When we found out we were pregnant with our first-born, Owen, my wife and I were overwhelmed with joy to have finally received this long-awaited blessing from God. With this came a desire to be intentional with our newfound responsibility. A personal desire of mine is to one-day hand Owen a journal with personal notes, stories, lessons learned, and other words of wisdom I’ve gleaned over the years. I want my son to know I was thinking of him before he was born, to be reminded of the unconditional love I have for him, and to be able to walk through the years of God’s love, faithfulness and provision for our family.

More recently God has been teaching me an old lesson in a new way. Owen is now two-and-a-half years old. He is full of passion and intensity along with a tendency to get fixated on certain things. As I sat considering this the other day I was struck with a fear of how these characteristics might manifest themselves in destructive ways later in Owen’s life. I felt my chest tighten and a profound sense of grief set in. My mind began working through all the ways we could protect our children from destructive behaviors and influences— get out of the city? Move to a smaller town? Private school? … and so on.

It was here that I received a gut-check from the Spirit. I was challenged to trust God, to release control of both my life as well as my children to him. Even more, I recalled with confidence that we are right where God would have us. I realize that as parents we are called to nurture, teach, and model a godly life to our children, nevertheless, we cannot control the outcome of their lives nor the choices they make along the way.

C.S. Lewis described the Christian life as a life lived in “enemy-occupied territory.” That is, we are living in a world currently dominated by Satan and his demonic emissaries. No matter how insulated we try to make our lives or how safe we may feel, this is an ever-present reality that we cannot avoid. Darkness is pressing in on us from all sides. Even as I write this there are three young men sitting close by doing a tarot card reading and sharing in the excitement of “hearing voices” and receiving energy from tuning forks and gemstones (I’m not even joking!)— completely clueless as to who they are inviting into their lives.

God has not called us to seek after temporal comfort and security for ourselves or our loved ones, rather he has called us to shine as lights in the midst of darkness. This happens as we live in utter dependence on God. It requires that we yield our fears, concerns, and control to the Father in trust, humility, and hope. That is, through an ongoing relationship of faith. It is a lesson we will learn over and over again in deeper ways throughout our lives. Each opportunity to trust God builds upon the other, thus resulting in faithfulness (from which the term “faith” is derived in the first place).

I pray daily that my children will place their faith in God at every stage of their journey as he reveals himself to them. Whether or not they will –– is beyond my control. What is in my control is whether or not I will trust God at every stage of my own journey with him.