Christian devotionals & resources connecting everyday mom moments with the truth of the gospel.

Three Things To Focus On Instead of Our Kids

Three Things To Focus On Instead of Our Kids

__Links in this post may be affiliate links. This means that if you click that link and purchase the product, I may receive a sm

What occupied your mind when you first found out you were going to be a mother?

Joy?

Inexpressible love?

Fear?

Images of ten healthy toes and ten tiny fingers?

Maybe you were immediately tallying all of the to do list items that needed to be done in the next nine months. Or perhaps you were too busy stuffing weird food pairings into your growing belly to think about anything other than how hungry you were. 

All of these thoughts, and so many more, are normal feelings. The second we find out we’re going to be a mom, something in our mind flips a switch and that momma instinct kicks in. It may not be strong at first, or we’re terrified and we may try to run from it, but it’s there. And how could it not be? We have God’s beautiful, unique creation – a being made in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27) –  growing inside of us.

Psalm 139:13-16

13 For you created my inmost being;

   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

   your works are wonderful,

   I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you

   when I was made in the secret place,

   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;

   all the days ordained for me were written in your book

   before one of them came to be.

It’s amazing that we have such a large part to play in something so miraculous and intimately connected to God. And yet…

We focus on our pregnancy cravings. Then our postpartum bodies.

We focus on our to-do-before-baby-comes list. Then worrying we aren’t doing it right.

We focus on how much sleep we’re about to (not) get.

We focus on medical checkups.

And developmental milestones.

Monthly photos.

Organic baby food.

Birthday parties.

Play dates.

Education.

Friends and fashion.

Family vacations.

Education. (And debt!)

And eventually, grandkids.

From the second we become mommas, the focus turns off of ourselves and onto our children. They become most important – the priority. And that’s the momma instinct. Our children are our world.

Three Things To Focus On Instead of Our Kids

But what if we also focused on ourselves through a gospel lens? Not the pre-baby stuff that used to be important, but the “mom” parts of us that will reap eternal rewards.

What would it look like to also focus on being a God-honoring wife to the father of our children?

1 Peter 3:1-6

3 Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. 4 Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

What would it look like to also focus on being a faithful servant in the local church’s ministry where our children will learn about Jesus?

Hebrews 6:10

10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.

What would it look like to focus on being a Christ-centered momma that daily models Jesus to impressionable minds?

Proverbs 22:6

6 Start children off on the way they should go,

   and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

Galatians 5:22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

If we focus on these three things, we’ll be teaching our children obedience, that serving God and others is vital, and that Jesus is the only thing that will truly fill their lives with purpose and joy.

God is the only one that should ever be at the center of our lives and blessings will abound if we do so! That means focusing on our relationship with, and obedience to, Jesus. If we do that, the legacy we leave our children will be so much more than how much fun they had at the birthday parties we threw for them and how many family vacations taken together. Our mom legacy will be unshakable, spirit-filled, heaven bound, and eternal. Not only will our children see God’s glory through us, so will our grandchildren and great-grandchildren (1 Timothy 1:5). I can’t think of anything more important to focus on than that kind of legacy.

Read More Devotionals About Leaving Your Mom Legacy

This is a devotional except from Leaving Your Mom Legacy: A 30-Day Devotional On Reflecting Christ In Motherhood, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Order yours today! 

For more one day devotionals from Messy Tired Love, click here. To learn more about these devotionals for Christian moms, click here.

Three Things To Focus On Instead of Our Kids

Related Posts

Raising Kids With A Biblical View Of Racism

Raising Kids With A Biblical View Of Racism

This post contains affiliate links. Please read the Disclosure Policy for details. Kids are sponges. They observe, even when we think they aren’t. They retain, more than we think they do. And they mimic everything: the good, the bad, and the embarrassing. My oldest calls his sister […]

The Secret to Being a Content Mom

The Secret to Being a Content Mom

The word content, as an adjective, means to be in a state of peaceful happiness. To be perfectly honest, I read that and laughed out loud. The “peaceful” part is what brought the chuckle, because peaceful seems like such a distant concept for my life […]



16 thoughts on “Three Things To Focus On Instead of Our Kids”

  • Great thoughts on how to keep Christ at center! Being a mom is often busy and even thankless, but if we keep our focus on Him and what He wants us to do and who He wants us to be, we will bear His fruit. – Amy

  • These are three great reminders for both expecting moms and moms of all -age kids. Our actions speak so much louder than our words. The best we can do for our children is to be children and students of God ourselves! Thank you for the post!

  • It’s so true how we can get fixated on our littles because they require so much of us. It is just as true, though, that we will starve others of our time and love when we focus too strongly on our kids. Thanks for reminding us to diversify our love and gifts, so not only to create balanced children, but also to give us, as mothers, a balance in life!

    • You’re welcome, Jess! It is SO tough when they are little and require so much from us, but also SO important.

  • Many Christians idolize their own families and are not asking God what they should do with their time. Yes, we are to minister to our husband and children, but we often miss opportunities to minister to others because all of our focus is on our own homes.

    • Finding the balance is really tough – focusing on our own spiritual health, serving our family, the church, the community and the unsaved. If we keep our focus on God – it makes it a lot easier because we don’t have to do it all on our own.

  • I don’t know if you’ve read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, but he makes some very similar points. Obviously he was not a mom, but he had a keen understanding of the idolatry that many wonderful, loving moms fall into, and in The Great Divorce he includes an allegorical story about a woman who had become so wrapped up in her son that she thought of little else.

  • I feel like the most important thing we can give our children is the sense that we enjoy them as people. This gives them a sense of worth based on who they are rather than what they do. We concentrate on these externals because we base our worth on what we do as parents, rather than who we are. I love the focus of this post.

    • Great thought, Alice. Finding identity in Jesus Christ, who loves them – not what they do – is central to the gospel!

  • My kids are older now, but it was so easy to just focus on them when they were small, at the expense of everything else. Focusing on others teaches them there are things in life that are greater than them.

    • I think that is one of the biggest benefits to my child I can think of – first, to show them that God comes first always and second, to teach them the world doesn’t revolve around them!

  • Indeed we need to make sure that we focus on God too as we focus on our families..infact He needs to be priority.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


33bed41da106474131d577c202b042576aab7fa026306859b2