John Snyder explains in this video why it is important for parents have biblical expectations for their children. Hudson Taylor, for instance, had godly parents who raised him and everything that he did was impacted by his godly upbringing. Parents are called to be faithful to raise their children in the way that God commands. Even if your children don't ultimately walk with the Lord after they leave the home, you are still commanded to train them according to Scripture.

Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV) - "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

We need to make sure that we have biblical expectations. It's very easy to read great books. And you read about missionaries and their families and how the, you know, I think of Hudson Taylor, how his godly parents raised him and how that came to fruition when he was converted and how that flowed out into the way. And everything he did was impacted by that. You know, and then you look at your own family and you think, but I didn't raise a Hudson Taylor.

But God didn't promise us all that we'd have Hudson Taylors and God hasn't promised us all that if we lovingly point our children to Christ that every child that we do that with is guaranteed to be a believer. So we want to make sure that we have biblical expectations and not expectations that might be gotten from reading you know a handful of good books and they are good books and they have good principles in them but maybe you know we get the wrong impression that God owes us this especially for families that perhaps have chosen to homeschool, I mean that can be really costly to a family. Mom has to devote her whole life to that and dad has to pour in as well. And the kids, sometimes they miss out on things that other kids have and we homeschooled and I'm really glad we did it really turned out to be a very good experience but what if you homeschool and you pour out your life like that and the kids don't turn out the way you expected. You know, do you have a right to say to God, you lied to me, you cheated me, I did everything, I paid the price and I didn't get what I bought.

So be careful with expectations. Go back to the scripture and see what God says and make sure that the expectations you have are good. Expectations you have of your life.