Daily Guideposts 2016: 7-Day Reading PlanSample

Today, on the phone, my former student Ali spoke of my daughters as “children of the covenant.”

“What does that mean?” I asked her. Homeschooled by missionary parents, Ali often speaks a language I don’t understand.

“Oh, you know. You’ve raised your girls in a Jesus-loving household. Now it’s up to God.” Ali was telling me to trust in God’s promise, something I struggled with.

We’d been talking about a fantasy I have: that the older my daughters get, the closer I will be to contentment. In my shimmering vision, they love God, are in happy relationships, fulfilled in their job+C6s, living in clean houses, and raising healthy children with parental confidence and foresight I never experienced. But the older my daughters get, the farther away this heavenly vision seems.

Sometimes I think this fantasy is my main impediment to contentment. After all, my home is fairly clean; I love God and my husband and my work; my girls are healthy and thriving and occasionally kindhearted and God-oriented. Still, I’m anything but content when I start worrying about them.

God and every angel who ever visited Earth commands, “Fear not!” I long to obey, but how does one shut down this particular worry?

Today, considering God’s many pledges of love to us, I suddenly resaw my fantasy as God’s too: What we want for our children is what He wants for us. With one difference: God has the power to make it happen.

Father, Abba, Daddy, we are the children of Your hopes and many promises, the children of Your power and love. Let everything happen according to Your good purposes.

—Patty Kirk

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 22:6, Isaiah 54:9–17