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Leading from a Step Behind: How Children Minister to the Family

Becoming a mother changed my faith. Motherhood is my greatest work and my greatest joy. On the one hand, it has given me the joy of learning the world anew through my children’s eyes. On the other hand, it has required such hard work and become one of the greatest catalysts for my spiritual growth. Parenthood requires us to be like Christ. It requires sacrifice, and it requires you to pay forward your love, time, effort, and even your dreams. And beyond the joy of experiencing their joy, I didn’t initially have the impression that children gave back. But when the pandemic hit, everything changed. And I began to understand that I needed my children as much as they needed me.

Isolated at home with a two-year-old and a seven-year-old second grader, who was forced to pivot online with minimal computer skills, I was confronted with a sense of helplessness that pushed me into the arms of God. I had to lean into the Lord and put together a survival plan. I felt like a hostage to the horrors of working at home with children. Devotion and prayer walks became our escape. This was my way of asking the Lord to manage them for a while. I set my intentions on instilling faith in my children. I wanted to give these children to God now instead of waiting until they were grown. I figured, “If I can convert them and make them accountable to God, we all might survive.” I went all in and ordered a slew of books, not to teach them to read, not to spend time with them (although that was a plus), but to theologize them. I had to subject their spirits to the Lord! “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do,” I thought.

But one particular book changed how I saw my hostage situation. Maybe God is Like That Too is a book about a little boy whose grandmother teaches him that God can be found in every experience.1 Setting off looking for God, the boy finds God all over the city. He discovers God’s love as he interacts with people who love him; he feels God’s joy as he finds new heights on the swing. The story spoke to me. Isn’t this how God would want us to live life, looking for him, every minute of every day? As I thought about this, the Holy Spirit brought to mind Matthew 18:4, where Jesus says the way of the child is the way to the kingdom. Needless to say, God used this book to change my perspective of this scripture and my experience of my children.

I wanted to understand what God saw in my children that I didn’t see: how were they guiding me to the kingdom of heaven? And I wondered what this meant God wanted from me. Observing their childlikeness as a way to the kingdom transformed me, and God used my children in this season to make me more into his image. I discovered the most profound lessons even in the things that irritated me most—with my children leading the way, lighting the path to heaven. The books I ordered for them were paramount to my spiritual growth as much as theirs. God used this time to humble me so I could see him—and the way to the kingdom—through their eyes. I found myself standing before God, as Tamela Mann would say, without “much to bring,” but I think that’s what God wanted from me.

Reading Matthew 18:1–4 with New Eyes

Matthew 18:1–4 begins with the disciples asking Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” I believe wholeheartedly in Christ dying on the cross for my sins, but reading this passage with new eyes revealed that I lacked some of the most important qualifications to enter the kingdom of heaven.

It took a while for me, however, to attune to the Holy Spirit because I grappled with the apparent sin nature in children that reveals itself with each developing stage. My children are who convinced me that we are born with a sin nature, after all. How could these DNA replicas of Adam and Eve be the ticket to heaven? I needed to see my children differently. I needed new eyes to see them as my tour guides to heaven. What started as my pandemic children’s ministry soon morphed into my children ministering to me. I pressed in looking for what Jesus saw in them that he doesn’t see in me.

During a time that was reminiscent of the end of times, out of desparation, I was willing to follow “the least of these.” Simple cross-referencing the passage revealed that this wasn’t a concept found only in Matthew 18. God had sprinkled this concept throughout his word. Psalm 131 mentions the calm of a child in their mother’s arms, Luke 18 and Mark 10 speak of receiving the kingdom of God like a child, Matthew 19 says the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, Proverbs 17 calls grandchildren “the crown of the aged,” and Matthew 18 admonishes us to become like children to enter the kingdom of God. Every reference pointed me back to my children with new eyes and understanding. I went to my commentary and zeroed in on my dependence on God and God’s sovereignty: “Entering the kingdom means coming under the sovereign rule of God.”2 The faith and humility of children were a perfect picture of what I was lacking in my life as an adult.

