s ability, and through prayer to lean on him to meet our children’s deepest need of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. God loves our children and is able to do for our children what we can never do for them. And more sure than the sun’s rising or the stars in the sky, we know God is sufficient for all these things, worthy of a very ordinary mother’s trust and all her hope.
[1] 2 Corinthians 3:5–6
