We need to be healed and equipped with the Wisdom of Christ’s care.
Many of us have not received the care we need and were made to be given. And it has left us feeling distressed, anxious, unseen, unheard, overwhelmed, alone… vulnerable.
Many of our minds are suffering the effects of absent, compromising or hurtful shepherds. And it has taken a toll on our identity, relationships and mental health.
Yet, even for those of us who have received the primary care we were made for… in this world, we will never stop having needs. Specifically, the need to be heard, comforted, calmed, guided and protected… tended. This is by design.
If we’re not actively experiencing the care of our (only) Perfect Caregiver—then inevitably, we will turn to other “sources” to try and meet our needs. And from this place, we will find ourselves worrying and wandering… striving and searching… working and earning… hurrying and hurting… controlling or compromising.
Behind so many of our fears and broken patterns—is simply the need to be cared for.
Beneath so much of our anxiousness and toxic stress—is the need to be shepherded.
We are called to cast all our anxiety on Jesus… Why? “Because He cares.” (1 Peter 5:7 NASB)
We are told not to be anxious about anything… Why? “Because, the Father knows what we need before we even ask.” (Matthew 6:26-32 NASB)
Therefore, let us all hear and understand that: We need to experience the transformational care of Jesus…
We need our foundation of trust restored…
Our very brains, bodies and hearts need to receive the true security, peace and worth that only He can bring…
We need to be responded to, again and again and again, by the One who intimately knows and understands our needs (and who delights in meeting them)…
We need to practice repeatedly turning to our Good Shepherd—above any thing or any one else we could turn to—in the place of need, fear and longing…
Our trust, capacity and character need to be formed and transformed—not through more content about Jesus—but through an intimate, relational journey with Jesus.
And oh how He longs to shepherd us on this kind of journey…
Yet, we stand in a unique place. Because, at the same time as being sheep in need of a comforting, strengthening, protecting shepherd—we are also the ones who will shepherd the upcoming generations. At the same time as needing to be healed—we need to be equipped.
For we are the carriers of the unborn. We are future mothers and fathers… and we need to be readied.
We are being called to enter in to mothering and fathering with a restored foundation and with the fear of the Lord…
This threatens the enemy.
Stop and consider that, he specifically attempted to steal trust, security and the fear of the Lord from the very first future mother and future father…
That since creation, the enemy has tried to hijack minds, identities and relationships in a way that would perpetuate throughout generations.
See that all along, he’s attempted to compromise and destruct God’s original design for family.
But we could be the ones to rise up and take a stand against his schemes. We could be part of preventing more family brokenness and giving a future generation what they were always made for…
Just imagine if we were the generation who returned to God’s original design for family—and received the wisdom, knowledge and understanding of His care—before we even held our babies!
We could be part of interrupting cycles of generational fears, insecurities and brokenness—and ushering in new cycles of trust, security and wholeness.
The Lord has set us apart as a generation. Not just because of our own talents, giftings, skills or zeal. But because, as future mothers and future fathers, we will be the primary part of shaping the minds, identities and relationships of the coming generation.
Let this sink in.
The enemy doesn’t want us to grasp this revelation or think this way. Because it threatens his attempt to keep hindering God’s original design for family. But God seeks to ready and equip this generation. And Jesus longs to make His ways of care known to us.
We must realize that so much of the brokenness that we want to be part of reaching and ministering to—literally traces back to children not receiving the care they were made for…
For in His wisdom, God designed mothers and fathers to be the most intimate part of establishing their child’s foundation in trust and security. But when this design is compromised, so is this child’s trust and security—life and relationships.
Therefore, as long as we do not understand and revere the Lord in this “calling”—distrust and insecurity will surely keep multiplying.
Yet, if we take hold the glory of God’s design for motherhood and fatherhood, even before our children are born… can we even comprehend the victory?
Foresee the glory if the coming generations of babies were born into the arms, not of perfect caregivers, but primary caregivers who feared the Lord because they knew the way He designed infant attachment. Mothers and Fathers who knew how children’s brains, voices, stress systems and character are formed… through primary care. Shepherds who resisted the deception and distraction that is insulting brains… and lived in the mind of Christ. And who prepared the coming generation to access the mind of Christ…
This is what we are being invited into… (the devil shudders).
We can all begin by forgiving our caregivers, many who simply “did not know.” We can all experience the kind of care we’ve always been made for from the Good Shepherd, in whom we have all we need. And we can all rise up as Christlike caregivers who do “know…”
Future Mothers and Future Fathers who know what is at stake during those precious, foundational first three years of life..
And in response to knowing, we can commit to tending our future children as the Lord originally designed them to be tended…
Preparing the way for them to have secure, trust-based relationships… with others and with Jesus Himself. This will change the world as we know it.
Intentionally readying the next generation of mothers and fathers… it’s never been done before. And it’s a key to revival.
If not us, who? If not now, when?