Humility and Dependence

When I first read that Matthew 18:1–4 referred to humility, I thought, “not my children.” Children can be self-centered, and many have strong wills that evidence their sin nature almost from day one. But I learned that the humility Christ was talking about is more a picture of dependence than the humility we equate with thinking of oneself as less important. It’s the idea of putting yourself under the authority of another. Despite their disobedience, children are rather dependent—even the strong-willed ones. God wants us to put ourselves under his authority to the degree that a child is dependent on a caregiver. From crying to excessive questions, children can teach us something about being under God’s authority. In such an independent, self-sufficient society—most of us carrying our self-sufficiency as a badge of honor—it is hard to imagine dependence as godly.

Children tend to be direct, avoiding pomp and circumstance. They ask for what they want without regard for timing, appropriateness, or privilege. Unless life has taught them otherwise, they don’t beat around the bush; they come right out and ask you for what they want. They’re not afraid to admit when they are overwhelmed and have no qualms about asking questions until they get an answer that satisfies them. I think this is what God wants from us: to come to him and say, “This is too much for me.”

What would it be like to ask God for a piece of your sister’s cake even if he might say no? It would be an acknowledgment of his sovereign authority and our dependence on him. That is the conclusion I came to the day my son came to me distraught because he wanted his sister’s dessert. He was looking for me to do for him what he couldn’t do for himself. This gave me an opportunity to shape his expectations around sharing and fairness, but it also showed me how when we understand God’s love for us, we can walk boldly to the throne of grace and ask for our hearts’ desires. The point is that we approach the throne with our hearts in hand and walk away changed, whether we get what we want or not. I think that’s what God wants from us: hearts that are so open to him that we come to him without hesitation.

One of the most difficult experiences as a parent is when your child is crying and you can’t help them. Whether you don’t have the emotional capacity or the resources to meet their need or want, you have a feeling of helplessness. During the height of the pandemic, my children and I cried many tears, often at the same time and for the same reasons. They looked to me for answers, rescue, or understanding. When I didn’t have those things to give, we cried together—while I looked to God in the same way. This repeated scenario taught me how crying can be a good thing, a symbol that I was at the end of myself and an acknowledgment of my powerlessness to affect or change my situation. Crying does not indicate a lack of maturity, but is rather a call for the one who is greater than I. A child crying out to their parent and an adult crying out to God are both ways of summoning the one under whose authority we live, in recognition of their strength, power, resources, and good will toward us. A child’s cry ought to remind us of our dependence on God. When we are weak, he is strong. And when we fall down, he is there to pick us up. When we come to the end of ourselves, God wants us to trust that he hears our distress.

A Big View of God

God used my children to grow my faith in direct and indirect ways. Faith, meaning trust in and loyalty to another, was the second life lesson of childlikeness I had to learn. In their formative years, children are very believing. Because we develop core concepts about our world during childhood, when children learn, their brains seek for and expect their newfound truths to be validated. In fact, their faith is so strong they often hold you accountable to your promises. Our words to them come alive. Mommy said it, they believe it. During the pandemic, I started challenging myself to have this kind of faith in God. Did I really believe God’s words to the degree that my children believed in mine? As my children put undying faith in me, I was convicted for my lack of faith in my Heavenly Father. The strength of our faith demonstrates the magnitude of who we believe God to be. I pray God will develop in me the kind of faith that demonstrates the magnitude of who God is.

When I had my son, my second child, the Holy Spirit spoke loud and clear to me one day and said, “Live like I am a member of your household.” Can you imagine a great God living in our two-bedroom cottage? My children can. They not only believe he lives with us but that he cares about every aspect of their lives. In my house, God is a healer of COVID and paper cuts. And the prayers for each sound the same. The other day, my son prayed for my arm that was hurting; he prayed boldly, knowing that he was talking to the God of the universe: “God, help Mommy’s arm. If it gets broken, attach it back together. And if she needs to pick up something, help her be strong.”

These types of prayers encourage me to have a big view of God. I have to admit there are many things I never think to take to God because I believe they are too small or I can handle them myself. But through my son’s eyes, I see how big God is. I thought God couldn’t handle or didn’t want to be bothered with the little things in my life. Exploring my faith in the midst of my children’s developing faith, I realized my God was too small. A small God is not worth believing in, and a God who can’t handle our little things isn’t very big. My son’s faith reflects who God really is. I think this is the faith God wants from me too.

