SACRIFICIAL PARENTING

A FAR-SIGHTED INVESTMENT

Is it sheer distraction? (We are, quite possibly, one of the most distracted, amused generations/societies that ever lived.) I like to think that in times past, people had more vision for the future. They looked ahead and acted today in a way that would impact tomorrow.

In What He Must Be, Voddie Baucham describes a time when he announced his plans to plant trees in his backyard and then excitedly brought his family out to see them. The children were less than amused at their young ages because the trees were mere shrubs. He explained that in five or ten years the trees would be large and shady. To his children, though, five or ten years seemed “like forever”. He seized a teachable moment and told them,

“Kids, you must seek to become the kind of people who plant shade trees for others to sit under.“

He went on to explain all the sacrifice others before us have made in order for us to enjoy so many things today.

Sacrifice.

Perhaps that’s the rub. Somehow, somewhere, we lost the motivating factor behind sacrificing for others. Well, unless it’s the en vogue practice of buying a really cool water bottle to slow “global warming”, but beyond that, too many live for the moment, for this life, with little regard for their potential to influence another time in history.

Also from the book, a study by A.E. Winship traced the prodigy of the notorious preacher and theologian, Jonathon…