Children and Parenting

I’m so glad the Almighty didn’t ask me to play “Holy Spirit Junior” with my kids. I mean, it’s freeing not to feel as if their faith is entirely up to me. If it were — whew! — I’d be riding them hard.

If you’re like me, you want your children to follow you in your footsteps of faith. And you’d love to see them marry and have kids who likewise love Jesus. You’d love to enjoy a full family reunion in heaven, without one empty seat at the table. That’s what I call a generational legacy of faith. The apostle Paul wrote a letter to Timothy reminding that young buck that he was a part of a generational legacy of faith: “I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5). Who doesn’t want that kind of legacy?

Now, when it comes to our children’s decision to invite Jesus into their hearts, there are no guarantees. That’s sad, isn’t it? A guarantee on my truck, my TV, and on my washer and dryer are comforting to have. But if there’s one thing I’d really like to have a guarantee on, it’d be that my kids and grandkids would know and love Jesus. Yet even if we teach them the right way to live, bring them faithfully to church, host nightly devotions at the dinner table, and serve as a model of faith in the Almighty, the day will come when they’re old enough to make their own decision, and we can only hope that they’ll make the right one.

The reason we can’t get that guarantee is that every person has to make his or her own choice whether or not to serve the Lord. Back in Old Testament times, Joshua, a leader of Israel, made his choice to follow the Almighty, yet he knew that he had to allow the people to make that choice for themselves (Joshua 24:15). That said, here’s a news flash: the fact that there isn’t a guarantee that our kids will come to faith doesn’t mean that we’ve been given a pass on teaching them about Jesus. In fact, God commanded His people to never cease in training their children to follow Him: “You shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul. . . . You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 11:18, 19).

You see, it is our God-given task to raise our children and grandchildren in the “training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). That’s what we’re doing here in the Robertson clan. We plant and water the seeds of faith in their hearts. We pray for ’em, we teach ’em, and we release ’em— trusting in God to do the rest.

Taken from The Duck Commander Faith and Family Bible