The best way we can determine the direction of our lives is by choosing our friends wisely (Proverbs 13:20). Our friends now are a main contributor to who we will become in the future. Wise friends influence us to make good decisions and foolish friends influence us to make stupid decisions. God made friends so that we could be enabled and empowered to live wisely. We need friends who are wise, genuine, constant, honest, and secure. For parents, one of the most important things is to influence their kids to choose wise friends. This can be done by making wise friendships easier and foolish friendships difficult.

True success for our children will come as parents help influence their relationships with God, their friends and with family (Ephesians 6:1-4). In order for children to grow into well-rounded individuals, we as parents must carefully guide them through life by shifting the amount of control and influence we have over their lives. Just as God does not control us, He does not desire for us to control the totality of our children’s lives. When we allow freedom into the relationship we have with our kids, it then becomes a relationship founded on honor, not just strictly obedience.

The most important thing a parent can do is to walk the walk and talk the talk (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). By diligently pursuing Jesus, we help facilitate our children’s relationship with Him. Nothing makes our faith in Jesus more appealing to others, especially our children, than seeing us truly live out what we believe. And nothing is a greater turnoff to following Jesus than seeing someone separate their real life from their religious life. When we love Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and talk about why we are doing so, we help our children learn how to relate to God well.

We are called to carefully pay attention to the way we live each day, to make the best use of our time. Especially in parenting, we want to seize every possible moment to walk wisely and to influence our children towards a vibrant relationship with Jesus. This means seizing our own personal faith moments, modeling to our kids what it looks like to passionately pursue Jesus. It also means seizing teachable moments, purposefully spending time showing our children how to live. It means seizing memorable moments, creating opportunities for deep connection, as well as seizing forgiveness moments, asking our kids to forgive us when we make mistakes. But above all, it means seizing the trust the Lord moments, embracing the truth that the destinies of our children are in the hands of God.

True success in life comes not from what you do but from who you know and how well you know them. Especially in parenting, the key is to focus on connection over experience for our children, on relationship over activity. This is what Jesus meant in Luke 10:38-42 when He praised Mary, who chose the good portion by simply sitting at His feet in fellowship and relationship. If our parenting primarily sought to influence our children’s key relationships (with God, their parents, and their friends), seeking to train them to handle those relationships well, then we would feel much more successful as parents.