Are You Stressing About Being A Missionary?

Sometimes I think God was having some fun at our expense when He put only twenty-four hours in a day. I look at all that needs to be done and wonder if there will ever be a time when I actually finish everything planned for a day. My husband says I need to learn better time management, and perhaps that’s true. There are times, though, when I want to throw that precious little clock on my kitchen wall right out the window.

I have a tendency to stress if I think I’m missing the important things that have to be done. I envision them as ever enlarging monsters, filling up space in my life and taunting me with thoughts of failure. Before long, fear grips me and I start muttering to myself, “I can’t do it. I don’t have the time.”

I think that’s how some parents feel about becoming missionaries in their own home. It seems like such a daunting task requiring mountainous effort, extensive time and monumental ability. And it’s all such a gamble. What if they’re not able to save their child? What if they make a mistake? They may find themselves like me, muttering to themselves, “I can’t do it. I don’t have the time.”

That’s when we have to remind ourselves of these things:

• We’re not the Savior. We can only be obedient and teach our children what the Lord gives us to teach them from His Word.


• As we focus on Him and dedicate our children and parenting to Him, God will equip us with what we need to teach them.


• We do not have to build a seminary for our children within the walls of our home. We live by example, we take a few minutes here and there to discuss Christ in our lives, we take advantage of opportunities as they arise, and we deliberately and purposefully, but within a short proscribed period of time, share a time of family devotion and prayer. In short, we make God a big deal in our home.


• We recognize that Satan is the great deceiver, and he will do what he can to thwart any attempt to bring our children to a saving knowledge of Christ. This includes causing us to focus on the stress and the fear so that we think teaching our children is beyond anything we can humanly take on.


• We share our burden with another godly parent, one who is able to reflect our concerns back to us and offer us counsel and encouragement. We cannot pretend to be able to do this on our own.


• We remember that this parenting thing is about God. It’s not about us.