Raising Kids Of Faith

There may be no more important assignment for us as parents than for us to do all we can do to actively incline our children's hearts toward the Lord. Here's Alex Kendrick. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. We'll hear from Alex Kendrick today about how we can be more effectively praying for our children. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. If I had to pick the top five issues that our listeners want us to be helping them with over and over again, one of the top five would be what we're going to hear about today. Parenting.

I mean, it's a top five for us. I mean, we're empty nesters now, but still, it was like, how do we help our children walk with Jesus their whole life and especially as adults? And that's the core.

Not just parenting in general, but how do we get our kids on the right spiritual path? The three of us had an opportunity to hear Alex Kendrick speak on this subject recently. Alex, our listeners will know, is part of the Kendrick Brothers.

They've made the movies War Room, Overcomer, Fireproof, Facing the Giants, Courageous, a number of great movies. Alex has directed many of those, co-written a lot of them, starred in some of those movies, and he spoke to us about how we raise kids of faith and the things that need to be priorities, and we thought we need to share that with our listeners. So that's what we're going to hear today.

Here's Alex Kendrick. What is the end result of what we all want for our kids? As followers of Christ, let's talk about our target. We want eventually to have grown children who love and walk with God and live to honor Him and who are passing their faith on to the next generation. I hope that is what you want for your children. Yes, we want them to be successful in life and financially. We want them to be happy.

But I hope above all, you want them to be walking and honoring the one who made them. So that is the target. So since that is the target, we want to make sure we're aiming for that, right? You are not going to hit a target you are not aiming at.

And so we want to intentionally aim for this target. So I ended up with five things. You know, Gary Chapman was talking last night about five languages of apology and five love languages. Well, I also have five points.

There's no theme on the boat about five, I don't think, but I just ended up with five. That being the target, I'm going to give you a little bit of history for us. I was raised in a Christian home. My father was a minister.

Mom was a schoolteacher. I'm the middle of three boys. Shannon is three years older.

Stephen is three years younger. When I was growing up, it was a regular part of our life for us to have family devotions, prayer times. We were regularly in church and our father did live his faith.

I did not have perfect parents. I saw them argue. I saw them, you know, go over all their speed bumps and hurdles in life, but they were devoted to the Lord and did stay together. They've been married 55 years now, and I love that.

So that was my experience growing up. Christina became a Christian as a teenager. She has an amazing father.

I love him. We have a great relationship, but she did not grow up in her early years in a Christian home. By the way, everything I'm saying, I have permission to say just so you know. So she did not grow up in a Christian home. Her parents went through a couple of divorces. So she had mom, stepmom and then another stepmom. And it was really rough at times when she did come to Christ as a teenager.

So did her sister soon after and her father began walking with the Lord after that and still is today. But during her first 15 years or so, not a good representation of marriage or what a mother would be. So we came from two very different vantage points and experiences when we were married. So you can imagine the early years when we're having children, how are we going to do this? Because I filter from my experience.

She filters from her experience. It's what we know. You more than likely, until the Lord began molding you, filtered how to parent from your experience. And so what we want to do is eventually baptize whatever our experience was in the truth of God's word and say, God, renovate the way I think so that the way I do my marriage, the way I do my parenting falls in line with your word. Amen.

All right. So we're going to talk about five things. The first thing, having said the target, sincere faith.

Let's talk about this. Sincere faith, knowing and walking with Jesus, we cannot pass on to our children what we don't have ourselves. So if you want your children to go spiritually in a healthy mindset, in a walk with God, that will come most early and effectively when you are doing it yourself.

So before we get started, I would say to impart faith to your children, you have to have sincere faith yourself. And I put one verse up there, you know, Romans 10, 13, you know, whoever calls in the name of the Lord will be saved. And just so we all know, what that includes is an acknowledgment of who He is, of who I am, that I need Him. I need Him as Savior.

I need Him as Lord. He died for me. And that when I surrender my life to Him and I belong to Him and put my faith and trust in Him, He gives me a new heart, a new spirit.

He legitimately saves me. And so when I live that out, that is easier to impart to my children. So as sincere faith, you need to know that you belong to Jesus Christ, not that you know about Him, but that He is Lord and Savior.

