One of my favorite verses in Psalm is found in 128:3.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;your sons will be like olive shoots around your table.
With 10 children in our family, our table is very full. It is a blessing to me to see our table full of children during meal time. But even more of a blessing to me is knowing that the Lord has chosen to use each of my children to His purpose and glory.
The visual image of olive shoots is so wonderful to me. The olive tree was very important in Bible days as it provided them with many necessities for their day. The olive shoots were the young branch-to-be’s growing off of the main branches. Unless the olive tree received the proper nourishment, the olive shoots would not grow properly, if at all.
What a great picture this is to us as mother’s of the importance of our relationship with the Lord. If we are not studying the Word and applying it to our lives we become spiritually malnourished & our children will suffer because of it. But when we are following the Lord & seeking a close relationship with Him, our children will flourish & grow just as the olive shoots do on the olive tree.
John writes in 3 John verse 4,
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
The children that John spoke of were not his children, but rather those who had benefited from his ministry. Mothers, your children are your ministry, but you can’t minister to them if you are not spiritually healthy. God has a plan for your children & His greatest desire is to use you in their life.
Abide with your Lord. Learn to follow him & obey him. Fall in love with Him. You will never be disappointed.
The result will be;
Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.
Proverbs 31:28