Parenting for a Thousand Generations

It was Mother's Day this past weekened, and I had just spent the afternoon out with the family — Erin, the kids, the whole crew. Phone full of photos. The kind of afternoon where the light hits right and, for once, everyone is in the frame which let’s be honest. . .can feel impossible sometimes when it comes to family photos with toddlers.

I'll be honest with you. My family is awesome. As I sat there with my phone in my hand, I caught myself doing what almost every dad I know does in that exact moment.

I opened Instagram. Habitually. Without really thinking about it to share the awesome photo with everyone who follows my author account.

And then. . . a quiet thought stopped me. A question arose in me that I’ve been musing over as I think about our content infused society.

What kind of father do I want to be? One who cherishes what God has given me — or one running to show the world every angle of it?

Maybe a simpler way to put it. A dad who shares the highlights, or the one quietly sowing the seeds?

Wanting to be the latter, I put the phone down and told myself to shelf the thought to think about it more. Because when you think about multi-generational parenting such thoughts start surfacing more often.

Now look — I am not the guy who is going to tell you that posting a family photo on Mother's Day is some kind of moral failure. It isn't. My family really is awesome, and I really do want people to know it. That part is human especially when you are just posting to family and friends in many instances.

But that latter question — highlights or seeds — has been at the forefront of my mind as I’ve pondered being a millennial parent in this generation. Because the longer I sit with it, the more I realize the kind of father I actually want to be is not the one performing fatherhood for an audience.

I want to be a father whose work outlasts my physical life. Whose lineage, by God's grace, walks in His ways long after I'm gone.

An image of the real “Bo,” inspired in the stories of Bo & Mr. Quillery

God doesn't think in lifetimes. He thinks in lineages.

God has always wanted a family.

That might sound simple, but the longer you peel back the layers of the biblical account, the more obvious it becomes. From Genesis 1, when He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28–30), to the covenant He implemented with Abraham — not just for Abraham, but for his descendants after him (Genesis 17:7) — to the new messianic covenant established through Jesus (Luke 22:20), one thread never breaks: God is building a family for Himself of image-bearers.

Now sit with the math He tucks into the passage below.

"I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." — Exodus 20:5–6 ESV

Three to four generations of consequence. A thousand generations of steadfast love.

That is not a typo. That is the heart of THE Father — staggeringly lopsided toward mercy. Calculated in centuries, not weeks. Calculated in lineages, not lifetimes.

The Psalmist names the same posture: "We will not conceal them from their children, But we will tell the generation to come the praises of the Lord, And His power and His wondrous works that He has done" (Psalm 78:4 NASB).

Solomon underlines it: "Good people leave an inheritance to their grandchildren. . ." (Proverbs 13:22 NLT).

And God Himself says of Abraham, "I have singled him out so that he will direct his sons and their families to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then I will do for Abraham all that I have promised" (Genesis 18:19 NLT).

So much more could be put here, but in sum, the pattern is unmistakable. He is not running a single-lifetime accounting system. He is building a family — and He has been from the beginning.

Which leaves a question on the table for every parent reading this.

What are you handing down to your children, and their children’s children?

Multigenerational parenting

That conviction has a name in some circles, including ours. Multigenerational parenting.

It is the deliberate posture of parenting with the next generations in mind — not just raising the children in front of you, but asking the harder question. What kind of family and legacy am I building for my children's children?

If God so wants a family, how do we partner with His heart in creating one that lets the kingdom of heaven flow through us and back to Him?

Referring to the earlier passage, when the math is right now, you optimize for tidy. You optimize for presentable. You optimize for today. When the math is a thousand generations, you start asking different questions. If I were gone tomorrow, what spiritual inheritance walks out of my house into the next century?

What does it mean to be a “Johnston”?

A couple of years ago, my wife Erin and I sat down and asked God a question that, frankly, felt a little ridiculous to ask out loud at first.

What does it mean to be a Johnston?

After all, there are many forebears who have come before me unto this time. Many generations of Johnston that have brought about my existence to this point. Have they asked this question? I certainly won’t know this side of heaven, but it is an interesting thing to ponder.

Through prayer and a lot of honest conversation, my wife and I landed on a mission, a vision, and seven pillars we believe comprise what God created a "Johnston" to be. We use that exercise in our intentional parenting to this day. At the center of the whole thing was this idea: we aren't just parenting for now. We are parenting for generations we may never meet.