It says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you believe in your heart, God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. And so we want to establish that first. Okay, so having established that sincere faith, let's go to the next one, prayer strategy.

I'm going to camp out here for a few minutes. This is so important. If your salvation is in place, this is the next most important thing. Praying specifically for each of your children. Pray for their hearts to be moldable and tender toward the Lord.

Their minds to be receptive of His truth and their relationships to be honoring to God. Pray for strong faith and a hatred for sin. Pray for God's protection, for wisdom and discernment, for a hunger for God's word. Pray for healthy relationships and interests and a desire for holiness. Then pray all this again for their future spouse. If they're married, start praying now.

Again, you can't pray these things enough now. This is certainly not exhaustive, but when I am praying for my children, I pray through these things. Again, add as much as you want to to this, but if I go through this very quickly, pray for their hearts to be moldable and tender toward the Lord.

Of course you know why. I don't want my kids' hearts, I don't want my heart to be callous to the things of God. And again, if the Lord has their hearts, they will face temptation and struggles and even the issue of repentance far differently than if the Lord does not have their hearts.

I intentionally pray regularly, Lord, please keep the heart of my children moldable and tender toward you, their minds receptive of His truth and their relationships to be honoring to God. I was sharing with a couple down here in the front. So my daughter, Anna, she's 19, already had a young man come to me. I'd say she may be the one for me. And I just went ahead and said no.

No. She's 19, and I know some of you got married at that age or earlier. So I said, come talk to me again in a year, you know, let's just set a timetable. He goes, why, why so long? Hey, if you're interested and this is the real deal, you won't mind waiting. Because I'm not ready. Anyway, so I'm praying for good relationships. And he's a Christian too, but he can wait.

All right. So pray for God's protection. Of course, we want to pray for their protection. For wisdom and discernment and for a hunger for God's word. I love, I love, I love when my children are spending time with the Lord. And one of the questions, and I'll refer to this a little bit later today, one of the questions I love asking them, and feel free to write this down, is to engage conversation with them, is what is the most recent thing God has taught you?

What's the most recent thing God has taught you? Because if they're not walking with God in any sort of way, they're not going to have an answer for that question. But if they are walking with God, there will be an answer to that question. So occasionally, I ask my kids, hey, especially the older ones, hey, out of curiosity, what's the most recent thing God has taught you? And from their time in God's word, they will have an answer for that. All right, so for wisdom and discernment and a hunger for God's word, pray for healthy friendships and interests.

You guys know that their friends will influence them. The things they're interested in can pull them away or enrich their lives. And a desire for holiness, then pray all this again for their future spouse. Don't be mad when I say this, don't be lazy about praying for their future spouse. They're out there and you want these same qualities in your future son-in-law or daughter-in-law.

That's what you want for them. Okay, now my wife found, and we think it's from John Maxwell, but we've messed with it a little bit and certainly you can add to this. So Christina says in her quiet time when she's praying for God, she adds all these things and I love this. For our children, she prays for the faith of Abraham, that their faith would be personal and intimate with God. She prays for the leadership of Moses that they would be led by God as they lead others in their area of strength with their personality, that they would be leaders. The courage and conviction of Daniel, that no matter what this world says, trying to pull them away, that they are unwavering in their faith.

It's firm and unwavering, just like Daniel. The heart of David, oh my goodness, God loves the heart of David. That they are tender toward God and repentant. David, as you know, he was a great sinner and he was equally a great repenter. We want our children to be quickly repentant when the Lord says, puts them under conviction. The wisdom of Solomon, of course, wise and discerning in all that they do.

The perseverance of Job, that they are faithful even in hardship. Yes, Job struggled and every single person in this room has some crisis or horror stories they could share. All of us. If you don't, please don't get mad when I say one day you will.

Every single one of us. And we want to make it through those hardships, honoring to God on the other side of it. It doesn't mean you didn't struggle. It doesn't mean you didn't question.

It doesn't mean you didn't ask why is this going on. But we want to honor the Lord with our perseverance. The zeal of Paul, a desire to share the gospel.

What does scripture say about he that winneth souls is, is wise. We want them to want to share the gospel. The faithfulness of Timothy that he is, they are faithful to God, their family, their friends.

