When we pray for God to build a hedge around our families, does the Bible tell us anything about God’s activity in that regard? Jesus told a parable about a “certain landowner” (representing God) who “planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it” (Matt. 21:33) for protection. God protects His people like a hedge (cf. Job 1:10)—which is the point at that detail in the parable about the church. Back in the Old Testament, David recognized in his prayer to God, “You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me” (Psa. 139:5). There is no one better in the hedge-building business than our God.
In addition to filling our homes with prayer and with Scripture, what are other ways that families today can work beside our God to plant a hedge of protection around our homes and around our children?
God plants a hedge of protection around our families with our help when we fill our homes with right-living. When God’s people were getting ready to enter the Promised Land, He told them, “You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord” (Deut. 6:18). Immediately after that, He said this: “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?’” (6:20). The son would only ask such a question if the son was not only being taught the right way to live in the eyes of God but if he was seeing it lived out in front of him. There is something uniquely distinct about holy living! If it can have an impact on people outside our home who see it (Matt. 5:16; 1 Pet. 2:11-12), it most certainly has a lasting impact on those inside our homes (cf. 1 Pet. 3:1). We need to teach our kids to love what’s right and to love doing what’s right. That’s a heavenly hedge of great strength!
God plants a hedge of protection around our families with our help when we fill our homes with the church. When our home is church-first-centered (Matt. 6:33), there are innumerable blessings that will both permeate and surround our families. This is not just about assembling with the church (Heb. 10:24-25) but about building real, deep, meaningful relationships with our church family, so that our children have a host of “grandpas, grandmas, uncles and aunts” in the church, who care for them, encourage them, watch out for them, and provide a very personal hedge all around them. This is what it means for the church to be “members of one another” (Rom. 12:5). We are a hedge!
“Holy Father, please build a hedge of protection around our families! And please use us as your hands to make that hedge as tall, wide and strong as You alone can make it.”