SUCCESS IN YOUR KIDS

 Several months ago, my wife, Cindy and I prompted several conversations with the kids about the desires for their future. This, to solicit their response to training we have offered at Bethesda church, where we serve as apostle and pastor.  We have exuded a great deal of effort in communicating with our congregation how to view one’s life with regard to the future.  The teaching has placed a strong emphasis on the importance of preparing for and building for the future – lest the future comes after you!  There are a number of ministry tools that we employ, including Celebrate Recovery and Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  We have chosen to incorporate these tools into the training of our young people as well as our adult congregation.

The responses from our kids were very insightful, and served to challenge us to take even greater consideration of some things as we continue to prepare for their future.

1. The future may contain our legacy, but it is their future.  A common mistake in raising a family is the tendency to “pass on the family tradition” to the next generation.  Being raised in ministry, I can show you historical and biblical precedent for this.  It is noble and many traditions, trades, and businesses are passed from one generation to another.  Yet what is missed is that the success of those traditions or business ventures depends almost entirely upon the heart of the one who inherits it.  Too often, a son or daughter takes over the family business, only to drive it into the ground because he or she has no passion or aptitude for it.

2. People have a tendency to be very “picky” about how their legacy is preserved.  In one instance, I know a man who took over the family business, but was completely locked in a stranglehold because his father was determined that the business would remain in its “pure” form – not suffer a change of venue or personality.  Perhaps the sentiment was noble.  “This is how I built it.  This is how it must remain.”  This man remained frustrated as he continued to loyally abide by his father’s wishes.  Unfortunately, sentiment trumped practicality.  Ten years later, the business was outdated and is no longer there.  The man went on to create his own business – one substantially more successful than the previous one, yet even as his father neared death,  there was portrayed a sense of disappointment and failure.  The father could not recognize that the legacy was not in the business, but in the values and wisdom he had imparted to his son.

3. There is a tendency on the part of parents to consider that the actions of their kids point to certain failure. In fact, failure may occur.  It is a part of life.  What is forgotten is that regardless of how we try to protect our kids from failure – they will fail at some level.  Too often, it proves out that the protecting of one’s child from failure is also the preventing of the child’s success. The key is teaching them how to learn from their failures and develop that knowledge into success.  For instance, I know someone who’s father constantly battled him about his extensive obsession with computers, and how that obsession would prevent him from doing anything real.  A few years ago, this individual became a multi-millionaire by selling the software he developed to a major computer corporation.  The money he produced money now funds extensive missionary work.

The key to the success of your kids is found in scriptural principle.  Life and death reside simultaneously in the power of the tongue.  When God created us, He also made us creative.  Our words, actions and deeds, by God’s design affect our future.  Therefore, He knew  that they would and designed us to have an effect on our future   he leads, guides and directs those who listen, but His design established that man would speak to his own future.   A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord guides his steps. (Pr. 16:9)

In this light, Proverbs 22:6 instructs us to train up a child in the way he should go, that when he is old he will not depart form it.  Many misinterpret this to mean “Here is the direction for your life.  Anything else is failure and is not God’s perfect will.”  This is not God’s plan.

“In the way he should go is an English interpretation of the Hebrew words “Derek” (דֶּרֶךְ) and “peh” (פֶּה ).  Derek defines “a course of life with moral character, a direction or journey toward the direction of ”.  Peh means one’s mouth.  Peh actually comes from the Hebrew word “pa-ah” ( פָּאָה )which to break into pieces and scatter.  Consider then, that a child should be trained to develop moral character so as to move forward through his life into the direction declared by his mouth – words spoken and scattered and spread into his future.

It would be like a vinesman trying to force a grapevine to grow like a potato, or for an apple to grow like an onion.  The responsibility of the vinesman is not forcing the grape to grow in the ground, but to recognize what is inside it and prepare the trellis that will allow it to grow as God intended.

Raising a child in the way he should go means imparting to the child through godly counsel, wisdom and knowledge, the information and insight he will need to walk in moral uprightness with the ability to hear from God, and use his gifts, talents resources and passions to produce both in the earthly realm as well as the heavenly realm.

This means that in order to help guide my kids to success, I have to consider the future they feel and see.  I cannot simply help them build toward the future I can see.  If I miss this, the legacy I leave will be “my kids carried on my work.”  It will last at best only one generation if their heart and desire is not for it.  However, by allowing them to succeed in the future birthed in their heart, my legacy is that they are the success.

As we talk with our kids, the picture of their future changes – sometimes daily.  This is expected.  They are young.  Yet, in every idea they present, there is consistency which reveals their creative DNA.  They are not of the age to decide the path, yet their consistencies allow us to consider how to prepare them for the eventual path they will take.  For them, it involves artistry and creativity, both physically and emotionally.  So we expose them to the arts.  Artists tend to starve, so we expose them to business so that as they develop their creative skills, they will manage them effectively.  Their gifts and passions could lead them into dedicated full-time ministry in church as in the manner of their parents.  Or, they could enter the world in a different sphere as actors, artists or musicians, and reach a people that would never be open to hearing what I have to say as a pastor.  Their success will be determined by the kingdom fruit they produce in whatever they do.

Ask God to demonstrate your kids to you in a different light.  Ask Him to help you see and discover the future that is waiting to be created in their heart.  Ask Him to show you the best way to lead them to the place of success in that future.  They WILL succeed!

