For Future Generations

Posted on December 11, 2007 
Filed Under Dr. Dobson's Broadcast, Life, Parenting, Personal

As we present once more a very popular program about passing along our faith to the next generation, some thoughts. These are also reflective of some conversations at church the other day, in which I talked with parents who have struggling children.

 

As parents, we want the best for our children. Our every effort is to guide them to maturity, to cultivate within them a good heart, to equip them with the best tools for success, to enable them to find their place in this world. As Christian dads and mom we also seek to fulfill the Scriptural admonition to raise up a child who will fear the Lord, and so we shepherd our son or daughter toward having their own personal faith.

 

None of us, though, can look into the future and see what the end result of our parenting efforts will be. The couple who just got home from the hospital with their precious little newborn baby is just starting a long journey. There is simply no way possible for them to predict where that road called parenting will take them during the coming years, nor to know with any certainty just what that cute little bundle will be like in another two decades.

 

It may be that when we finish the parenting process, at least the first part of it in which we prepare our child for adulthood, we’ll sit down and thank God for how well it all went. We’re happy with the way our son turned out. Or it could be that we’ll fall down in sheer frustration and ask God what in the world happened, wondering why our daughter rejected all we did and made such a mess of her young life…and asking if she will ever be able to salvage a normal life.

 

Of course, we are ultimately not responsible for the end-result of parenting. That grown child is really an individual on his or her own, free to make decisions – bad or good, to accept or reject the training we have instilled within them, to make whatever they choose of their life.

 

It is helpful to remember that our role as parents is to prepare the way, and then to allow our child to walk in it. Or not. We aren’t charged to force a proper approach to life upon our kids, only to make one possible. And the truth is that we probably won’t live to see or know just how that child finishes out their life.

 

In the New Testament, Peter wrote about (in chapter 1, verses 10-12) the prophets, who, like parents, really didn’t know how everything was going to turn out. In his first letter, Peter indicated that the prophets spoke about the grace that was to come to the Gentiles, but they did not understand just how God was going to save the world through His Son’s death and resurrection. The prophets foretold the coming of a suffering Messiah, and his future glory, but they were unable to distinguish when he would appear as a humble servant, nor could they grasp that his second coming would be as King of the world.

 

It is clear that God compelled His spokespersons to speak of that which they could not fully understand. They were to prepare the way for the coming of the Christ. They told of that which they could not understand, nor would they live to see the blessed Messiah’s arrival. They knew they were appointed for a time, but not privileged to participate in that which they spoke about. They would not live to see how you and I have benefited from God’s gift of salvation and how we are living out our lives in light of His grace.

 

In a sense, parents and prophets are very much alike. We are given a role to prepare the way, and then to step back and let the future generations make something of our work. We may not – we probably won’t – see the true end product. We cannot control what those who come behind us will do, how they will choose. Yet we strive with everything in us to provide them with what they need. We do this, not to serve ourselves, but to serve them. And their children’s children.

 

Here’s to work that will last a long, long time…for future generations.

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