These Are the Sons of God

I love being a mother. It is one of the greatest joys and deepest callings of my life. Long before I carried my own child in my womb, before I heard Caleb’s first cry or felt the weight of his tiny body against my chest, I mothered. I didn’t realise it then, but every time I nurtured, guided, or protected a child, whether in my family, my church classrooms, or my business, I was walking in a divine design that had been woven into my being long before I was even aware of it. Now, in hindsight, I see it clearly. As an educator and children’s worker, I have spent years pouring into young lives, shaping them, speaking into their futures, and watching, in awe, as pieces of my identity rose to the surface in ways I could never have orchestrated on my own. It always felt like a miracle, watching something in me instinctively respond to the needs of children who weren’t my own, yet in that moment, belonged to me in a holy way. The ability to mother wasn’t something I learned; it was something I was. And I had been for as long as I could remember.

My younger brother was born when I was fourteen, and something within me awakened. I mothered him in all the ways I knew how, and somehow, it never felt forced or foreign. I didn’t realise it then, but God had already placed the heart of a mother within me. He had sown the seeds in the secret place, long before I ever knew they would grow. But no experience, no babysitting, no mentorship, no years of pouring into other people’s children, could have prepared me for what it would feel like to truly become a mother.

Nothing in this world can compare to hearing your child’s first cry. The moment they placed Caleb on my chest, something deep within me came alive. It was as if something had been lying dormant inside me all my life, waiting for the sound that would activate it. Like a scene from a movie where a long-forgotten power is suddenly awakened by the right word, the right moment or the right touch. I was revealed in a way I had never been before. Everything about me shifted in an instant. My body, my mind, my instincts, everything aligned with the reality of him. Caleb’s breath was now connected to my own. His existence rewired mine. Even my sleep, something I had always cherished, was no longer my own. Anyone who knows me well knows how deeply I sleep; and how impossible it is to wake me unless light breaks through the room. But with Caleb, everything changed. I could hear his breath in my sleep. I could sense his every stir, his every need. I belonged to him as much as he belonged to me, and in those first few months, that was all that mattered.

I had always been a mother. God had decided that before the foundations of the earth were ever laid. But it took Caleb LeeRoy’s first cry to reveal me as such. And that’s the thing about sonship. Sonship isn’t created, it’s revealed. It means that who we are in Him has already been spoken into existence, already placed within us in the secret place, waiting for the moment that will awaken it. The moment that will call us forth. Just as Caleb’s first cry called forth the mother in me, there are cries in the spirit that call forth the sons of God. There are moments, encounters, and heart postures that shift us from merely existing to fully becoming. This is the journey of sonship. This is what it means to be revealed.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ~ Romans 8:19-23 (NIV)

The thing about God revealing our truest selves is that He often does it through the crashing waves of life. The surges of struggle, discomfort, and uncertainty aren’t random, they are His tools, shaping us and sharpening our vision. There is no challenge, no storm, no hardship that God allows into your life without purpose. If He lets it in, He intends to use it, for your good and the good of your purpose. In this lies the distinction between those who merely profess faith and those who have been forged in the fire of true sonship. The sons of God walk differently, talk differently and pray differently. They live with a clarity that can only come from being tested. They say audacious things like: “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” Or “The God whom we serve can save us. He will rescue us, but even if He doesn’t, we will never serve another.” This sonship isn’t about being part of a church, a denomination, or a movement. This is about intimacy, an unshakable relationship with the Father that goes beyond affiliation and runs deep into identity.