And of course, faithful to the faith itself. The compassion of Jesus. To see and love people. To have, that you have feelings of compassion for them.

Now, you could add to this list all day long. I'm thinking, oh, I want the courage of Joshua, right? Be strong and courageous. We want the grace of Esther and Ruth. Man, you could just go through scripture.

So add it. You study scripture and come up with an additional prayer strategy for your children. But you can see the way we pray. Don't pray just general prayers. I encourage you, do the work of praying strategically.

And I would say, you want specific answers from God? Pray specifically. Pray specifically.

Don't just gloss over it. We spend too much time worrying and not enough time praying. Too much time fretting over what our children are going through and not enough time on our face or on our knees seeking the Lord. Do the work of prayer. Okay, so we've talked about sincere faith.

You need to have it before you can pass it on. We're talking about praying strategically. Develop a prayer strategy.

Please feel free to use ours as a jump off point. But continue to develop your own. All right, the next one is aiming for their hearts. If you have their hearts, they're more likely to listen to you.

People tend to embrace the belief of those who they believe love them the most. So whoever has your child's heart will influence their life. When I was growing up, when I believed, oh, my parents are just being too stringent on me.

They're being too legalistic with me. When I believed they were being too legalistic and some of my friends were saying something different, the point where I believed my friends really love me and they have my best interest in mind, guess where my heart shifted to, right? Your children's hearts will shift toward those they believe love them the most. So it is important that you and I proactively go after their hearts. The Old Testament ends with the need for the hearts of fathers to be turned back to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. If that doesn't happen, Malachi 4-5 says, the nation will become cursed and truth will be forsaken.

That is not what we want in our homes. When a young person feels in love, they will go elsewhere to find affirmation and affection, often to the wrong people in the wrong places. So if you want your children to listen to you, to delight in following your counsel, you must first be proactive to win his or her heart. So how can we do this? Three A's, attention, affirmation, and affection.

Let's go through these. Even if they're grown, even if they're grown, talk to your children, make them feel safe, secure, and loved. Plan on one-on-one time with them, meals, dates, activities.

Don't choose less important things over your kids, especially when they're young. So I engage them. The question I gave you earlier, I say, how was your day?

And you guys are going to answer for me. When they walk in the door, you say, hey, how was your day? They say, fine, thank you. One word, that's all you got.

So in other words, don't ask that question. So what I've learned to do when they walk in the door is, hey, and I'll give them a hug or whatever, and I'll say something like, hey, so what was the best part of your day? Because if I say what was the best part of your day, they have to stop and think of what was the best part of their day. They're not going to say fine.

That's the default answer. And so when they do, they'll start thinking, what was the best part of my day? And they'll give me an answer.

Or I may say, hey, what was the worst part of your day? And if they're struggling with something, sometimes that will come out. But the whole point is to engage with them, find out how they're doing, where they know that you're not going to ask the same question every day, and they give the same answer every day. Drives me crazy, fine.

Doesn't mean anything, right? So engage your kids. So talk to your children, make them feel safe, secure, and loved. So the next one is affirmation. Affirmation is one of the key elements behind a father's blessing. To bless means to speak well of someone so that they will have God's favor on their lives. When you bless your children, you are lovingly using the authority you have to verbally affirm them towards future success.

Everyone wants to live up to the expectations of those that love us. So consider this, when Jesus was baptized, this is before he started his ministry, right? When Jesus was baptized, what did God say from heaven? You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

This is before the miracle started. God's already saying, you are mine, you are my son. And so all of us want to hear, especially from our dad, I love you, I'm proud of you, and I'm glad that you're mine.

I love you, I'm proud of you, and I'm glad that you're mine. And those of us who did not hear that when we were growing up, that is a pain in the core of our heart, the very core of our heart. But you can do that to your children. Even as adults, you can say that to your children. If I've never said it before, son, if I've never said it before, daughter, can I just say to you, I love you. I'm proud of you for so many different reasons.

Maybe not for everything. You don't want to affirm sin, of course, and I'm glad that you are mine. I'm glad that you are mine.

So we want to hear that affirmation. Affection is the third one. Our Heavenly Father pours out his love on us, Romans 5-5 says, and so should parents to their children.

