When we live as pilgrim parents, we won’t be crushed by our children’s imperfections, or our own. We won’t require perfection because we know we’re all progressing toward perfection. We’ll confess our parenting failures to our children and seek forgiveness from Jesus together with them. We’ll release our children from the impossible burden of being heaven for us. Instead, we’ll invite them into the joy of traveling there with us.
Building Heaven for Our Kids
Even if we don’t make the mistake of expecting too much from our kids, we may well find ourselves expecting too much for them. With all the best of intentions, we may try to give our children heaven now. Several years ago, The Atlantic published an article titled “How to Land Your Kids in Therapy.” The author observed,
The American Dream and the pursuit of happiness have morphed from a quest for general contentment to the idea that you must be happy at all times and in every way.
In other words, we want heaven for our kids. The Atlantic article notes that by giving kids a huge array of choices and protecting them from failure at all costs, their well-meaning parents teach them that they deserve perfection. The problem is that children who don’t persevere through difficulty become young adults who can’t deal with failure. When their parent-built heaven crumbles, the kids land in therapy.
Parent-built heavens can’t compare to the one God is preparing for his people. The bigger and more glorious the future new creation is in the hearts of Christian parents, the less we’ll feel the need to keep our kids from failing at all costs. Instead, we’ll teach them to experience failures as reminders that we haven’t yet arrived at the new creation.
We’ll help our children see their time in this world as preparation for the world to come. We’ll teach them to so treasure the eternal weight of glory that a bad grade, a bad complexion or a bad mistake on the sports field won’t destroy them. We’ll show them that no accomplishment in this life brings perfect and lasting satisfaction, and we’ll help them savor their best experiences as mere foretastes of a much greater future.
Parenting Toward Eternity
When my parents planned a family trip across the United States in my childhood years, we talked about it for two full years in advance. Surely, heaven deserves a lot more family discussion and anticipation than California!
Let’s pray about heaven together as families, stoking our excitement. Let’s sing of heaven (the last verse of many great hymns speak of it). Let’s discuss and savor Bible passages like Isaiah 65–66, Romans 8 and Revelation 21–22. We’re pilgrims, so let’s keep walking toward the Celestial City, bringing our kids along with us.
