Do we understand the significant role that mothers can play in the spiritual upbringing of their children?

Paul Carrington reminds us of the words of Spurgeon, who emphasized the inestimable value of a godly mother. Carrington encourages mothers who are laboring and struggling to teach their children to aim high, to pray and hope for their child's salvation. He emphasizes that the role of a mother is not only about nurturing her child's physical and emotional well-being, but she is also responsible for doing soul work.

Referring to Matthew Chapter 10, Carrington notes that Jesus urged his disciples to rejoice more in the fact that their names were written in heaven than in their authority over devils. In the same vein, the ultimate aim of mothers should be for the salvation of their children. While parents cannot save their children, they can be used by God as a means of salvation. This, Carrington asserts, is the high calling of mothers - to nurture not just professionals or great tradesmen, but souls for heaven.

Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV): "Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it."

Spurgeon said, never could it be possible for any man to estimate what he owes to a godly mother. And when he writes, you know, he recalls even before he was a Christian how his mother would pray. He can remember those prayers. I would say to the mother who's laboring, who's struggling to teach her children, to love her children, to aim high. And what I mean by that is that you're aiming for their salvation and you're praying that God would do this great work.

When Jesus' disciples came back in Matthew chapter 10, they were very much excited. But what he said to them, he says, don't so much rejoice that the devils are subject to you, but rather that your name is written in heaven. And so this is the high calling that mothers are aiming for in terms of their children. They can't save their children, but God is so pleased to use a mother, to use a father as the means of salvation for their children. And so this is central, not so much that they only become a professional, not so much that they have a great trade, but you're really doing soul work as a mother.