The Kingdom of Heaven

I knew my responsibility to build Christlike character in my children. What I failed to realize was how God could do quite the opposite by using my children to sanctify me. Matthew 18 is a picture of God’s heart, and my own process of becoming like a child was ironically contextualized by caring for my children. In all of my positive striving as a parent, God used—and uses—my children to make me like them and, in turn, make me like him. The challenges of parenthood force me into the arms of God, and the joys of parenthood remind me how God feels about me.

I thought the pandemic would be a great opportunity to focus on teaching my children God’s Word. But as time went on, my personal devotions were rolled into my children’s devotions. My time with them was my time with God. God became simple, and the path to the kingdom of heaven started to appear.

One of the first things I noticed in this season was a desire for God. And as I’ve reflected on this, the image that frequently comes to mind is an image of my daughter when she was an infant. My daughter was a happy baby in the mornings, and her reaction to me at the beginning of each day always stirred my soul. I remember the gap in her baby teeth as she greeted me with fulfilled expectation as I peered over her crib. The look on her face at first sight of mine always said, “I knew you would come back.” The joy of my presence was on her face before she had words. I think this is what God wants from me too.

My parenting has become an indicator of my relationship with Christ. The more I give to my children, the more God uses them to give to me. In this way, my relationship with my children has become the most sanctifying experience of my life. And every day, I still continue to learn to lead from a step behind, guiding my children as I follow their lead to the kingdom of heaven.

Written By

Alesia Starks is a practitioner faculty colleague and instructor in the practice of marriage and family therapy in the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. A licensed marriage and family therapist, she has worked in community mental health and Department of Mental Health contexts, applying her gifts as a clinician, curriculum developer, and trainer. Her areas of clinical expertise span a wide range of specializations including domestic violence, treating complex trauma, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. During her master’s program, she wrote a thesis titled Towards a Pan African Community in the US: Defining the Social Space Between African Immigrants and African Americans from the African Immigrant’s Perspective.

Becoming a mother changed my faith. Motherhood is my greatest work and my greatest joy. On the one hand, it has given me the joy of learning the world anew through my children’s eyes. On the other hand, it has required such hard work and become one of the greatest catalysts for my spiritual growth. Parenthood requires us to be like Christ. It requires sacrifice, and it requires you to pay forward your love, time, effort, and even your dreams. And beyond the joy of experiencing their joy, I didn’t initially have the impression that children gave back. But when the pandemic hit, everything changed. And I began to understand that I needed my children as much as they needed me.

Isolated at home with a two-year-old and a seven-year-old second grader, who was forced to pivot online with minimal computer skills, I was confronted with a sense of helplessness that pushed me into the arms of God. I had to lean into the Lord and put together a survival plan. I felt like a hostage to the horrors of working at home with children. Devotion and prayer walks became our escape. This was my way of asking the Lord to manage them for a while. I set my intentions on instilling faith in my children. I wanted to give these children to God now instead of waiting until they were grown. I figured, “If I can convert them and make them accountable to God, we all might survive.” I went all in and ordered a slew of books, not to teach them to read, not to spend time with them (although that was a plus), but to theologize them. I had to subject their spirits to the Lord! “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do,” I thought.

But one particular book changed how I saw my hostage situation. Maybe God is Like That Too is a book about a little boy whose grandmother teaches him that God can be found in every experience.1 Setting off looking for God, the boy finds God all over the city. He discovers God’s love as he interacts with people who love him; he feels God’s joy as he finds new heights on the swing. The story spoke to me. Isn’t this how God would want us to live life, looking for him, every minute of every day? As I thought about this, the Holy Spirit brought to mind Matthew 18:4, where Jesus says the way of the child is the way to the kingdom. Needless to say, God used this book to change my perspective of this scripture and my experience of my children.

