Mothering with Humility
I didn’t have much choice but to be completely transparent with my seven-year-old son. A few minutes earlier, his concerned little face had peered down the stairs, trying to figure out why I was responding angrily to something his dad had said. Now, I found myself trying to calm him down and convince him to apologize to his older brother, with whom he was furious.
I wasn’t having much luck. He insisted that his brother deserved his wrath, called him a few less-than-edifying names, and sat fuming on the top bunk of the bed they share. I realized, to my shame, that I was witnessing a younger version of my own behavior. If I was going to address his tantrum, I needed to first acknowledge my own. Embarrassed, I said, “So you know how I just yelled at Dad?” Suddenly I had his full attention.
Embracing Humility
There are few things in life more humbling than motherhood. We watch our kids struggle to share, speak kindly, and be patient, knowing that the same battles rage in our own hearts—often manifesting in strikingly similar ways. “If this is still hard for me as an adult,” we wonder, “what hope do I have of helping my child navigate the issue?” We feel discouraged; we may even feel hypocritical. But the same loving, compassionate, and gracious God stands ready to help both us and our children. We, as well as they, are a work in progress, relying on the Holy Spirit to sanctify us and help us grow in holiness. Our children are mirrors that God uses to humble us and to remind us as parents that he isn’t finished with us yet either.
But humility is more than simply knowing that we are a work in progress, as true as that may be. Biblical humility involves the recognition of our complete dependence on God. This includes the willingness to come under his authority and rule—to submit to what he says is good and right, even when our sinful hearts and minds tell us otherwise. In other words, humility is ultimately about taking our eyes off ourselves and fixing them on God’s character. As a result, humility abandons self-interest and looks instead to the well-being of others.
When God shines his light on our sin, we turn to him in confession, repentance, and joy in the knowledge that Jesus has paid the price for that sin in full. Through the power of his Spirit, we aren’t enslaved to that sin any longer; we can overcome it to live in such a way that is pleasing to God. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). And so, rather than avoid humility, we can embrace it. And embracing humility is precisely what we can teach to our children as well—through our words and our actions.
Pointing to Jesus
As parents, this can play out in many different ways: using appropriate moments to talk to our children about our shortcomings, sharing ways we have experienced Jesus’ help in overcoming temptation, and apologizing to our children when necessary. Humility enables us to lay aside our pride so that we can talk openly with our kids about our personal dependence on Jesus: “It’s not just you who needs his help to live in a way that is pleasing to God—I do as well, and here are some of examples of where that is the case.”
Humility is one of the most crucial traits we can possess as Christian moms, but it is also one of the most difficult to master. Like patience, it is a quality we know we need but dread having to cultivate. We’d prefer to work on a virtue less demanding, less uncomfortable.
We struggle to be humble because it stands in complete contrast with our sin nature. Our default setting, as fallen people, is to focus on and take care of ourselves. Like Adam and Eve, we want to hide or cover up our sin and shortcomings—not call attention to them. Especially not to our children. But there is no greater, no more foundational virtue that we can model for our kids than humility. Why? Because humility identifies us so closely with Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6–8).
By mothering with humility, we point our kids to our Savior, because he is the ultimate example of humility.
Willing to Come Alongside Our Kids
We nurture our relationship with our children when we are willing to come alongside them as fellow sinners in desperate need of God’s constant, unfailing grace. We don’t have to pretend that we know everything or hide our mistakes and faults from them. In fact, our kids will often listen more willingly, and trust our guidance more fully, if they know that we are able to truly empathize with their experience. That is what all of us want and need, isn’t it? Instruction and help from someone who has been there, who understands what hurt and sadness and pain and anger feel like, and who can thus speak from the point of experience. And in Jesus, we have just that: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:15–16).