Thanksgiving

One of the great beauties of this day is that it was forged by men and women who put everything on the line to create a better life – not only for themselves but for their children and grandchildren. 

In this day and age, there is a lot of controversy over many of the days that we celebrate.  Christmas is offensive because it celebrates the birth of Christ.  Easter - because we focus on His resurrection.  Men fight against prayer and the Ten Commandments, only to discover that their elimination has added to the chaos that now ensues in our schools and society.

Every decision you make has an outcome – on you, on your children, and on the society that is being formed for your grandchildren.  The early settlers figured this out.  They came to this country looking for a better life.  They made numerous mistakes along the way.  They initially tried to establish their settlements as “common property” wherein everyone was laboring for a common fund and each person would receive an equal share of what was grown.  They soon discovered that such a life – later known as socialism – produced an acute lack of effort on the part of many.  The mindset developed among many that curtailed the incentive to produce their best.  Men could not embrace the idea that they must work for others who would not work as diligently for themselves.

Something had to be done.  Property was divided and men began to practice trade.  It changed the game for the early settlers.  They labored with far greater diligence because they were now set to provide for not only themselves, but for their future generations.

Future generations.  That was the key.  Our forefathers built everything they did with a [picture of the future in mind.  It is a Biblical principle.  “This will be to your children, to your children’s children and to their children.”  The bible often referenced to the third and fourth generation.

It also taught the benefits of apprenticeship.  Parents taught their children early and help to launch them into adulthood and into commerce or trade early.  It insured that their children (now adults) could have their best opportunity to produce when they were at the peak of their adult strength.  It insured that their adult children would have ample opportunity through their labor to provide for the later seasons in their own life as well as an inheritance for their children.  And it afforded the greatest opportunity for a proper work ethic to be passed down through the generations.

When one is unable to launch in season his hopes are “put off” until later seasons.  In short, his hopes are deferred.  The Bible teaches that hope deferred makes the heart sick.  The delay created in launching the next generation in proper season makes for a sick hearts.  It damages the ability to move ahead with the greatest strength.  It hinders relationships.  It colors the past and damages the future.

Today, as I consider my own ancestry, I am thankful that there was a determination on the part of my forefathers to challenge their sons.  I am thankful that a large part of their vision was to make certain that the future generations would launch in season.  I am thankful that they understood what God demonstrated in His word regarding future generations.  And I am thankful for the great personal sacrifice they made to offer the best possible future for my life.

t 

Succession and Legacy

Success requires having the ability to understand the process of succession.  Meaning, no one lives forever; or for that matter, functions well forever.  Great race car drivers eventually hand the car to someone younger and with quicker reflexes.  Businesses that flourish for years often reach decline and failure because of the leaders inability to release what they have built into the hand of the next generation.  The next generation brings new strength and insight to the table.  It brings a “hands on” understanding of the current generation of consumers or congregants.

Living in a pastor’s home, I understand the sentiment of a lot of pastors – a sentiment held by one of the most powerfully anointed ministers on the planet – my grandfather.  His wish was to labor as a pastor and die preaching in the pulpit, after being completely poured out.  My dad wisely communicated that he should reconsider a different way to finish, because while it sounds heroic, it would probably bring great damage to those sitting in the congregation in that moment.

Pastors and many “mom and pop” entrepreneurs carry the mindset that to quit is to give up.  They have no plan for a future and no thought as to what will happen to the work they have accomplished once they are gone.

The Bible invests a great deal of communication about generational succession.  God identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  His eye focused on the generations of the seed of Abraham and the development of His children, Israel.  You can see the dangers of ignoring proper succession in the lives of Eli and his sons, Samuel, the judge, who did not properly prepare and release his sons, Saul, who was chosen because of the people being frustrated with Samuel’s situation and David, who repeated much of the shortcomings of Samuel in his own children.

Failure to plan for succession is incredibly detrimental to the generation of sons and daughters who follow you and also to the work that you may have spent a lifetime working to build.  Pass the baton too late and the generation lives their entire life out of season.  The energy and drive they could bring to the work is diminished before it is started.  Instead of increase, it begins to decline, or worse "stalemates" and becomes an entity that exists, but remains powerless.  God's desire is advancement of the kingdom and that requires succession. If you pay attention to God’s plan, you will see His plan always taking into consideration the generations to come.  “This will be to your children, their children and and so on…”

In planning anything, you should take into consideration the third generation.  Every action you take, everything you build, everything you invest of your life and into your destiny should consider the generations beyond you…to the third power.  It is the way you build legacy, which is also a godly principle.

I will blog more on this and in much greater detail.  For now, I just want to invoke some thoughts about your future and your destiny. 

What will you do when you are no longer doing what you do right now?

What will become of the work you are dong?

What are you building that will honesty be able to be carried by the next generation?

What provision have you made which will allow the next generation to operate and function NOW, while they are in their prime?

What consideration have you taken with regard to you future beyond what you are doing right now so that you will be able to release what you are doing at the right time, rather than just the “necessary” time.  (A lot of people would make a change now if they could afford to.)

Destiny does not just occur.  Legacy does not simply “happen”.  Both are something that God placed in your life as your responsibility.  They become what you make them through His wisdom and the power of His Holy Spirit.

Consider what you are building.  Consider what you are creating for the future generations in your life.  It will make the difference in what you really do for the Kingdom!

T