My children are growing so quickly. And so are yours.

Today, the fair-haired little boy is tugging at Daddy’s leg, but tomorrow he is a young man of stature, strength, and potential who will soon be a family leader in his own right. The pig-tailed little girl who is so generous to Daddy with her butterfly kisses will suddenly emerge as a woman whose heart will be given to the husband prepared by God to take Daddy’s place as the human love of her life.

Our time as parents of children is slipping away from us. Each day that passes without a self-conscious determination on our part to invest great spiritual resources into their lives and to equip them is a day lost. It is a day that will never be recovered.

What will be our message to the little boy and girl? How will we use the brief moments God has given to us to equip them to stand holy, pure, hopeful, and determined through the cultural tumult of our budding twenty-first century?

It is the mission of Vision Forum Ministries to encourage and inspire the Body of Christ to make this time — this season of precious parenthood — count for all of eternity.

That is why I thank God for 2007 — a year of life and death. I thank God that the Lord loves us enough to shake us up and hold our attention while there is still time. I thank God for seasons of pain as well as seasons of joy — because both help us to be people of remembrance, gratitude, vision, and action.

It is why the words of my dear but now departed spiritual son Michael Billings, in his sermon to the future fathers of his own generation, ring so true: “Seize the day.”