Now all of my children are married.

My second son Josiah got married to Kaili recently. My oldest son Brian is married to Shelby and my daughter Sarah is married to Josh.

And all are wonderful people. They love each other and they love the Lord.

I started praying for my kids for their future mates before they were born. I wasn’t the only one who prayed but those prayers were answered.

And so far, we have been blessed with two wonderful grandchildren, Reyma (named after my mother) and Atticus (named after the Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.).

God could not have given me and Susan a better gift that to have this family. They are all outstanding people who have bright and unlimited futures. They are not perfect but no one is.

Families can bring joy and heartache. I know wonderful Christian couples who raised their kids right only for them to have some colossal failures and I know some lousy parents who have kids who are wonderful people.

Ultimately, it is up to the individual to chart their course in life.

Drugs destroy too many kids. I have a late brother who had great potential but drugs destroyed his life and he passed at an early age. I have another extended family member – much younger than me – who got messed up on drugs and has been in and out of jail.

I had another close family member – much older than me – who was a certifiable alcoholic. But about 10 years before he passed (in his 80s), he got sober. Previous to that, he was hard to be around. He was sort of a mean drunk. But after he dried out, he became the nicest guy in the world and I loved spending time with him.

So, how do you raise good kids in a culture that has turned its back on God and traditional morality?

First, I am no expert. It’s only by God’s grace that I made some good choices as a father. I made mistakes, and I didn’t do as much as I should have to help and guide my children.

My first good move was to marry Susan, an outstanding mother and now grandmother. She comes from a good, God-fearing family. She benefitted from watching her father and mother raise three good children.

I grew up in a somewhat dysfunctional family. My mother passed when I was very young my father raised five boys by himself. We had no maternal influence in our house.

We did have the influence of a church family (Tulsa Bible Church). Many families took us under their wings and we got see how normal families operated. Those were valuable lessons.

I was wild at times while growing up. I never did anything really bad. I didn’t smoke or drink (I still don’t) and I never experimented with drugs. I didn’t sleep around.

I did things that I would never do now.

After Susan and I got married, I studied families in our church. I watched parents who had raised great children and I listened to them give advice on parenting.

Being in church every week was a great benefit to me and our children. I worry now about the upcoming generation because they don’t go to church. They don’t hear what the Bible has to say about disciplining a child, how to corral their will without breaking their spirit. They don’t go to the summer camp and hear Bible stories about children who grew up and brought honor to their family.

And because kids are not in church generally, they are not making friends with other kids who want to be good and avoid bad behavior. Bad kids who want to influence are readily available not to mention the trouble they can get into due the Internet, social media, cell phones, etc.

This is a problem.

God doesn’t want us to take our families out in the woods to protect them from our culture. He wants us to prepare our kids to meet the challenge of a world that favors bad over good. One of my greatest joys is that our kids have learned to stand on their own two feet. None of them are living in our basement (we actually don’t have a basement) and all are striving for a better occupation and financial position.

I am thankful for our kids and for our son-in-law and daughters-in-law. God arranged their marriages and they have a great shot at living successful lives even after we are gone.

It makes me kind of wish we would have had more than three…