At once they left their nets and followed him. (Mark 1:18)
Before I had children, the choice to be a parent was simple: should I try to get pregnant or not? But since having kids, that question has become infinitely more complicated. Now I don’t get to ask whether I will be a parent—I already am. Instead, I have to ask what sort of parent I want to be.
And the answer isn’t a philosophy or a value system. The answer is how I choose to act when my younger boy sneaks out of his room after bedtime, when my older boy throws a fifteen-minute temper tantrum in public, when their humanity thwarts my “perfectly” planned day of parenting. To the question of what sort of parent I want to be, the only answer that matters is how I act each moment I’m with my boys.
That’s a tough reality, and I must accept that I haven’t enacted my ideal parenting practice every moment of every day for the past four years. The first choice—whether to get pregnant or not—is often so simple. But that second choice is what being a parent is all about!
In the same way, the choice to “repent and believe” when we first become Christians is seemingly simple. But the second choice—to drop our former directions, interests, livelihoods, if God wills it—is much harder. It’s an everyday practice.
Enact your answer to the question of whether to follow Christ.
Lindsey Priest is an Indiana Wesleyan University graduate and lives in Arkansas with her husband and two sons. She likes to read to the kids, play video games with her husband, and refurbish furniture.
© 2020 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
