In The Event of Pregnancy, Parenting Begins Immediately!

Luke 1:41
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Luke 1:42
In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
Luke 1:43
But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Luke 1:44
As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Bad parenting leads to poor adults and regretting senior citizens. Bad adults lead to bad marriages. Bad adults lead to poor leaders and society. Regretting senior citizens, bad marriages, bad leaders, and a bad society are a recipe for unprecedented disaster. Where did it all begin? Bad parenting. We, therefore, need to fix parenting as soon as possible. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

Bad parenting has many aspects we can’t list here exhaustively. It may include excessive punishment, excessive love at the expense of discipline. Bad parenting may include exposing the child or children to parental quarrels, domestic violence, etc. Bad parenting may include evading responsibility and letting children have too much screen time than is healthy. When a solution to a troublesome child is not engagement but instead is buying toys, sweets, or giving them access to TV and other media, that could be bad parenting. Using children to fight your spouse, is not only bad parenting but idiotic. Being absent in your child’s life as you pursue a career and money is an aspect of bad parenting. Not providing for your children or child is bad parenting. The list is endless, but we want to focus today on one aspect that may be easily missed as bad parenting, which is beginning the parenting late. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

Bad parenting includes late parenting. Parenting is the art, science, and process of bringing up a child to be a successfully independent adult who is valuable to himself or herself and society. If you begin parenting too late, the child will miss some growth milestones and may never recover from the damage caused. The delay means the part where we did not parent, the child went into a direction we do not know and may get to know too late. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

The formative years of a child are the first five years. If you begin parenting at age six or seven, you are building without a foundation, or you are building with a foundation that you the builder knows nothing about. If in late teenage the child develops a character that you least expected and doesn’t match what you have taught from age six, it is because they are true to the foundation. The parenting children need as teenagers cannot be given after their teenage years. If you are late, wait for God’s grace as you do what you can. Perhaps God will perform a miracle and rescue the situation. We, therefore, hope that we have properly established that beginning late is bad parenting with results that may shock us when it is too late to change. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

What a child needs at a certain age, cannot be given later. The parenting required now, can not be given next year when you have time. A breastfeeding child cannot be breastfed next year when the mother finishes her studies. Parenting moments are moments of now or never. The unknown tragedy of parenting is coming in late with money, bonding time, outings, strange discipline strictness, and lots of counseling sessions – all that will not properly substitute the missed parenting moments. To be late to parent is to stare into an unknown future of your child. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

In our text today, an expectant Mary visits an expectant Elizabeth. When Mary greets Elizabeth, the baby leaps in joy in her womb. Then Elizabeth pays homage to the unborn baby that Mary is carrying. What we see here is that the babies in the womb, the unborn babies are treated as alive and part of society. If the unborn child is actively interacting with the outside world, we need to be careful what we expose that child to or else we may ruin the child before the child is born. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

Judges 13:7
But he said to me, ‘You will become pregnant and have a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from the womb until the day of his death. ’”

Samson’s parents are Manoah and his wife. Manoah and his wife got instructions on how to raise up Samson. The instructions begin at conception before birth. The mother was to treat the pregnancy as a Nazirite would be treated for Samson was to be a Nazirite. She wouldn’t eat what Samson shouldn’t eat. The instructions end by saying, “the boy would be a Nazirite FROM THE WOMB.” If Samson’s parents waited for when he would be born, they would be too late in bringing up an acceptable Nazirite. Samson was to be parented as a Nazirite from the time the mother got pregnant. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

The instructions God gave Manoah and his wife clearly show that God understands and wants us to know that parenting begins immediately after the mother is pregnant. To begin later after the pregnancy is advanced or after birth is to be too late in parenting, leave alone appearing later when the child is full-grown, this is just disaster. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

To bring up a Nazirite, parenting begins at conception. To bring up a Christian child, parenting begins at conception. To bring up an organized child, industrious, full of integrity, you begin with the pregnancy. Anything your child should ever turn out to be should be built from pregnancy. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

Therefore during pregnancy, we care about what the mother eats, the discussions she participates in, the entertainment she enjoys, the stress she carries, the bitterness, the joy, the church attendance or missing, etc. All these are foundational to the child who will be born. Some of these things may never be reversed unless by the awesome unstoppable undefeated grace of God. Otherwise, a bad pregnancy will lead to a bad child and afterward a bad adult. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. ”

God perceives an unborn child as fully human with a life for them already planned. Before Jeremiah was even conceived, God knew him and appointed him a prophet. The pregnancy Jeremiah’s mother carried was that of an anointed prophet.

When God allows a pregnancy to happen, He knows the child and has appointed everything for that child. If that is the case, abortion is murder and an attempted thwarting of God’s will. There are people who wish to have children and have prayed about it, but God hasn’t allowed it. Others in an unguarded moment of passion that wasn’t even serious, end up with a pregnancy. The sexual act was and still is sin. The child conceived has been conceived by God’s permission and therefore has a plan and duties to perform in life.

When unwanted pregnancy happens, the faster it is accepted the better, so that parenting can begin without any delay. To avoid unwanted pregnancy avoid sex that is sexual immorality. Contraceptives can save you from pregnancy but not from the much more lethal wrath of God against sexual immorality. If you prefer security from a lesser dangerous pregnancy, a lesser dangerous sexually transmitted disease, and a lesser dangerous interrupted studies or disorganized life, so that you can continue offending God by uncontrolled sexual sins, then you have the poorest judgment of what is safe and what is risky. If you rather offend God, you don’t know that God.

Unwanted pregnancy should quickly be accepted by parents and the involved so that the child is properly parented. If you chase your expectant daughter from home, and then after she has suffered immensely and has given birth you welcome her home, you have missed the most critical parenting. The bitterness and suffering of your expectant daughter will affect that child for life. If as an expectant mother you worry about the now affected future or are bitter about the man who has rejected you, it will translate to your child. Accept and start parenting immediately. In the event of pregnancy, parenting begins immediately!

Creating the best environment for pregnancy is a good step in parenting. Determine at pregnancy what kind of child you are bringing up and act as such. May God be gracious to those who are parenting late. May God bless and guide those who are now expectant and have to begin immediately. May God remind those who will be expectant soon to begin parenting at pregnancy. May God give a safe pregnancy to those who are seeking it, those struggling, those suffering miscarriages, may God grant pregnancy to them in Jesus’ name! Amen. May our parenting bear the best results for the children, the church, the community, and God’s kingdom, in Jesus’ name, Amen!

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