A Parent’s Greatest Gift to Their Children

Parenting is one of the greatest tools of sanctification that God gives us. It reveals our weaknesses, exposes our selfishness, and constantly reminds us of our need for grace. In the trenches of sleepless nights, heart-wrenching prayers, and countless moments of discipline and discipleship, we begin to understand the heart of our Heavenly Father more deeply. We see His patience in our own struggle for patience. We feel the weight of His mercy when we extend mercy. We come face to face with our inadequacies, only to find that His grace is sufficient in all things.

But as much as parenting shapes us, it also shapes the eternal souls entrusted to us. And in all the teaching, training, discipline, and instruction we give our children, nothing will impact them more deeply than what they see in us. The greatest gift a parent and a grandparent can give their child is not merely moral instruction, good behavior, or a well-ordered home, it is a living, breathing model of the Gospel.

Children learn more from observation than from instruction. They will remember less of what we say and more of how we live. They will pick up on the tone of our prayers, the sincerity of our faith, and the way we respond when things don’t go our way. They will see how we treat our spouse, how we handle failure, how we deal with sin, and whether Christ is truly the cornerstone of our home or merely a part of our Sunday routine.

If we want our children and our grandchildren to walk in the truth, we must walk in it first. If we desire for them to love Christ, they must see that He is our greatest treasure. If we long for them to embrace the Gospel, we must live it before them daily.

A Christ-centered home is not one where perfection is displayed, but where grace is abundant. It is a place where sin is acknowledged, where repentance is practiced, where forgiveness is freely given, and where the presence of God is not just spoken of but felt in every aspect of life. Children need to see that faith is not just a set of rules to follow but a relationship with the living God and how it is applied in life, lived out on a day to day basis. They need to witness parents and grandparents who pray fervently, worship sincerely, and love sacrificially. They need to grow up in an environment where it is safe to confess sin, safe to ask hard questions, and safe to struggle, because the Gospel teaches that Christ meets us in our struggles and that grace abounds where sin abounds.

This means that both parents and grandparents must be willing to humble themselves before their children. There will be times when we discipline in anger, when we fail to show patience, when we neglect the things that matter most. In those moments, our children do not need to see us pretend we are always right, they need to see us repent and return to the Lord. They need to see us acknowledge our failures, seek forgiveness, and walk in the grace that we preach to them.

Nothing will teach a child about the love of Christ more powerfully than watching a parent and even a grandparent who is being continually transformed by the gospel on a day to day basis.

The Goal of Parenting
Our goal is not simply to raise well-behaved and successful children but to raise disciples of Christ. We are not called to train children who are merely polite, educated, and successful in the eyes of the world, but children who know and love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

This means that parenting and grandparenting must be saturated with prayer. We cannot control the hearts of our children or grandchildren. We cannot make them love Jesus. We cannot force them to walk in truth. But we can intercede for them daily. We can cry out to God on their behalf, asking Him to soften their hearts, to draw them to Himself, and to work in them in ways that we never could.

There is a deep comfort in knowing that our children’s salvation does not depend on our perfection. God is faithful. He works through imperfect parents, through messy homes, through seasons of wandering, through brokenness and failure. His grace is greater than our shortcomings. But we must be faithful in the role He has given us, to plant the seeds of truth, to water them with love and instruction, and to trust Him for the harvest.

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” – 1 Corinthians 3:6

Leaving a Legacy of Faith
One day, our children will leave our homes and step into the world. The years of training, discipline, and instruction will be behind us, and they will stand on their own. What will we have left them? Not just in material possessions, but in faith, in wisdom, in the legacy of a life lived for Christ? We are not raising children to stay in our homes forever, we are raising them to stand firm in their faith, to carry the Gospel to their own generation, to walk with the Lord long after we are gone.

If we succeed in everything else but fail in this, we will have missed the most important calling we have been given.

The greatest gift a parent can give their child is not a college education, a financial inheritance, or worldly success: it is a life that shows them what it means to love and follow Jesus.

Let us parent and grandparent with the end in mind, with hearts set on eternity, with eyes fixed on Christ. Let us walk in the grace we long for our children to embrace, modeling before them a faith that is real, a love that is steadfast, and a hope that is unshakable.

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” – 3 John 4