In November 2002, my wife and I brought home our first daughter from the hospital. Prior to that, our responsibilities were limited to feeding the cat and dog and changing the oil in the car. We were nowhere near prepared for how quickly life would change. However, as we look back, we realize just how blessed we are that God entrusted us with our two daughters.
Psalm 127 is spot on when it says:
“Children are a gift from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.”
— Psalm 127:3-4 (NKJV)
We can often forget, especially in difficult times, how precious our children are and how great our responsibility is to raise them to be “arrows in the hands of a warrior.” We can lose sight of the fact that children are not just a gift for our lifetime, but for generations to come and for all eternity. As Timothy Jones writes in Family Ministry Field Guide:
“Children are far more than a gift for this life. They are bearers of the gospel to generations yet unborn. In God’s design, your children and mine will raise children who will, in turn, beget more children. How we mold our children’s souls while they reside in our households will shape the lives of children who have yet to draw their first gasp of air.”
— Timothy Jones, Family Ministry Field Guide, p. 56
Jones goes on to say, “If our focus were only on this life, it might make sense to put more emphasis on the frantic schedules, the top-tier universities, and busy competitive athletic schedules than on the intentional spiritual formation of our children.” However, we know that God created us to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill the earth. He has commanded us to bring up our children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Genesis 1:28, Ephesians 6:4). To be obedient to that mandate, we must focus on raising arrows that are straight, sharp, and pointed at the target that will bring glory to God and advance His kingdom.
As our children are both a precious gift and a homework assignment for us, we must understand that Scripture is very clear: parents are primarily responsible for the education and training of their children. The Bible emphasizes this truth in several places:
“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”
— Ephesians 6:4 (NKJV)
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
— Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)
“We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done. For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children.”
— Psalm 78:4-8 (NKJV)
The problem facing today’s parents is that many have unintentionally or unknowingly abdicated a responsibility that is God-given. Statistics do not lie. Too many of us have delegated the primary responsibility for educating our children to others.
Author, professor, and political commentator Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry highlights this reality during an interview on MSNBC, where she said:
“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everyone’s responsibility and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.”
— Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC Interview
This ideology, which suggests the state is in control of our children, has even reached the highest levels of government. President Joe Biden once said:
“There’s no such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children. As I often say, you teachers hold the kite strings that lift our ‘national ambitions’ aloft…you are determining our future.”
— President Joe Biden, Fox News.com
With such ideas permeating society, it is important to recall what Dr. Glen Schultz says:
“From birth on, parents must expend all of their energy to accomplish one goal—passing on their faith to their child’s heart. They must stretch and strain to get the baton firmly in the grasp of their child’s heart before the child gets too far down the racetrack of life. Statistics show that the odds of an individual placing his faith in Christ decrease significantly as the child grows older.”
— Dr. Glen Schultz, Applying KE, 11
Our children are the one thing we leave behind as cultural influencers and the only things that will spend eternity in heaven or hell. All the other things we commit our time and energy to will eventually fade away or be destroyed. As the enemy seeks to advance his cause, should we not give all our time and energy to ensuring “that all the earth may know that there is a God”?
As God calls people back to Himself, He can accomplish His original plan of parents being fruitful and sending out children to fill the earth and have dominion over His creation. This is no easy task, but as God empowers parents through the knowledge of His Word and the filling of His Spirit, He will do a great work in and through families for the good and glory of His name.
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