Keep at it

Anything worth building takes time.

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

It’s not just that time passes. Time alone doesn’t fix anything. It’s the work you put in, the daily, deliberate, sometimes draining work. Keep showing up long enough, and eventually, you start to see real returns.

Emily and I have worked hard at our marriage. It’s been like a long-term investment. And now, like compound interest, the return is showing up in ways we couldn’t have imagined at year five, or even year ten.

Same with parenting.

Children are born foolish. Scripture says so. Some more than others. And we didn’t get a batch of easy ones. Our kids are just as stubborn as we were, maybe more. With a large family, some seasons feel like nothing but correcting, disciplining, and praying they’ll grow out of it.

I’ve heard so many parents say, “Spanking doesn’t work on my kids.” And I get it, some kids respond differently. I’ve got one where it doesn’t land the same. (If you know us, you can probably guess who.) But more often, it’s not that the kid is uniquely difficult—it’s that the parents didn’t stay the course. They wanted fruit now, from a seed that only grows with time and consistency.

Parenting has long, brutal stretches. Sometimes it feels like you’re failing. For years.

But lately, we’re seeing signs, especially in the older ones. When they bring up deep truths unprompted, or quietly offer to help at a funeral, it hits different. Those are holy moments. They didn’t come fast, but they came.

And while we’re at it, let’s not ignore the economy. It’s rough. Housing costs are insane. Most families are scraping by early on, and that’s normal.

I got lucky in my 20s with a high-paying job, but I didn’t appreciate it. I thought it would be easy to repeat. It wasn’t. It took years to rebuild: learning new skills, eating a few punches, growing a network. We’re in a solid place now, but it took decades.

God honors diligence, but on His timeline, not yours.

You plant a seed. For a long time, it looks like nothing’s happening. And when something finally pokes through the dirt, you think: That’s it? All that effort for this little shoot? But give it time—and with sun, rain, and more work—that one shoot becomes a field.

Don’t quit.

Keep at it.