Only God can mold human beings into godly parents. He alone will make us wise stewards of prayer and living epistles in the lives of our children. As parents, we can sing that old gospel song that goes, “Please, be patient with me. God is not through with me yet.”

“For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved” (2 Corinthians 12:14-15).

This process of “laying up for the children” is a call to personal sacrifice. God literally employs parents full-time to do the work of effectively turning a sinful generation into a godly seed.

In her book Soul Food and Living Water, Yolanda Powell calls parents to what she calls their Timeless Homefront Assignment to pass their faith in God to their children.

Deuteronomy 6: 4-9 says:

“Hear O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart,
and with all of your soul, and with all of your strength.
And these words I command you today shall be in your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children,
and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,
when you walk by the way, when you lie down,
and when you rise up.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand,
and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”