I wanted to understand what God saw in my children that I didn’t see: how were they guiding me to the kingdom of heaven? And I wondered what this meant God wanted from me. Observing their childlikeness as a way to the kingdom transformed me, and God used my children in this season to make me more into his image. I discovered the most profound lessons even in the things that irritated me most—with my children leading the way, lighting the path to heaven. The books I ordered for them were paramount to my spiritual growth as much as theirs. God used this time to humble me so I could see him—and the way to the kingdom—through their eyes. I found myself standing before God, as Tamela Mann would say, without “much to bring,” but I think that’s what God wanted from me.

Reading Matthew 18:1–4 with New Eyes

Matthew 18:1–4 begins with the disciples asking Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” I believe wholeheartedly in Christ dying on the cross for my sins, but reading this passage with new eyes revealed that I lacked some of the most important qualifications to enter the kingdom of heaven.

It took a while for me, however, to attune to the Holy Spirit because I grappled with the apparent sin nature in children that reveals itself with each developing stage. My children are who convinced me that we are born with a sin nature, after all. How could these DNA replicas of Adam and Eve be the ticket to heaven? I needed to see my children differently. I needed new eyes to see them as my tour guides to heaven. What started as my pandemic children’s ministry soon morphed into my children ministering to me. I pressed in looking for what Jesus saw in them that he doesn’t see in me.

During a time that was reminiscent of the end of times, out of desparation, I was willing to follow “the least of these.” Simple cross-referencing the passage revealed that this wasn’t a concept found only in Matthew 18. God had sprinkled this concept throughout his word. Psalm 131 mentions the calm of a child in their mother’s arms, Luke 18 and Mark 10 speak of receiving the kingdom of God like a child, Matthew 19 says the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, Proverbs 17 calls grandchildren “the crown of the aged,” and Matthew 18 admonishes us to become like children to enter the kingdom of God. Every reference pointed me back to my children with new eyes and understanding. I went to my commentary and zeroed in on my dependence on God and God’s sovereignty: “Entering the kingdom means coming under the sovereign rule of God.”2 The faith and humility of children were a perfect picture of what I was lacking in my life as an adult.

Humility and Dependence

When I first read that Matthew 18:1–4 referred to humility, I thought, “not my children.” Children can be self-centered, and many have strong wills that evidence their sin nature almost from day one. But I learned that the humility Christ was talking about is more a picture of dependence than the humility we equate with thinking of oneself as less important. It’s the idea of putting yourself under the authority of another. Despite their disobedience, children are rather dependent—even the strong-willed ones. God wants us to put ourselves under his authority to the degree that a child is dependent on a caregiver. From crying to excessive questions, children can teach us something about being under God’s authority. In such an independent, self-sufficient society—most of us carrying our self-sufficiency as a badge of honor—it is hard to imagine dependence as godly.

Children tend to be direct, avoiding pomp and circumstance. They ask for what they want without regard for timing, appropriateness, or privilege. Unless life has taught them otherwise, they don’t beat around the bush; they come right out and ask you for what they want. They’re not afraid to admit when they are overwhelmed and have no qualms about asking questions until they get an answer that satisfies them. I think this is what God wants from us: to come to him and say, “This is too much for me.”

What would it be like to ask God for a piece of your sister’s cake even if he might say no? It would be an acknowledgment of his sovereign authority and our dependence on him. That is the conclusion I came to the day my son came to me distraught because he wanted his sister’s dessert. He was looking for me to do for him what he couldn’t do for himself. This gave me an opportunity to shape his expectations around sharing and fairness, but it also showed me how when we understand God’s love for us, we can walk boldly to the throne of grace and ask for our hearts’ desires. The point is that we approach the throne with our hearts in hand and walk away changed, whether we get what we want or not. I think that’s what God wants from us: hearts that are so open to him that we come to him without hesitation.

One of the most difficult experiences as a parent is when your child is crying and you can’t help them. Whether you don’t have the emotional capacity or the resources to meet their need or want, you have a feeling of helplessness. During the height of the pandemic, my children and I cried many tears, often at the same time and for the same reasons. They looked to me for answers, rescue, or understanding. When I didn’t have those things to give, we cried together—while I looked to God in the same way. This repeated scenario taught me how crying can be a good thing, a symbol that I was at the end of myself and an acknowledgment of my powerlessness to affect or change my situation. Crying does not indicate a lack of maturity, but is rather a call for the one who is greater than I. A child crying out to their parent and an adult crying out to God are both ways of summoning the one under whose authority we live, in recognition of their strength, power, resources, and good will toward us. A child’s cry ought to remind us of our dependence on God. When we are weak, he is strong. And when we fall down, he is there to pick us up. When we come to the end of ourselves, God wants us to trust that he hears our distress.

