Being confident of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6). If you've ever laid awake at night wondering if you're completely messing up this whole parenting thing, these words from Philippians 1:6 are for you. They're for every parent who questions whether bedtime prayers, kid’s church drop-offs, and all those conversations about kindness actually make a difference in the long run.
Here's what Paul was getting at when he wrote to the church at Philippi: God finishes what He starts. He's not the type to get halfway through a project and walk away. When God begins something, He sees it through to the end. And that includes the work He's doing in your kids. The same God who's been working in your own heart is also at work in theirs, and He's not going to give up on them.
There's something really freeing about remembering that you're not writing your kids' spiritual stories all by yourself. Yeah, you've got this huge responsibility to point them toward Jesus, to show them what following Him looks like, to make your home a place where God feels real and present. You're pouring yourself out every single day in a thousand different ways. But here's the thing: the actual heart-change work? That's God's job, not yours. You're planting seeds and watering them, but God's the one who makes things grow, like Paul talks about when he says, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth" (1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
This should take some pressure off, honestly. Because let's be real. You're going to mess up. You're going to lose your cool on a Tuesday afternoon. You're going to say something you wish you could take back. You're going to handle situations in ways that make you cringe later. But your mistakes don't disqualify you from being used by God in your kids' lives. He's able to work through your imperfections and even redeem the moments you wish had gone differently. He's not asking you to be perfect. He's asking you to be faithful.
When Paul says "until the day of Christ Jesus," he's reminding us that God's work in our kids doesn't stop when they move out or graduate or start making their own decisions. His faithfulness goes way beyond the years they're living under your roof. When they face stuff you can't protect them from, God's still working. When they make choices that break your heart, God hasn't abandoned His plans for them. He who started the good work will keep going until it's complete.
This changes how we pray for our kids. Instead of trying to control everything, we can pray with real confidence, knowing that God loves them even more than we do and He's actively working in their lives in ways we can't always see. We can trust them to His care, knowing that His commitment to their growth outlasts our ability to guide them directly.
So let this truth shape your everyday parenting. When you catch glimpses of growth in your kids, when they show compassion without being prompted, when they ask genuine questions about faith, when they choose kindness on their own, thank God for what He's doing. And when you're in the hard seasons, when they're pushing back or seem totally disinterested in spiritual things, hold onto this: God's not done yet. He who started a good work in them will carry it on to completion. Your job is to keep pointing them toward Jesus, keep loving them well, and trust that God will provide everything you need to parent for His glory.