So hug them, kiss them, hold them, appropriately touch your kids during your interaction with them. Boys who feel loved by their fathers are bolder, stronger, and more secure. And girls who know they are loved are less desperate for a boyfriend.

They're all bad. And they are more careful with who they marry. So give them meaningful gifts, take them places, show your affection for them. So in the movie Courageous, if you remember, this is 10 years ago, some of you may not remember this, there is this scene in the movie where a father takes his daughter to a dinner and gives her a promise ring.

And he affirms her, he shows affection for her, delights in her, and makes an agreement with her. So it wasn't my idea, but I did write that scene in the movie, I just got it from somewhere else. And then I went to that, okay, I know all of you are saying, we can't do that, okay. I went to that same restaurant with my older daughters, I've done it with the three older ones, that same restaurant and gave them a ring and did that very same thing. And all of them were like, Dad, this is the same restaurant in the movie.

You're doing it exactly like the movie. And I'm like, yeah, I wrote that. And I had you in mind. I had you in mind. But I wanted to share that with other men, that is such a good idea.

It didn't have to look exactly like that. But affirm your daughters so they don't have this hole in their heart that they have to go find attention from some guy because until they're walking with God in their 20s, all of them are worthless. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, I agree, I got an amen. Okay, I'll just say, so many of them are worthless. Yeah, I'm just a little protective of my daughters. And one of the reasons I know young men are worthless when they're not walking with God is because I know me.

I was young. So anyway, we all need the Lord desperately, desperately need the Lord. All right, so attention, affirmation and affection.

All right, so let's move on. Number four, needful boundaries. Put God-honoring standards in place in your home, your work, your areas of entertainment. Then help your children understand why they're there. Now, of course, when they're young, if you have very young kids, of course, they need to obey you because you are Mom and Dad.

They don't have the ability to process the reasoning behind it, right? But when they are older, especially when they get to be 13, 15, 18, and you have parameters in place. So I have fences, if you will, in all the areas you would expect to have them. And so we have standards in our home. Our kids, like your kids, have challenged those fences, especially in areas of entertainment. Now, why can't we watch this movie?

What's so wrong with it? All my friends, all the other church kids watch it, right? Or how many piercings is too many? Oh, man, right? Is the tattoo wrong?

Is the tattoo... All those questions, right? Is it ever okay, you know, alcohol, how much alcohol, all those kind of things, so we have fences in my home. So I'm going to share a story with you that you need to share with your kids, even if they're older, because it helped my children understand when I'm trying to honor God and to be the shepherd of my home and their hearts, it is my responsibility, while they are in my home under my roof until they are adults and gone, it is my responsibility to watch over them and shepherd their hearts, right? I cannot do it perfectly. So I told them this story, and this is when it clicked for them.

Please use this story. Not sure where it was, but over in England, and I think there's some places even in the northeast of the U.S. that are like this, you'll have on the beaches, and this was a really rocky beach, you'll have this sharp cliff that goes straight up, and then you'll have, like, it levels off up there, and some people build houses up there. You know what I'm talking about? So they can go to a fence, and they can see the water and everything, but there's a deep drop-off. So years ago, a father had a house up there, and he had a flat part of his backyard, then it went down a slope to the cliff, and then it went straight down to the rocks on the beach. He had a fence at the end of the flat part of his backyard.

His son grew up playing back there, and everything was fine. When his son was grown, he inherited that house and property, got married, and he and his wife had twin boys. The twin boys playing in the background, soon they discovered, oh, this is not a lot of room for the twin boys. Now, we own so much more property that goes down to the cliff, but it's on a slope. So that young father said, tell you what, I'm going to move the fence part of the way down the slope to give them more room to play. The wooden fence, so he did it, he moved the fence, they're eight, nine years old.

So they play, and there's a little bit more, and then they start saying, dad, but we have so much more, can't we play, can't we get over the fence? And he goes, no, do not climb over the fence ever. So he and his wife talked about it, they decided to move the fence again.

It was their property, after all. So they moved the fence further down the slope. Eventually, by the time the boys were 13, he moved the fence all the way down to the edge of the cliff.

