Hello mamas. I hope you guys are doing great this week. We
are back for Week Two of our audio teaching from the Online Bible Study "Mom Set Free."
My name is Melissa Taylor and I'm joined again with the author and
fellow mama who's in the trenches with us, Jeannie Cunnion. Hi Jeannie, welcome back.
Jeannie Cunnion: Hey guys. I'm so happy to be with you today.
MT: Awesome. Well for those of you who are joining us for the first time, Jeannie Cunnion is the
author of our "Mom Set Free" Online Bible Study. She's a woman who loves Jesus with all her heart.
She loves her kids and her family with all her heart, and she's just trying to get this right.
And I think that's why we all signed up for this study -- we want to get it right,
but we feel a lot of pressure in trying to do that and so we are here together to learn more and more
about receiving that grace that can help us in our parenting. Each week Jeannie is here to offer
us some encouragement, and so without further ado, we want to get started with this week's
message from Jeannie and it is about the Freedom From Being in Control.
Jeannie, we can't wait to hear what you have to share with us this week JC: Well,
this is definitely a convicting message to share because I like being in control, but I very much
know I am not. So we're going to talk about the freedom from trying to be in control, from trying
to play God's role in our kids' lives. I'll tell you a story. When I've prayed for my kids,
I've always used the words "my boys" or "my sons." Mike and I have five boys who range
from five to twenty-four, and so I joke that my hobbies are praying and grocery shopping.
And so, but there's, you know, there's of course nothing wrong with praying the words "my boys"
or "my sons." God entrusted these boys to my husband and me to raise to His glory.
But on one particular and very unforgettable night, while crying out to God about a painful
hardship that one of my boys was facing, and I was feeling completely incompetent to help
him navigate it, I felt the Holy Spirit remind me that my boys are first and foremost sons of God.
That as much as I love them and long for them to know God's love, that they were created by God;
they belong to God, and God's love and desire for them is infinitely more profound and pure than
mine. And in light of this truth, I began to pray "Your sons" rather than "my sons," to be reminded
that God is their all-knowing all-powerful Father who will not let them down. And this is the truth
that we have to remember when our children are bullied or rejected by their peers, when
they're battling sin and temptation, when their feelings get hurt or their hearts get broken,
when they struggle with substance abuse or eating disorders, when they make wrong choices,
when they simply don't feel lovable or valuable. When our hearts break for our kids and we long
to right every wrong in their lives, we have to remember they have a sovereign and good
heavenly Father. And I can't help but wonder, what are some of the battles that you are facing today
alongside of your children right now, that you desperately wish you could fix
or control? I can tell you so many things are coming to mind for me right now. But remembering
our good Father's sovereignty relieves so much of the pressure we experience in motherhood. It's not
all up to you, and it's not all up to me and praise Him for that. I desperately needed to be
reminded of this recently on a terrible day at the end of a terrible week. It was a week that
entailed bad grades in school for one of my boys and bad words in the school yard for another and
bad dreams at night for another one of my boys, and these are the things that break my
mama heart and they threaten to break my spirit. Because we give our kids everything we've got.
We guide them in truth. We encourage them to use their God-given gifts to the fullest. We try
to model godly living. We pray, we pray, and we pray. But ultimately we have to face that we are
powerless to control the outcome of our effort. So we get to put our trust in our all-powerful
God. And there's a guy in the Bible named Jehoshaphat.
MT: Good job.
JC: I hope I said that right. Melissa, is it Jehoshaphat? I think...
MT: I'm gonna, I'm gonna agree with you. I'm not gonna disagree with you.
JC: Yeah. OK, we're somewhere in there. But
he knows something about feeling powerless and I want us to learn
from him today. The story is in Second Chronicles Chapter 20, verses 1-12, and I won't read the
whole story because there's several more words i will butcher if i try to read it.
