Why Moms Should Spend Time Meditating on God’s Wrath

All of God’s Attributes Matter

Plenty of motherhood books address anger issues and offer suggestions for behavior modification (for parents and children alike), but not so many tackle the topic of God’s wrath. Probably not the most popular attribute on the list. Nevertheless, looking at God’s wrath is important if we are going to know him for who he is and not create a false idol of our own imagining.

My daughters enjoy sticker books that let you pick and choose clothes to stick on paper dolls, but we don’t get to pick and choose our favorite attributes to stick on God and then cast aside the rest. All his attributes matter, and we need God to be all of who he is—including wrathful.

Dwell: God Is Wrathful

When searching the dictionary, wrath is defined as “strong vengeful anger or indignation” or “retributory punishment for an offense or a crime: divine chastisement.”¹ But we need to differentiate God’s wrath from ours. While human expressions of wrath are almost always unholy, God’s wrath is always a “holy reaction to sin and evil.”² It’s “always judicial—that is, it is the wrath of the Judge, administering justice,”³ and “it is the active manifesting of His hatred of irreligion and moral evil.”⁴

Paul explains,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them. . . . For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Rom. 1:18–19, 21)

Every Hour I Need You

Katie Faris

Through personal stories and biblical reflections, Katie Faris walks with women, helping them contemplate God’s unchanging character and see how his purposes are at work, even in the everyday moments of motherhood.

Why should we, as moms, spend time meditating on God’s wrathful nature?

We need a true understanding of who God is, and “a study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness.”⁵ Both the Old and New Testaments, and both Jesus and Paul talk about God’s wrath, so we should tune in. What matters to God ought to matter to us. We need to know how bad our sin (and our children’s sin) really is, how much it displeases God, and that it’s punishable. Not only does this truth motivate us to resist sin ourselves and correct our children when they sin, but it instills in us a proper fear of God. To be sure, for believers, the fear of God isn’t a fear of condemnation; it’s reverence and awe for God and an awakening to the reality of coming judgment for those who habitually resist him and live in unbelief.

What matters to God ought to matter to us.

God’s wrath against moral evil is just, and rightly the psalmist exhorts us to “Kiss the Son, / lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, / for his wrath is quickly kindled. / Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:12). Today is the day to take refuge in Jesus. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). Our comfort as Christian women is that when God judges us, it isn’t from wrath but from mercy. “But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1 Cor. 11:32). Though God’s discipline may feel painful, it’s meant to rescue us, and his word assures us: “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9).

Reflect

Adopted into his family, we are God’s daughters. His discipline is meant to rescue us, not to condemn us. How does this truth reassure you today? As you train your own children, what is the purpose and heart behind your discipline, and do your methods need to be adjusted to better reflect God’s heart for your children?

Notes:

Merriam-Webster, s.v. “wrath,” accessed April 2, 2024, https://www.merriam -webster.com.
Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 650.
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1978), 137.
J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 139.
A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God (1930), 75, quoted in J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 135.

This article is adapted from Every Hour I Need You: 30 Meditations for Moms on the Character of God by Katie Faris.

Katie Faris (BA, Grove City College) is the author of God Is Still Good; He Will Be Enough; and Loving My Children. She is also a contributing writer to several blogs including the Gospel Coalition and the Focused Pastor. A pastor’s wife and mother to five, Katie lives with her family in New Jersey. To learn more, visit katiefaris.com.

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