What is Growing in Your Child’s Heart?

Recently my mum sent me these pictures remarking that even as a young child I had a passion for creation, a love of growing things, and a desire to nurture others. I can’t help but laugh since I now have 5 children, a zillion house plants, and my favourite hobby is walking in nature. The only picture missing is one of me baking or cooking because these days (especially with four boys) I spend most of my time ‘feeding’ others in one way or another!

As parents, we must OBSERVE our children carefully because the seeds of God’s calling for their lives were planted in their hearts before they were even born (Psalm 139). If you watch your children intentionally and carefully you will begin to see the beginnings of what God is cultivating in their hearts.

Every child is unique; fearfully and wonderfully made. As parents and stewards of such precious gifts, we can create space for our children’s gifts to grow.

Here are three simple ways you can begin cultivating your child’s heart today:

Pray

We must pray for discernment in order that we may watch over the garden of our child’s heart. Like a gardener we can ensure that every plant and flower growing there has everything it needs to flourish; the right soil, food, water, and enough light. We must also be vigilant to keep watch, protecting them from any ‘weeds’, ‘pests’, and ‘other’ garden intruders. 

Observe

By standing back, observing, and paying careful attention to our children we will begin to grow in our own understanding of what God is growing in the hearts, desires, abilities, and giftings of our children. This may be paying careful attention to your child’s words and actions. The things that excite them, scare them, frustrate them, and motivate them. It may be the pictures they draw, the books they enjoy, the dreams they tell you about on a morning, or the stories that capture their imagination. All of these things and more begin to build a picture of our child’s heart from which we can begin to gently provide the guiding trellis and the supporting stakes that will cause them to grow up healthy, tall, and strong and ‘in the way they should go’. This is vital because these natural leanings will also point to the spiritual giftings and callings God has given each of our children.

Encourage

One biblical example of this is the young boy Samuel. He first heard the voice of God as a small child and grew up to be a faithful and influential prophet of God for all the days of his life. Hannah and Elkanah recognised this in Samuel and intentionally positioned him in a way that would grow this gift in his life.

As parents, we must remember we can only encourage our children. We can cultivate the best environment we possibly can but ultimately we cannot control the weather nor cause our children (or anyone else for that matter to grow). Life can be stormy, there might be seasons of drought, and we as humans do not have the power in ourselves to make things grow only to steward faithfully what God has instructed to us.

This is VERY good news! It’s not all on us… Phew!

Yes we are co-gardeners but God is the ultimate gardener of our children’s hearts and we can trust him completely. The seeds HE has planted in our children HE will bring to fruition.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below!