So they're 13, they know not to climb over the fence, they know where the danger is, and it is our property, after all. One day, the boys got into an argument. Who was faster? They're playing in the backyard, the mom's inside just in the kitchen, working on a meal. She hears the boys arguing, and the boys say, okay, touch the house, and whoever makes it to the fence first is the fastest. They take off running, and immediately the mom realizes what could happen.

As they're running down the slope toward the fence, neither of them slow down because they want to win the race. By the time they got to the fence, they could not stop, their momentum carried them over the fence, both of them dropped to their death on the rocks below. The mom shrieks, freaks out, runs out.

Word is given to her husband, he comes home, and all they can do is grieve at this point. When the grandfather finds out, the one who originally owned the house, he comes and he says, son, why, why did you move the fence? Why did you move the fence? Now let me ask you, where should the fence have been put? See, when I ask you that question, you will all have different answers, but none of you will say on the edge of the cliff. You will all give some varied answers up that slope. Some of you that are very safe, probably more legalistic, right, will say you should have kept it where the flat part is and not ever gone down the slope at all, ever. Some of you will say, well, maybe halfway down the slope, but no further, so there's still room if something happens.

When I asked my children that, they thought about it, and they gave different answers, but it was all between the flat part of the yard and a little bit down the slope, but they all gave answers that left a lot of room on the slope. And I said, can you understand that if I move the fence at all down the slope, you could argue with me, well, what's different if we moved it just one foot further or one foot less? You could argue that's very little difference, and I would agree, but here's the point, my son and my daughter, I have to put the fence somewhere. Do you understand that?

And they were like, yes, yeah, you do. We can argue about where that fence is, but why do I want to put a fence around a certain area, a certain area of entertainment, a certain area of access to the internet, a certain area of you spending time with the opposite sex? Why do I want to put a fence there? And they were like, okay, to protect us.

Yes, to protect you. In other words, you in your home have to put up boundaries and have principles and standards in place, and you got to put them somewhere. Now, we can disagree on, is the fence a third of the way down the cliff, halfway, or maybe just 10% down? See, we're all going to come up with variations on that, but you have to have a fence. So in my home, for example, when it comes to entertainment, I know some people don't like movies at all because all movies are evil. I make movies, so I have a problem with that. But I do not want to play a movie in my home that takes my Lord and Savior's name in vain, in my home.

He is my Lord and Savior, and the Lord convicted me about that and said, Alex, why are you paying to blaspheme my name in your home, even in the ears of your children? And so I moved my fence up the slope and said, you know, and there's enough information technology available. You can go to ClearPlay, you can go to PluggedIn.com, you can go to a number of places and learn what's in the movies. So I usually will check a movie. My kids want to see the latest Marvel movie or whatever, and I'll check it, right? And they say, oh, can we go see this Marvel movie in the theater? And if it takes my Lord and Savior's name in vain, we're not going.

We're not going. I know I'm not the one doing it, but if I'm paying to have it heard in my ears, then I know that why would I do that to my Lord and Savior who died for me? And you can say, Alex, that's a little legalistic. We're old enough to handle it. Well, I can use that argument. I'm just telling you the Lord put that on my heart.

He said, Alex, why? I love you and I died for you and I've called you to holiness. So my fence in that regard, when we do entertainment at home, if it dishonors the Lord at all, we're not going to do it.

In my home, that's me. That's where my fence is. But you need fences.

Do you understand what I'm saying? You got to put the fence somewhere in each of the areas. So in my home, my kids could tell you right now, this is the fence for the kinds of language in my home. This is the fence for the kinds of entertainment. This is a fence for who we're allowed to spend time with or the kind of music we listen to. If there's language in the music and sexual aspects of the music, why would I want my kids listening to that? I wouldn't.

There's a difference between sexually explicit music and romantic music that has its place, right? So put up a fence. You need boundaries, needful boundaries, and I encourage you to share with your children why you put them there and just say, because I love you, I got to put the fence somewhere. So trust me as your father who cares deeply for your heart and who is praying for you and loves you. I'm not a perfect dad.

Your mom's not a perfect mom. But would you trust me to put the fence there for your good? All right, let's move on to the next one. Number five, keep hypocrisy out.

