As we live in the church scattered we are exposed to many different messages about what makes a great parent. This subject gets a lot of attention in the church gathered as well. No doubt there is a clear biblical priority to build truth into the lives of our children, so they will become spiritually mature adults.
When you take these priorities to the extreme, you get the cultural warnings about a potential failure to launch. So the pressure builds on everyone to a very unhealthy level to make it through high school graduation and find the perfect college.
It has also become very popular in christian culture to use the illustration of so many marbles in a jar that represents the critical nature of this narrow and limited window of parenting. Others use 7000 days to represent this limited window for the time of parenting from crib to college.
All of these illustrations can be helpful in highlighting the importance of redeeming the time when children are young and are appropriately transitioning into adults. However, the big lie is that when they become adults they are still your children and as long as you are alive, there is critical parenting to be done.
As a matter of experience, your most important parenting days may be when your children are in there thirties and forties and not their teens. The big conversations move from dating to divorce.
In the book Church Scattered, I discuss in detail the transitions of parenting from: protection, instruction, correction, encouragement, coaching and finally friendship. Christian parenting never stops and it is the perfect reminder of how well the Father parents His children. If you like marbles, it’s time to get a bigger jar !!!