Parenting with Purpose

A Heritage, Not a Report Card: What a Child Is and What a Parent Is For

³  Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,     the fruit of the womb a reward.Psalm 127:3 · ESV

Somewhere in the early days of parenting, usually in the dark, every parent asks the same question: what exactly has been handed to me? The culture around us offers two confident answers. The first says a child is an achievement, a report card on the parents, a project to be optimized until it validates the people running it. The second, often muttered by the same exhausted voice at two in the morning, says a child is an interruption, a drain on the time, money, sleep, and freedom you were planning to spend elsewhere. Scripture rejects both answers in a single verse: "Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward" (Psalm 127:3).

A heritage is a strange word to modern ears, so define it at the start: an inheritance entrusted by someone else, received rather than manufactured, and still belonging to the giver and his purposes. Everything this course will say about rhythms, grace, discipline, stages, and letting go rests on the two definitions this session establishes: what a child is, and what a parent is for.

The Gift on God's Terms

Psalm 139 will not let "heritage" stay generic. "You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb... your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them" (Psalm 139:13, 16). No parent has ever been handed a generic child. The particular child in your care, with that temperament, that laugh, those struggles, was knit on purpose by a God who knew their days before their first one. That is who arrives in the nursery, the classroom, the foster placement, the blended household.

¹³  For you formed my inward parts;     you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.   Wonderful are your works;     my soul knows it very well. ¹⁵  My frame was not hidden from you,   when I was being made in secret,     intricately woven in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶  Your eyes saw my unformed substance;   in your book were written, every one of them,     the days that were formed for me,     when as yet there was none of them.Psalm 139:13-16 · ESV

Genesis 1:27-28 sets children inside creation's blessing ("be fruitful and multiply"), and Psalm 128 paints the picture of a flourishing home, a table ringed with olive shoots. Against that backdrop, name the parent's role precisely: a steward. A steward manages what belongs to another and answers to the owner, which cuts against both cultural errors at once. Ownership says "my child, my glory," and turns the child into a trophy. Burden says "my child, my interruption," and turns the child into an obstacle. Stewardship says something different and far more freeing: a steward raises someone else's heir.

Jesus and the Children

Mark 10:13-16 is sharper than its nursery-wall reputation. Parents bring children to Jesus for blessing, and the disciples treat the children as a distraction from important ministry. Mark records that Jesus was indignant, the only place the Gospels use that word of him. "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:14). Then he takes them in his arms and blesses them. Whatever the disciples assumed about who matters, Jesus corrected it with heat.

¹³And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. ¹⁵ Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” ¹⁶And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.Mark 10:13-16 · ESV

Matthew 18 raises the stakes in both directions. Causing "one of these little ones who believe in me" to stumble earns millstone language (Matthew 18:6), and of the same little ones Jesus says "their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven" (18:10). Children are not pre-persons, props, or preparation for real ministry later. They are the kingdom's illustration and the nearest discipleship field most believers will ever be given.

Unless the LORD Builds the House

Psalm 127's first half is not a separate poem, and this session's worked example below will put the halves back together. For now, hear its verdict: "Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain" (127:1). Anxious, self-powered house-building achieves nothing, and verse 2 names its diet, "the bread of anxious toil," eaten early and late by people who believe everything depends on them, while God "gives to his beloved sleep." That verdict lands directly on modern anxious parenting: the resume-building, the terror of ruining them, the quiet belief that enough vigilance can guarantee outcomes. The parent's confidence is the LORD who builds. That is also the only ground sturdy enough to hold what Session 6 will ask of you.

Who Is in the Room

Before this course goes further, be clear about who it is addressed to. "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well" (2 Timothy 1:5). Timothy, Paul's best-loved coworker, was discipled by a grandmother and a mother; Acts 16:1 records a Greek father with no faith in the record. God builds heritage through whoever is faithful in the house that exists, not the house on the brochure.

⁵I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.2 Timothy 1:5 · ESV

The pattern runs through Scripture. Mordecai raised his orphaned cousin as his own daughter (Esther 2:7) and raised a queen who saved a nation. God names himself "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows" who "settles the solitary in a home" (Psalm 68:5-6). And adoption is what he did for every believer: "he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 1:5). So hear it plainly: single parents are not junior-varsity parents. Grandparents are not merely babysitters. Foster and adoptive parents are doing gospel work in its most literal shape. Blended homes are homes. Every session of this course ends with stage-specific application, and every one of those blocks includes your household on purpose.

One fence guards the opposite border. Children are a heritage, not a deity. Jesus ranks loves without apology: whoever loves son or daughter more than him is not worthy of him (Luke 14:26, Matthew 10:37). A family enthroned above Christ is an idol shaped like a blessing, and it eventually crushes the children asked to carry that weight. The gift is not the Giver.

Worked Example: Psalm 127, Both Halves Together

Read the whole psalm as one poem, because it is one. It opens with two workers doing everything right and achieving nothing: the builder builds in vain and the watchman stays awake in vain, "unless the LORD" (127:1). Verse 2 names the tell of self-powered living, "it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil," and then the line that indicts every white-knuckled parent: "for he gives to his beloved sleep." Sleep is what people do when someone trustworthy is on watch.

A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon. ¹  Unless the LORD builds the house,     those who build it labor in vain.   Unless the LORD watches over the city,     the watchman stays awake in vain. ²  It is in vain that you rise up early     and go late to rest,   eating the bread of anxious toil;     for he gives to his beloved sleep. ³  Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,     the fruit of the womb a reward. ⁴  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior     are the children of one’s youth. ⁵  Blessed is the man     who fills his quiver with them!   He shall not be put to shame     when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.Psalm 127:1-5 · ESV