Prepare to Be Irrelevant
As a father, I want to give my kids a certain kind of life. Life requires work. It requires vision. It requires faith above all else. Faith in a sovereign God is the only thing that keeps me sane these days. It allows me to work my hardest, love the rest that I have, enjoy my wife and kids even when the work isn’t done. Life is full of uncertainty. As a human, uncertainty is about the only certain thing. I can trust that God will direct my path.
I have my kids to raise in the meantime. They will inherit my legacy. They will follow where I lead them, for good or ill. When I was young, I often heard my father talk about how he wanted me to learn how to work hard. Trust me when I say, he had a real project in teaching me to work hard. He tried to prepare me for my life. He tried a lot of different things. I don’t really know what thing in particular worked, but I think most people would say that I’m a decent worker now. I did complete 8 years of college in about 3 years while working full time.
How do I go about preparing my kids as my dad had worked to prepare me? So far, each of my kids is so very different. They are a strange mix between my wife and myself. They have our strengths and our weaknesses. It is our job to help them maximize and minimize each of these. This requires two things: first, I must be doing the same for myself and my wife and then help my kids through it.
I must be working to maximize my own strengths and minimizing my weaknesses in order to know how to do my best. Only in this will I be able to help my kids do their best. I must work out my sanctification in order to help my kids. I might say that this is the first job of a parent, to become more like Christ. I have to overcome my problems and learn to do my best, so I can show them.
From there, it takes knowing your kid and helping them learn through their problems. As I learn to overcome mine, I can teach them to overcome theirs. It is funny how genetics work. Through this whole process, I am not trying to shield them from their weaknesses or to have them only focus on their strengths. I want them to improve in all of it. I present them with hard things and make them go through them. I don’t save them. I give them fights, the weapons to handle them, and I sit back. Currently, their battles are over math problems and spelling words. It is all a battle though. It is small potatoes now. One day, the fights will be real. Right now, my job is to do the best that I can to prepare them for what is ahead.
For example, Berkley was trying to spell “silent” today. She is learning phonics, so she can sound out the word. If I know that she can figure out the spelling, the best thing I can do is to sit there and ask her the right questions for her to figure it out on her own. I am equipping her to solve problems. I don’t want to become a crutch that she has to depend on in life. I want to build her up to then move beyond me.
This is very difficult for many people because it feels so good to be needed. It drives many a people. As a parent, this might be the worst thing you could ever do to your children, to make them depend upon you. What happens when you die? It is a terrible thing for a parent to bury a child. It is glorious for a child to bury a parent who has lived a good life and equipped them to take on life after them.
All this to say, leave a legacy. Build up children who can handle the world that you are leaving them. Prepare them for the road ahead. No one gets out of life alive, might was well live it to the fullest glorifying God with the arrows He has given you.