“Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.”
The Tree
This proverb names a mutual honor running in both directions across generations, grandchildren as crown to the elderly, and fathers as glory to their children. Neither direction is treated as more significant than the other. Honor flows both ways, older generation to younger and younger back to older, across the whole extended family line.
This is worth holding as a long view for whatever harvest your own parenting is currently, only partially, producing. The full crown this proverb describes, children’s children, is often not visible within the timeframe any single season of active parenting actually covers. It is a promise extending well beyond the years you can currently see.
This should encourage patience with a harvest that, right now, may look incomplete or uncertain. The crown described here is often generations away from its full, visible form, a promise worth trusting even when the current season offers only partial, hard-to-interpret evidence of what this longer harvest will eventually become.
Whatever generation you can currently see, your own children, perhaps grandchildren already, hold this longer promise loosely today. The crown this proverb describes may still be generations away from its full form, and your own faithful parenting now is part of what that eventual crown will actually be made of.
Tend the Tree
- Consider the longer, generational view your current parenting is actually contributing to.
- Thank God today for whatever crown, however incomplete, is already visible.
- Trust the fuller harvest to a timeline longer than your own current season can fully see.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for the crown you are building across generations, longer than I can currently see. Let my faithful parenting now be part of what that crown becomes. Amen.
Carry this today
Some harvest is generations away from its full, visible form.