One of the audacious prayers I have been praying since college is that God would not let any one in my lineage walk away from Jesus until His return.

Can we control that as parents? No. If I am permitted a Star Wars reference, there is a non-canonical scene from a video on youtube where Qui-Gon Jinn speaks to Master Yoda in exile on the planet Dagobah, "We point the way for our padawans to choose, but they alone must choose it."

He said it better than I could.

As parents longing for our children to walk with Christ, that thought can crush you if you try to carry it in your own strength. But as we surrender to the Lord — His timeline, His plan — He is faithful. We can release the outcome, pray fervently, and press on in hope.

We point the way and model. He does the rest.

Sacrifice, not self-preservation.

Here is the hardest part of multigenerational parenting.

It will cost you something.

It cost Abraham everything he wanted when God asked him to lay Isaac on the altar. And the highest attribute we see in the life of Jesus — the one we are invited to embody — is sacrifice, not self-preservation or in our generation the notion of “self-love”. Maybe not your physical life, though perhaps even that. More often, it is the daily kind. The moment to yourself you give up. The comfort you put down. The thing God said over the thing you wanted to do.

It is in those small, surrendered moments — the ones no one is watching — that the mountain of God moving in our families gets built.

You cannot fake sacrifice. You can only live it.

What this looks like under our roof.

None of this is theoretical for Erin and I. While we practice this conviction, we will also be the first to tell you we don’t have all the answers; so kindly go speak to someone who is in there 70’s, raised godly kids, and is wiser than us! :)

Nonetheless, our practicing our conviction is the floor we are trying to walk on with four with a fifth on the way; most days successfully, plenty of days not. Practically, the thousand-generations posture has taken shape in a couple habits for us that I think are easy and shareable!

One: we invite the kids into the work.

Our children help shape characters and storylines in the book series I write. They work alongside Erin in the apothecary and candle making business she has built as an herbalist. The point is not a family business for its own sake. It is letting them practice stewardship, problem-solving, and faithful obedience with us — not just hearing about those things in a devotional and then watching us go do something else with our day. Additionally, if we are practicing spiritual disciplines that Christ cherishes, we will invite them into those with us as well!

Two: we ground our family pillars in Scripture and make them tangible.

One of our seven pillars is Curious Wisdom, drawn from Proverbs 20:5 NASB — "A plan in the heart of a person is like deep water, But a person of understanding draws it out."

To teach it, I gave the kids a challenge after a devotional. I hid four items around the house. They had ten questions to ask for clues where to find all four. Let’s just say daddy hid them good, I knew they would be tough to find. My children are all under eight. So naturally they burned through their ten questions in about two minutes and the game was over. It was hard. They were unsuccessful. Afterward, Erin and I modeled what curious wisdom actually looks like in conversation and how to ask wise questions that can get to the heart of a matter.

Here is what happened in the weeks that followed. My children started coming to me on ordinary days, asking deep questions about my heart, my work, my struggles. One simple exercise — rooted in a family value, rooted in Scripture — shifted the way they engage with their dad and mom. Just last night, I lived out our pillar by spending time at bedtime asking my son deep questions and very specific ones. His first response was, “that’s a good question dad!” He then proceeded to tell me everything.

You could do the same. Pick something that comprises the identity of your family. Ground it in Scripture. Design a simple exercise that brings it to life in your home.

There is no vehicle greater on this earth than the church and the family unit to advance God's gospel. A thousand generations of faithfulness has to start somewhere. It might as well start at your kitchen table!

One last thing — and then a blessing.

Each of us is called to many things, but one thing I believe every parent reading this is called to is the legacy God wants to bring through OUR families.

A thousand generations of faithfulness — that is the promise. As Paul writes, "For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen" (Romans 11:36 NLT).

So no — the moment is not king. The King is King.

He is building a family.

And He is asking us — gently, patiently, generation after generation — to stop parenting just for now, and start parenting for the lineage.

What would it look like for you to parent not just for your children — but in mind for theirs as well?

Blessings,

Andrew

P.S. If you want a story to read aloud with your kids tonight — one that quietly asks them, what would God do here? before they get to what do I want here? — the audiobook of Book 1 in The Adventures of Bo and Mr. Quillery is free! Pour yourself something warm and cue it up before bedtime. Hand it to your children.

👉 Click “Free Audiobook” in the banner at the top