Keep at it

Anything worth building takes time. So, you just have to keep at it.

An older pastor once told me, “Marriage gets a whole lot better after 20 years.” I thought he was joking. Now, with more than 20 behind us, I know exactly what he meant. It really does.

Time alone, of course, doesn’t fix anything. What changes a marriage is the work you put in, the daily, sometimes draining work. Keep showing up long enough, and you start to see real returns. Emily and I have worked hard at ours, and it has paid out like a long-term investment. The return is showing up now in ways we couldn’t have imagined at year five, or even year ten.

Parenting works the same way. Children are born foolish. Scripture says so, and some are more foolish than others. We didn’t get a batch of easy ones. Our kids are as stubborn as we were, and with a large family, some seasons feel like nothing but disciplining and praying they’ll grow out of it.

I’ve heard plenty of parents say, “Spanking doesn’t work on my kids.” Some kids do respond differently. I’ve got one where it wasn’t very effective. (If you know us, you can probably guess who.) More often, though, the issue is that the parents didn’t stay the course. They wanted fruit now from a seed that only grows with time and consistency. You’ve got to keep at it. Parenting has long, exhausting stretches where it feels like you’re failing. Those stretches can last years.

Lately we’re seeing signs, especially in the older ones. They bring up deep truths unprompted, or quietly offer to help at a funeral. Those moments are gifts from God that say, “Keep going.” They didn’t come fast, but they came.

The economy belongs in this too. It’s rough, housing costs are insane, and most families are scraping by in the early years. That’s normal. I got lucky in my 20s with a high-paying job and didn’t appreciate it. I assumed it would be easy to repeat, and it wasn’t. Rebuilding took years of learning new skills, eating a few punches, and growing a network. There were times when I had to dig up courage to look at the checking account. It was sobering. Even embarrassing. We’re in a solid place now, but it took decades.

God honors diligence… on His timeline rather than yours. You plant a seed, and for a long time it looks like nothing is happening. When something finally pokes through the dirt, you think, That’s it? All that effort for this little shoot? Give it time, with sun and rain and more work, and that one shoot becomes a field.

Keep at it.