Can I ask you to do something right now? Stand up and stretch out your arms. As wide as you can! I want you to get the feel of your spreading influence as a mother. Don’t feel embarrassed. Only your children are watching. In fact, you can ask them to do it too. They need to know that God has chosen them to influence the world.
Dear mother, you often feel as though you are insignificant as you are hidden at home raising your children. I want you to know that you are doing a powerful work. And your influence will not be hidden forever, but will spread abroad across the world.
No one has more influence than a mother.
Society will tell you the opposite, but they purport lies.
As you raise your children for God and diligently teach and impart God’s ways into their lives, you work with God to prepare them for their destiny. As they go out into the world they will influence society according to how you have taught and trained them.
Although my husband and I have traveled to many nations of the world, our children have traveled to nations we have never been to take the gospel. How did they get there? Only because we brought them into the world and imparted godly convictions into their lives.
God spoke through Balaam and prophesied: “How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob; how lovely are your homes, O Israel! They SPREAD before me like palm groves” (Numbers 24:5, 6 NLT). The ESV says: “They STRETCH AFAR.” Their Influence is powerful. Every new godly couple who gets married and builds a strong marriage and family spread the blessing of God in the nation.
Hosea 14:5, 6 (ESV): “I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall SPREAD OUT . . .“ Your children (your olive shoots) will spread out across the nation and across the earth to reveal God’s glory and truth.
Isaiah 54:2, 3 (HCSB): “ENLARGE the site of your tent, and let your tent curtains be STRETCHED OUT; do not hold back; LENGTHEN your ropes, and drive your pegs deep. For you will SPREAD OUT to the right and to the left, and your descendants will dispossess nations.” We know this Scripture speaks of Israel, but we see the picture of God’s heart for our homes and our families. They are to influence the earth.
Why don’t you stand up and stretch out your arms again? It’s good to do something tangible to realize the power of what you are doing in your home and how your children will go forth to influence the world.
May you be blessed in your home today,
Nancy Campbell
Photo: Shaina Streyle, my current Above Rubies helper from Wyoming, doing a Missions trip in Tanzania. Shaina is at the back in a white top.