I’ve always been different. My entire life, it seems, I have been placed into situations and environments where I didn’t fit in. For years, I wrestled with that. Why am I always the anomaly? Why does the recognition that others seem to find with ease, the belonging, the applause, the moment in the sun, always seem to go to someone else?
I spent a long time wanting to be seen. Wanting others to notice I was in the room. And time and time again, it simply didn’t happen. Someone else got the glory.
But God, in His infinite patience and wisdom, was not telling me no. He was telling me not yet. And beneath every closed door was a quiet, loving whisper: It’s not about you, Marc.
I see it all so clearly now. Every environment, every struggle, every season of waiting, it was preparation. And I am grateful.
We are standing at one of the most pivotal moments in American history. This year, 2026, this nation celebrates its 250th birthday. A quarter-millennium. And as the confetti is prepared and the fireworks are planned, something far more urgent is being asked of us.
America does not simply need a celebration. She needs a revitalization. A return to the founding spirit that declared, against all odds and all earthly powers, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. That founding was not merely a political document. It was a covenant. And covenants are kept by people of character.
Character is not built in a boardroom. It is built in a home. It is built at the dinner table. It is built in the quiet moments between a parent and a child.
This is why I write to you today, specifically to you, the parent. The one who may be scrolling through your phone at midnight wondering if what you’re doing with your life actually matters. The one who is pouring everything into a career, a mortgage, a schedule, and still feeling hollow. The one who loves your children fiercely but wonders if you are giving them the most important thing they need.
I’ve been there. I am there. And I believe God has brought you to this page for a reason.
The World’s Definition of Greatness Is Wrong
The culture we are raising our children in worships a very specific kind of greatness, the kind that trends, the kind that scales, the kind measured in followers, salary, and square footage. We are swimming in it. And if we are not intentional, we will raise our children to swim in it too.
But here is a truth that has anchored me through every storm of ambition and every crisis of identity. The 17th-century scholar Matthew Poole, writing more than 300 years ago, described it this way:
“We have a natural ambition to be great in the sight of men. But true greatness is to be great in the sight of God. In God’s sight, a great man is one of whom God makes great use, especially in turning many souls to himself… They are great who do much of the work for which God has sent them into the world, and do much good in their generation.”
That is the standard I want to be measured by. Not what I accumulated, but how much good I did in my generation. And the greatest good I can do in my generation begins at home with my children watching how I live.
Lead the Way
Here is what I know about children: they do not primarily do what we tell them. They do what they see. They are watching us with a ferocious, unblinking attention that we often forget. Every morning you wake up, every decision you make under pressure, every time you reach for your phone instead of your Bible, they are filing it away.
And so the most powerful thing you can do for the future of your family, and yes, for the future of this nation, is to lead the way. Not perfectly. Not with all the answers. But with intentional, visible, daily faithfulness.
This is what I mean when I say: not on my watch. I will not stand by while the tides of distraction, despair, and purposelessness carry my children away. I will plant a flag. I will build a rhythm. I will show them, by doing it myself, that there is a source of wisdom, comfort, courage, and direction that never runs dry.
That source is the Word of God. The Bible.
Fifteen Minutes That Will Change Everything
I am not asking you to become a theologian. I am not asking you to attend seminary or memorize chapters. I am asking you to do one simple, courageous thing:
Give God fifteen minutes a day.
That is it. Fifteen minutes of reading and ruminating, sitting with the Word, turning it over in your heart and mind, letting it speak into the real texture of your day. Not a religious obligation. Not a performance. A conversation. A daily appointment with the One who made you, knows you, and is not finished with you.
The science of habit formation tells us that small, consistent actions compound into identity. When your children see you open your Bible every morning before the chaos begins, when they see you write something in the margin, when they hear you whisper a verse under your breath during a hard moment, they are learning what kind of person it is possible to become.
You are not just reading. You are modeling. You are passing down a legacy.
I want to make it even easier for you to begin. I have been deeply moved by The Family Wins Devotional, a resource from The Family Wins (TFW), an inspiring, Christ-centered family ministry dedicated to uplifting families, especially those navigating crisis. Their unwavering mission is to ignite a passion for spending time in God’s Word each day, convinced that this transformative practice paves the way to the abundant life God envisioned for us. The devotional is a powerful New Testament guide designed to help you deepen your connections with the people you love most and wholeheartedly embrace God’s profound wisdom, fifteen minutes at a time.
I have purchased copies to give away as gifts, because I believe in this resource that much. DM me and I will send you one, free of charge. No strings. Just one parent to another, passing something forward.
Uniquely Positioned for Such a Time as This
I used to believe that my inability to fit in was a liability. I now understand it was a design.
Over these past few years, I have found myself at a genuinely unusual intersection of influence, in my career, in my community, in my home, and in the broader conversation about what America is and what it is becoming. I don’t say that to impress you. I say it because I believe you are at that same intersection. You may not see it yet. But the parent who is starving for purpose is often the one who has been placed exactly where they are needed most.
What if your hunger for meaning is not a problem to be solved, but a calling to be answered?
As I once wrote, and still believe with my whole heart: God’s preparation is never wasted. Every situation, every difficult environment, every season where you felt invisible, it was forming you to be someone who can build bridges. Bridges across differences in temperament, culture, class, and conviction. Bridges that hold the weight of real friendship. Bridges your children will walk across long after you are gone.
As Rick Warren opens his landmark book The Purpose Driven Life with the disarming declaration, “It’s not about you,” and he is right. It starts with you, but it does not end there. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29, NIV). Speak life. Build up. Begin with the people under your roof.
The Watch Is Yours
America is approaching a milestone birthday, and she is weary. She is polarized and exhausted and searching for something solid to stand on. The founding generation knew something that we are being asked to rediscover: that the health of a nation flows from the character of its families. And the character of families flows from the convictions of parents.
You, yes, you, with your ordinary Tuesday morning and your imperfect family and your legitimate worries, you are the answer. Not in your own strength. But yielded to a God who is patient with His people, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9, NIV).
He is not slow. He is precise. And He has placed you here, at this moment in history, with these specific children, in this specific community, for a reason.
So open the Book. Let your kids see you do it. Let them see you return to it day after day, not because it earns you anything, but because you have found the one thing that is worth more than everything else.
Do it for fifteen minutes today.
Do it again tomorrow.
And on the hard days when it feels like nothing is working and you are not enough, remember what you are standing for. Remember the generation watching you. Remember the covenant.
Not on your watch. Not this family. Not this generation.
May God get all the Glory.
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A refreshed writing from the original, “Not On My Watch,” published at MindWolves on April 18, 2021.
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