This is obvious to you. If you say one thing but do another or refuse to apologize for mistakes, you will lose their trust, part of losing their heart. If your children see you do something hypocritical, then you need to stop and apologize.

And men, I know this is hard for all of us because we want to say lazily, do what I say and not always what I do. But we can't do that because your actions, you know this, your actions speak louder than words. So we have to stop and apologize. As you repent and seek the Lord's forgiveness, you may need to also seek your family's forgiveness.

All right, I'm going to talk about this for just a minute. When a child withdraws emotionally or goes into rebellion, a wise parent will sit down with them and start asking questions to discover what happened to break the heartstrings between them. If appropriate, a sincere apology from the parents needs to be ready first before they expect their child to apologize for their misbehavior.

God can graciously redeem our failures for good provided we recognize those failures and confess them. So don't let pride keep you from regaining their trust and therefore their heart. If I were to ask you in this room, and of course we can't exhaust every parenting issue, if I were to ask you in this room, are there times your children made you proud and you were grateful, you were blessed by them, probably every hand would go up. And if I also said, are there times your children broke your hearts and maybe even today they're in a situation that breaks your heart, many hands would go up. It is hard to parent children, it is hard.

It is both an incredible blessing and it tugs at the very core of your heart, it is very hard. And they all come into this world with different temperaments and being wired different ways because they are wired by God. But what you have to do is find out how God has wired them, which is part of your homework assignment. How do they process love?

How do they process attention? And find out how God has already given them a bent and nurture that for the Lord. God has given us a great calling to bless and teach our children and grandchildren to love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. So let's shepherd our kids' hearts so they will receive our blessing into their lives, eventually give God their entire heart and live the great adventure He has for them for His glory.

Why? Whoever wants the next generation the most will get them. We have to fight for the hearts of our children. Does the world want the loyalty of your children? Yes, they do. Do they want their mindset? Yes, they do. Do they want their political views, their spiritual views, or lack thereof?

Yes. The world wants to own the hearts of our children. You and I cannot just let your teachers or your pastor or youth minister, as good as they might be, to raise your kids.

They're in my job, especially when they're in our home. We have to embrace that. We have to fight for our kids. Well, we've been listening to Alex Kendrick talking about how we raise kids of faith and those priorities.

We've got to keep those in front of us. What a great message. I feel fired up, don't you? Like, I want to fight for our kids.

I mean, I was inspired hearing it in person and hearing it again. I want to share that with people, because parents, like we said earlier, this is the thing we lay in bed at night and think about, and he gives us handles and practical steps to say, you can do this and here's how you do it. Well, it's easy to share this with others. You can go to our website, familylifetoday.com. There's a link there to the complete message from Alex Kendrick, and you can download it or share it with others. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com. Alex and his brother, Stephen, have written a book called Prayer Works, Prayer Strategy and Training for Kids. It's a book that we also have in our Family Life Today Resource Center.

You can order that from us online. And if you have not yet gone through Family Life's Art of Parenting video series, either online or with a group, this is essential training for parents. Alex and Stephen Kendrick are contributors to that series, along with Alistair Begg, Brian and Corey Loritz, Dennis and Barbara Rainey, Tim and Darcy Kimmel, so many people who contributed to this Art of Parenting video series. Get all the information about the series online at familylifetoday.com. If you have a young parent's small group in your church or if, as an older couple, you'd like to mentor some younger couples, get this series and take them through it.

Again, the information is available online at familylifetoday.com. Now, a week from tonight, we're going to be kicking off a small group of our own. For three weeks on Facebook Live, we're going to have a Love Like You Mean It study. This is based on the book I've just completed called Love Like You Mean It.

We're going to be looking at 1 Corinthians 13. You can sign up to be part of the Love Like You Mean It small group Thursday nights, 7 o'clock Central Time on Facebook Live. Go to our website, familylifetoday.com, for more information about how you can be part of the Love Like You Mean It Facebook Live small group starting next Thursday night. Now, tomorrow, we're going to hear about just how powerful a wife can be in the life of her husband. Dr. Julie Slattery shares with us strategies for how a wife can powerfully and profoundly minister to her husband. I hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today, hope for tomorrow.