Tom

“The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble ; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief , that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.” - General Robert E. Lee

“In Biblical faith, the family inherits from the past in order to grow firmly into the future. Man and wife become one flesh; they have in their marriage a common physical, sexual tie that makes them one flesh. Hence, Scripture declares, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and htey shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Marriage calls for a move forward by the man and his wife; they break with the old families to create a new one. They remain tied to the old families in that both represent a cultural inheritance from two specific families. They remain tied further by a religious duty to honour their parents. The growth is real, and the dependence is real: the new clearly and plainly grows out of and realizes the potentiality of the old.”

The Institutes of Biblical Law Vol. 1, Pg. 167. Rushdoony.

I think that could paralel quite nicely with what you’re saying and it’s something we need to think about as a family quite often. The Christian faith is a generational faith and we are not working merely on our family, but for a foundation that will conqueror the world in the future.

This “future faith” is forming and molding a family in a way that will produce large families founded on righteous principles and good economy. Christ will change the world, but this can only happen with multi-generational faithfulness. Without that, we’re starting afresh with every new generation. If anything, that “progress” will head us backwards.