You and I are connected to the darkness and brokenness of this world, not because we’re still a part of it or because we’re victims, but because there is a remedy to it in our new identity in Christ. The more we grow into Christ, the more what we carry within us is revealed, expressed, and made manifest. This is the sacred invitation God gives His children to partner with Him in the good He wants to accomplish on the earth. The sons of God neither live life chasing personal fulfilment, nor do they move aimlessly. Every step they take disrupts the kingdom of darkness and every act of obedience echoes through eternity. What else should we do as we pursue a deeper intimacy with God this year? I’m so glad you asked. As God continues to reveal us in His presence, I’ve found that we must partner with him in the following:

Rest

God wants to change your life’s choreography, but if you’re too busy grinding, you won’t hear the music change. In my own life, it has taken and continues to take more faith to stop and rest than to push and keep grinding. The truth that God helped me expose in my heart was that I didn’t believe God was capable enough or capable enough to hold my life together while I stopped to rest. Seeing this truth was hard, but it has helped me each time I’m tempted to keep grinding when His grace has run out. Sabbath rest is necessary for God to reveal us as His sons. It may sound counterintuitive but isn’t that what the kingdom of God has proven to be? The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Rest equals faith and with our faith, God can move mountains on our behalf. As your Heavenly Father works to reveal you to the world, rest and find the rhythm He requires for you to walk out in this season of your life.

Unburden

God moves in sequence. If you haven’t finished the last thing He asked of you, He won’t hand you the next. But when we’re in grind mode, we can’t always see what’s holding us back. Resting gives us clarity. It exposes what is showing up in our lives as the weight that so easily besets us. Is it procrastination, unforgiveness, gossip, comparison, complacency or greed? What are you dragging along that God never intended for you to carry? Ask yourself: What does my Father want me to lay down, so I can move forward? Then humble yourself enough to listen. His grace is sufficient for you to unburden yourself.

Reset and Review

I love routines. They keep me grounded. But sometimes, my love for routine becomes a crutch when I trust my rhythms more than I trust God. And when that happens, I miss the new thing He’s trying to do. God used my motherhood journey to teach me this. Just when I hit my groove in my routine with my bambinos, they grow, shift, change grades at school, lose interest in an activity or their taste buds evolve, and I’m forced to run back to God for new wisdom.

Resetting comes with review because as God resets us, His intention isn’t to throw everything we’ve been doing out, He simply wants to revive it with new breath and new wine. As He does this, you ought to ask yourself questions and allow Holy Spirit to help you answer them: “Is it still relevant?” “Does it still make sense?” “Is it still profitable for my life?” “Does it still honour God?” As God does His work of revealing you, don’t assume anything, rather, ask Him if those activities, relationships and rhythms are compatible with what He is doing in and through your life.

Sharpen and Shift

Every new year, we want to be better, do better, and go further. That desire isn’t random, I believe this is a characteristic God placed within us at the beginning of time. It’s evidence that we were created for growth. But growth requires sharpening. As God reveals you as His son, He wants to refine your sensitivity to His lead, your response time in obedience, your willingness to sacrifice for His will and your ability to hear Him over all the noise life often brings.

Sharpening always leads to shifting. As we take our honest review questions to Him and He gives us His opinion on things, there will certainly be some shifts required of us as He continues His work of revealing. Yes, you guessed right, and if you have a pit in your stomach or lump in your throat because you understand what this might mean for you, you are not alone, friend. Shifting means change. It means some relationships will need to be repositioned. Some habits will need to die. Some doors will need to close. But here’s the catch, we follow God, not our feelings. That’s why sharpening must come before shifting. Our emotions can be loud, but we must quiet our souls before Him, so we can hear clearly.

Recommit and Advance

It’s easy to lose momentum. The fire that once burned fiercely can flicker. The commitments we make to God can get buried under distractions, discouragement, and things that have no eternal value. But hear this, God is calling us to recommit and press forward in what He is calling us to. Not to duty or obligation but to intimacy and to sonship. This is your moment to recommit. To advance. To lay down whatever has lost its oil and press into the new grace He’s pouring out ever so gently. He knows it’s hard, and He knows they have held a special place in our lives if were being completely honest with Him. Yield to His hand, and you can trust Him, He only has good intentions for you, friend.

The world is groaning for the sons of God to be revealed. And there is a remedy for that groaning: you. It takes faith to agree with God about who you are. To step into the new identity He has given you. So, I challenge you: agree with Him. Stop wrestling. Stop resisting. Step into your sonship. My prayer is that you might shift from being a Christian to being a son and that as your sonship is revealed, even your influence grows for the glory of His name and the advancement of His kingdom.