Future Adults, Current Saints

Two guiding pinciples:

• we are forming future adults;
• but we also have to help our children connect to the Lord, at whatever age they are.
  

As parents we are charged with forming future adult memebers of God's kingdom, read to do whatever it is God has for them. But we can't just look to their futures. We have to look also at their present connection to the Lord. It isn't something we like to consider, but God may take them to himself at any time.

But it is also true that the best way to prepare them to be supple in his hands as adults is help them be supple in his hands now. At almost any age, they can have a personal relationship with him, and we must do what we can to help them. On the other hand, it isn't in our power ultimately to do it. The mystery of free will comes into play, or as someone put it, I think David du Plessis (or maybe Billy Graham), "God has no grandchildren." But as parents we can encourage them to pray daily and teach them, by our words as well as our example, that they have a loving Father who cares for them and has a plan for their lives, and that they can hear the Lord speaking to them, that they are part of his kingdom now.

Again, for this to work, fathers must be holy!