By Dannah Gresh, founder of True Girl
Read: Isaiah 54:9-17
“All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.” Isaiah 54:13
As I read Isaiah 54:9-17 today, the rain was pelting so hard against my window and the thunder clapping so loudly that I don’t have to imagine what worry Noah felt when the doors to the ark closed with a thud and a mere man heard wet and wild fury on the other side! It sounds like that in State College, Pennsylvania today. And I’m worried. I worry for my menagerie of barn animals. Is the barn flooding? Is sweet Kanga, our mini fainting goat who is struggling with a bout of lameness, able to make her way to shelter? Will one of my horses slip in the mud?
How storms—especially the emotional and spiritual ones—test our faith and rattle our foundation. Doesn’t matter how big (a child starting the school year with a frightening health diagnosis) or how small (a child having trouble making friends at the beginning of the school year), as moms we can be consumed by the storm at the expense of the peace God means for us to know. Each of my three children is facing mini-storms right now, and I’m worried. One is facing overload and stress like never before. Another is having a hard time finding a solid friend to share life with. And then there’s the one struggling with a life change. I just don’t like storms when they impact my children.
It is such a storm we find in Isaiah 54.
But look at the promises in the midst of it!
Mom, though the mountains shake and the hills be moved, “you will not be shaken,” Mom. “No weapon formed against you will prosper.
Do you need that today? I sure do.
Nestled in the midst of all these promises for us, is one for our children: “great will be their peace.” I want this for my precious children. Oh, how I want it! Do you want it for your children? So let’s figure out how it comes to them so we can be sure we cooperate in God's plan to bring it to them. Peace comes with a caveat. The whole verse reads, “Your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.”
A teacher cannot teach a student unless he or she places themselves in the presence of the teacher. Your child cannot be taught by the Lord unless he or she is still and sits under the instruction of the Holy Spirit. If we want our children to have peace in the midst of their storms, it will be found in the sitting.
And that comes for you and I, too. Let us not forget, we are Someone’s child. We are His child. He wants your peace to be great no matter what storm is around you. And that peace does not come from cleaning your house, crossing off your to-do list, managing your children’s schedules, or making Pinterest worthy meals. (I don’t know about you but my Pinterest recipes never look like the picture, anyway!) The peace you are looking for doesn’t come from the doing. It comes from the sitting.
Sit at His feet if you are in need of peace. As His Spirit instructs your heart, it will be overwhelmed with peace. Mine was today.
And our children cannot learn this if we do not model it, my friend!
Prayer For Our Children Based On Isaiah 54: 9-17
Lord, there are storms in our lives right now. They include (list them one by one). I feel the shaking of the mountains and the moving of the hills and I need to cling to your promise that neither I nor my children will be shaken. Help me to sit at your feet to be instructed no matter what my house looks like, no matter how big my to-do list may be, and no matter what the needs of my children are. I believe that if I put you first, you will teach me and that will bring peace. Let me be a model to (name your children) this week as I sit in your presence and rise up to carry your peace so that they will learn to be instructed by you as well. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
