Mothers particularly feel the pressure to provide the best of everything for our children—training, education, lessons, activities, friends, even meals. We want our kids to have character, clean their rooms, excel in school, have the best music lessons, be in all the activities they want, and to never be lonely.

You can fill up your child’s life with good people, good activities, and good things, but that will not be enough. What your child needs most is a heart that knows the love of God. The greatest gift you will give your children, a gift they will carry with them into every relationship and situation of their lives, is a heart deeply centered on loving God and loving others, and a mind formed and filled by the habits of faith.

Your first priority as a mother is to introduce your children not just to truths about God, but to His reality in their lives. You are helping them understand what it means to seek His kingdom and His righteousness every day—to love Him, to know Him, to believe in His presence, to see His work in the world around them, and to form their lives according to His truth and will.

They won’t learn all that in Sunday school or Bible club. It is in your home and in your presence that your children will learn what it means to be a follower of Christ and a seeker of God and His kingdom. They will believe what they see in you.

Read more about this in 10 Gifts of Heart.