A blessings of preservation
One of my many blessed memories of my dad and growing up was the opportunity we had every two years, to purchase a new car. For most of my early life my parents would buy a new vehicle and then methodically pay if off early; only to continue to pay themselves in anticipation of the next purchase. It was my father’s only extravagance. That purchase was always followed by an appointment with Ziebart- they were the rustproofing guys down the street who poked, prodded, and probed the inner recesses of that vehicle and inoculated the car against rust by injecting its doors, underbelly and quarter panels with black gooey ‘stuff’ that fortified the metal against rust.
That memory came to mind as I thought about the challenges that parents are facing in getting their little one prepared for adult life. All of us are interested in protecting our kids from the horrors of a world that has lost its way— something we realized many years ago when we discovered that our oldest son was being bullied in public school. My response then was late, weak, and inadequate, but I learned that while protecting them may be our first instinct, preservation provides a more sustainable long range strategy.
Is Christian Education too expensive or the proper investment as part of a Christian worldview for building thinking, behavior, and character? You must each evaluate that in light of your convictions and circumstances but we wouldn’t trade the experiences and benefits that our children enjoyed as a result of the sacrificial work of their teachers over the years. Yea, I hear you… lots of hypocrites in Christian school. But the good news is, they live right next door to the hypocrites in church.
Then there are those real life experiences in church that helped our kids evaluate character up close and personal. At church they witnessed selfishness and pride but along the way they also saw, first hand devotion, self-sacrifice, and authentic worship by those they came to respect as adults, and still do!
And they saw death and disease, hurt, and helplessness in the lives of people we loved; they saw it in the families they knew reacting to it and they observed it in their parents’ inadequacies in dealing with it. Life hurts!
Beyond this, what a child really needs is a healthy view of themselves. Kids will thrive when they come to see that while the world does not revolve around them, they do have a role to play, a calling to embrace, and expectations that come from God. Nothing mediocre about that! If their training hasn’t included an understanding of service, commitment, and integrity, as well as the challenge to leave a scratch on the next generation, then you’re not done.
Which leads me naturally to discipline. No I don’t mean spanking— I’ll leave that for another day. But here’s to building into your kids the disciplines of prayer, study, and worship; the need to explore deeply the Scriptures if only to engage the world with truth. This will never happen naturally, only through constant and consistent pressure.
Our job as parents is to take our children and turn them into adults— boys to real men, and girls to real women. Leaving them as boys and girls in adult bodies will not help them, you, or the culture which desperately need them to grow up.
So where did I mess up? Our “adult” 24 year old daughter is to run 26 miles in the rain on Saturday…. Ok, so I tried to get common sense through?
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