Not out of Fear

I was reading a devotion for parents last night and this verse stuck out to me.  It's buried in the "hall of faith" where there is a list of all the faithful things the heroes of the Bible did.  Hebrews 11:23 says "By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw that he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the kings edict." 
Wha????  When you read the story of Moses what is the first thing that comes to mind as to why his parents hid him?  In my mind it was because they were AFRAID to lose him to the wicked Pharaoh's command for all of the male Hebrew babies to be murdered. 
By Faith...  I have a sign hanging over the entryway door in our house.  I painted it at a time in our life when faith was all we had...day by day.  It's sad, though, that we get to a place where we think we can live on our own, raise our kids on our own, without faith and without God's help.  I don't think we do it intentionally, but when we have what we need OR when we are in the midst of crisis that we can't fix, we go into survival mode.  When I look at this verse, I am reminded that we must have faith and not fear.  How many times do we hide our kids in order to shield them from all the scary things in this world.  How about we have faith and hide our children in the arms of the Lord?  Satan is out there to steal, kill and destroy....and our children are prime targets.  How do we keep them from Satan's grasp without being fearful? 
1. Pray for them, daily, hourly.
2. Hide them from the things that can pull them in the wrong direction.  Monitor who they hang out with and what their eyes/ears  see and hear. 
3. Teach them God's Word.  Don't just expect them to soak it up through once a week Sunday school.  Show them through every situation what the Lord would have us do.  When we mess up, fess up and show how forgiveness works. 
 
The book I was reading by Gary L. Thomas gives two of those examples and also gives Psalm 91 as a reference as to why hiding our children is not out of fear, but faith. 

Our kids are special!  They are "no ordinary children".  They are lean, mean, God loving machines.  Raise them in such a way that God receives the glory and watch them be the mouthpiece of God!  He does great things with those that just have faith, just finish reading Hebrews 11 to find that out!

Be blessed!