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.
- 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.
- 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 Ten years later, the business was outdated and is no longer there.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.
- 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!
