Educating and discipling children is a high calling, and it is not for those who demand immediate results. Teaching and training require a long-term vision and the tenacity to walk it out with faith and perseverance. It’s not for the faint of heart.

If ever there were a time when we needed parents willing to plant for the next generation, it is now. And planting is hard work. If you’ve ever tended a garden, you know: the heat, the bugs, the weeds, the aching back. It’s a daily labor that must be tended with care and consistency, and still, the fruit is slow in coming. But oh — how glorious the harvest when it comes.

There is a story, long told, of an old and beautiful church. After hundreds of years, the great wooden pillars began to rot. As the elders gathered to discuss how to replace them, the oldest among them motioned for the group to follow him. He led them to the back of the property and pointed across the field — to a grove of towering, majestic oaks.

"When the founders built this church,” he said, “they knew the pillars would one day need to be replaced. And they knew they couldn’t be replaced with just anything. So they planted these trees — not for themselves, but for those who would come long after.”

Now that’s vision!

We are called to do the same — to plant acorns we may never see become oaks.

The Bible calls us not only to pass on a spiritual legacy to our children, but to our children’s children. We must raise them in such a way that their roots reach far into the soil of faith and continue growing for generations. That doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentional, daily, deliberate life-work — and deep dependence on the grace of God.

Yes, it is all by God's grace! It is also, most assuredly, not by laziness.  God's grace calls us to action — to speak of Him, live for Him, be willing to die for Him — and pass that fervent love on to our children.

Most of us want instant trees. But in His wisdom, God works slowly, deeply, and often beyond what we can see.  Some of His purposes may not even be realized until generations later. He takes our tiny acts of faithful obedience and multiplies them beyond what we could ever imagine.

That’s why faith in the unseen is essential for Christians. Will the next generation be able to see the diligence of the planters in this one?

Let's not grow weary in doing good! There's a forest depending on our faithfulness. The seeds we plant now will, Lord willing, bear fruit for generations to come. Only God sees the full picture. Our calling is to trust His sovereignty, and by faith continue to plant and cultivating the trees.