The best gift you can give your kids
By Dean Collins
“We’re doing it for the kids.”
Over the years I’ve heard that sentence often. Young adults with young children demonstrate the sentence more than they say it. Their kids occupy almost every waking moment with needs for food, clothing, education, physical activity, and time. Almost everything seems to involve needing money to provide for the necessities of their lives.
Sometimes I hear a younger parent say, “I don’t want my kids to experience what I had to go through.” Usually they’re thinking about the pain of a broken home, an absent parent, inadequate family income, or some traumatic event.
Sometimes these difficult memories push them to an opposite extreme: They try to protect their children from any pain or problems and develop a pattern of constantly rescuing the kids. All of us understand. Certainly we would like to shield our children from unnecessary suffering or abuse, but if we aren’t careful our protectionism might just create bigger problems for them.
Older parents with older kids often talk about wanting to leave financial resources for their kids and grandchildren. It’s a warm and kind thought. There is nothing wrong with leaving some money for the kids. It may be a source of encouragement for them. However, if we aren’t careful, we might imitate the error of younger parents by seeking to shelter our adult children from reality and responsibility. I have watched many situations where the inheritance didn’t actually help anyone but did the opposite as it created laziness or a sense of privilege.
Real suffering
The apostle Paul can help us think about this. I’m remembering his words in 2 Corinthians, a book I like because it is a rich source of inspiration concerning real life, real faith, and—right out of the gate—real suffering.
After Paul’s typical introduction offering grace and peace to his readers, he immediately jumps into the reality and the relationship between affliction and comfort. Maybe you, like I, sometimes don’t want to see the connection. When some movie or television show opens with too much trouble or suffering, I start looking for something else. I’d rather laugh than cry. I’d rather watch a superhero save the world than some sad drama about someone’s pain. But sometimes I leave the remote alone and discover that watching someone navigate through their tough time does strangely bring me hope.
Paul explained that our affliction, our pressurized situations, are a privilege we share with Christ. We share in his suffering and we experience his comfort. And both of these realities are for the benefit of others. In the first few verses we learn there is purpose to our suffering. It is not random, and we certainly are not the only ones with troubles; suffering is common to everyone. Paul explains that our suffering has many purposes. Some benefits of suffering, according to Paul:
• So we can comfort others
• So we can provide hope
• So we won’t stay stubbornly independent
• So we learn to rely on God
• So the next generation learns how to live
• So we will find our “Yes” in Jesus
One of our problems in western Christianity is our intense desire to do it ourselves. We don’t want to rely on anyone, and we certainly don’t want to admit we need anyone’s help. To do so would prove we are inadequate and possibly incompetent. Yet Paul, arguably the greatest apostle and missionary of all time, lived with affliction. He experienced physical abuse, riots, harassment, ongoing physical illness, and constantly questioned motives. Yet he always describes his joy in the midst of it all. But we complain or often even feel ashamed when we experience the slightest struggles.
Better model
If we want to leave something for the kids that will really help them when we are gone, maybe we need to open up about our struggles and, better yet, leave the kids a model of patient and even joyful dependence on God. We tend to brag or boast about our best accomplishments, the successes we take pride in. Paul’s brag sheet said this:
“For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.”
Not, “Let me tell you about all the ways I figured it out, built the best whatever, grew my portfolio, was smarter than the competition, or won the championship.” Paul described success as connected to simplicity, godly sincerity, and God’s grace—all for the benefit of the people around him, never for himself.
Jesus said we would endure hardship. It is a fact of life and a reality of faith. But what all of Scripture promises is that, as we go through our suffering, God will be there with us. Paul expands this thought to say that as we suffer, we give encouragement and hope for others and we give glory to God.
Whatever you are enduring today, remember we are doing it for the kids—our kids and every child of God.
Your time with God’s Word
2 Corinthians 1:3-11, 15-22 ESV