A Big View of God

God used my children to grow my faith in direct and indirect ways. Faith, meaning trust in and loyalty to another, was the second life lesson of childlikeness I had to learn. In their formative years, children are very believing. Because we develop core concepts about our world during childhood, when children learn, their brains seek for and expect their newfound truths to be validated. In fact, their faith is so strong they often hold you accountable to your promises. Our words to them come alive. Mommy said it, they believe it. During the pandemic, I started challenging myself to have this kind of faith in God. Did I really believe God’s words to the degree that my children believed in mine? As my children put undying faith in me, I was convicted for my lack of faith in my Heavenly Father. The strength of our faith demonstrates the magnitude of who we believe God to be. I pray God will develop in me the kind of faith that demonstrates the magnitude of who God is.

When I had my son, my second child, the Holy Spirit spoke loud and clear to me one day and said, “Live like I am a member of your household.” Can you imagine a great God living in our two-bedroom cottage? My children can. They not only believe he lives with us but that he cares about every aspect of their lives. In my house, God is a healer of COVID and paper cuts. And the prayers for each sound the same. The other day, my son prayed for my arm that was hurting; he prayed boldly, knowing that he was talking to the God of the universe: “God, help Mommy’s arm. If it gets broken, attach it back together. And if she needs to pick up something, help her be strong.”

These types of prayers encourage me to have a big view of God. I have to admit there are many things I never think to take to God because I believe they are too small or I can handle them myself. But through my son’s eyes, I see how big God is. I thought God couldn’t handle or didn’t want to be bothered with the little things in my life. Exploring my faith in the midst of my children’s developing faith, I realized my God was too small. A small God is not worth believing in, and a God who can’t handle our little things isn’t very big. My son’s faith reflects who God really is. I think this is the faith God wants from me too.

The Kingdom of Heaven

I knew my responsibility to build Christlike character in my children. What I failed to realize was how God could do quite the opposite by using my children to sanctify me. Matthew 18 is a picture of God’s heart, and my own process of becoming like a child was ironically contextualized by caring for my children. In all of my positive striving as a parent, God used—and uses—my children to make me like them and, in turn, make me like him. The challenges of parenthood force me into the arms of God, and the joys of parenthood remind me how God feels about me.

I thought the pandemic would be a great opportunity to focus on teaching my children God’s Word. But as time went on, my personal devotions were rolled into my children’s devotions. My time with them was my time with God. God became simple, and the path to the kingdom of heaven started to appear.

One of the first things I noticed in this season was a desire for God. And as I’ve reflected on this, the image that frequently comes to mind is an image of my daughter when she was an infant. My daughter was a happy baby in the mornings, and her reaction to me at the beginning of each day always stirred my soul. I remember the gap in her baby teeth as she greeted me with fulfilled expectation as I peered over her crib. The look on her face at first sight of mine always said, “I knew you would come back.” The joy of my presence was on her face before she had words. I think this is what God wants from me too.

My parenting has become an indicator of my relationship with Christ. The more I give to my children, the more God uses them to give to me. In this way, my relationship with my children has become the most sanctifying experience of my life. And every day, I still continue to learn to lead from a step behind, guiding my children as I follow their lead to the kingdom of heaven.

Alesia Starks

Alesia Starks is a practitioner faculty colleague and instructor in the practice of marriage and family therapy in the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. A licensed marriage and family therapist, she has worked in community mental health and Department of Mental Health contexts, applying her gifts as a clinician, curriculum developer, and trainer. Her areas of clinical expertise span a wide range of specializations including domestic violence, treating complex trauma, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. During her master’s program, she wrote a thesis titled Towards a Pan African Community in the US: Defining the Social Space Between African Immigrants and African Americans from the African Immigrant’s Perspective.

Originally published

June 21, 2023

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