Yesterday I attended the funeral of a wonderful Christian woman, Jane de Witt. Drs. Sinclair Ferguson and Derek Thomas preached at the funeral and, while their primary focus was the gospel, each did praise various aspects of Jane’s life and faith. One thing that stuck out in my own mind was their observation that Jane chose to be joyful. Even when life was difficult Jane made the conscious choice to “Rejoice in the Lord, and be glad,” (Psalm 32:11). Dr. Thomas recalled that breakfast at the de Witt’s table always included “eggs and a psalm of praise.”

Jane, and the ministers in their observation, was right: being joyful is a choice. Our ability to choose joy is closely tied to our experience of Christian hope. In Psalm 71 the author cries out to the Lord for deliverance. “In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me!” (Verse 2), and “For my enemies speak concerning me; those who watch for my life consult together and say, “God has forsaken him; pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him” (Verses 10-11). These circumstances seem far from ideal. Yet the Psalmist concludes, “But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge” (Verses 14-15).

The Scriptures do not call us to deny the difficulty of our circumstances or to pretend that we enjoy trial, hardship and suffering. But they do call us to a vibrant hope and trust that transcends circumstances and fixes its attention on the unchanging Christ. Jane de Witt chose joy. What will you choose?

At tonight’s prayer meeting we had an excellent discussion on the challenges of raising children in the 21st century. We have been working through the Proverbs, an excellent source of wisdom for parenting, and tonight began by talking about how appealing a sinful life can seem.

The bulk of the conversation centered around what we, as parents, ought to do to give our children the best foundation for faithfulness. The discussion was excellent but when I got home I thought of one more thing I wished I’d said.

As parents, it’s easy to looking at raising children through the lens of “how can I raise faithful children?” That sounds good but it really isn’t. What that reveals is a results-oriented mindset too common among Christians today. I meet lots of Christian parents who seem tired and worn-down beyond what their circumstances should warrant. I often find this mentality to be near the heart of their problem.

A better question is: “How can I faithfully raise my children?” (See the clever thing I did there?) You cannot control the faithfulness of your children. Thomas Jackson often repeated John Jay’s wise refrain: “Duty is ours, consequences are God’s.” What you can control, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, is your own faithfulness. Why not focus on that?

Children need biblical instruction. They need to be taught right and wrong; sin and repentance. But what Christian children need, in addition to those things, is a decade+ of observing parents who actually love God and are driven to faithfulness from that motivation rather than any other.

It does children some good to observe moral parents. It does them some good to observe parents with good religious disciplines. But if you want to give your children the best possible foundation let them observe that your morality is the result of an incredible sense of gratitude for what God has done for you. Show them that your performance of religious duty is the result of a zeal for the Lord, a delight for his law, and a love for his house. If you want them to believe that the Christian faith is something worth having in their lives let them see that you believe it’s worth having in your own.