But the gist is that Jehoshaphat received word that a huge force was on its way
from beyond the Dead Sea to battle him. It was a vast army marching against him from the Dead Sea,
and they were already on their way. It was a huge battle, and Scripture says he was terrified by
this news and he begged the Lord for guidance. He didn't have a clue what to do in this situation,
and he felt the pressure... like the outcome all depended on what he decided and what he did.
And if we're honest, there's a lot of days in motherhood that can feel like this. Instead of
all these tribes coming at us, our battles look like some of the hardships we just mentioned, and
we're afraid--maybe we're even terrified. But then in verse 3, we see how Jehoshaphat prepared for
the battle. Scripture said, "He set his face to seek the Lord." He set his face to seek the Lord.
See, that verse stops me, and it invites me to ask, "Is this how I fight my battles
in motherhood? Do I set my face to seek the Lord when I'm walking through battles, or I see battles
that my kids are walking through?" The following verses in this story, verses 4 through 11, are
really his heart cry to the Lord. He recounts God's faithfulness in the past to give him hope
for the future. He remembers God's faithfulness in the past to give him hope
for the future, but it's how he ends his prayer in verse 12 that I don't want us to miss.
He said, "We are powerless against this battle. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."
So, just imagine how much deeper we'd breathe, and honestly, how much better we'd sleep,
if we had on repeat the prayer of Jehoshaphat. How often do we not know what to do? How often
do we feel powerless over the things our kids are facing and navigating? And we think it's all up
to us to figure it out, to solve it, to be their rescuer, when really we're just trying to fill
shoes in their lives that only fit their heavenly Father. The invitation to us is to rely on God, to
fix our eyes on Him, to set our face to Him, and trust that He is good, that He is sovereign, that
they belong to Him, and so do the battles before us. So we pray, "Lord, we do not know what to do,
but our eyes are on You, and we will trust You with the children that You have entrusted to us."
MT: Amen, amen, Jeannie. Let me just ask you mamas, is there a single one of you who is
not just...you can relate to everything that you just heard? How often are we, are we afraid or are
we worried about our children? And I love that in Scripture, it says that Jehoshaphat was terrified.
He begged the Lord for guidance, and I think, what a formula for us. When you're feeling that
unsettledness or that fear, whether no matter what it is, you guys, it can be something big and it
can be the little things too, that keep us up at night. But go to the Lord. Just try to make that
your trigger: Is there fear? Is that worry? I'm going to the Lord. And Jeannie, like you said, "He
remembered God's faithfulness in the past, and that gave him hope in the future." So you guys,
think about the victories that you have as well, and thank God for them,
and remember them. Remember those problems that you've already gone through
and how you got through them. You're here today, so you got through them.
And so, keep going to the Lord because this was a great follow-up from last week. We're
still just really learning it all comes down to trusting God. They really are His first.
JC: Yeah. It's such a...that middle of the night prayer for me now has become...I don't
know what to do. I don't know how to fix this situation in this son's life. I don't,
I don't know how to help my son believe this is true about his identity in Christ. I don't,
I don't know how to make this decision. It feels so big and it feels like it's
all weighing on me, and all these things are bouncing around in my brain, and I just go, "Lord,
I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on You, because they are my sons,
but more than that they are Your sons. They belong to You."
MT: That is exactly right. Jeannie, thank you again so much. We do want to be in control, but
we need the freedom from being in control because, guess what everybody? Ultimately, we're not in
control. So we have to to be able to settle that in our hearts. Thank you again for another great
teaching. And everybody, we're just in Week Two. We're going to keep going. Next week, Jeannie
will be back with another message to encourage you in your walk in being a mom. And you guys, we're
going to be getting honest about our weaknesses next week. So we're really looking forward
to that, Jeannie. Thank you so much for everything today.,
JC: My pleasure
MT: All right, everybody, remember what we say around here at Proverbs 31 because
we can't do without it. God's Word is the Truth and we want to get into God's Word,
which is what this Bible study is all about. And when we know the truth and live the truth,
it changes everything.