Bloated Jellyfish or Dolphins?

I was thankful for this article by John Piper appearing at a timely moment. Such a challenge for us to be training our children as soldiers of Christ.

Here's some of  it:

The question raised by this text, and many others, is this: What is the greatest good you can do for your children? What does a real, countercultural, Christian ambassador and exile from heaven think when he is told, “Provide for your household”? Provide what? Culture-conforming comforts and security? Really?

I don’t think so. He is thinking, How can I breed a radical, risk-taking envoy of King Jesus? How can I raise a dolphin cutting through schools of sharks, rather than a bloated jellyfish floating with the plankton into the mouth of the whale called the world? How can I raise offspring who hear Jesus say, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58) and respond, “Let’s go”?

Or when you think about “providing for your household,” what about providing practice in self-denial and risk? After all, doesn’t Proverbs say, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6)? Perhaps we lose too many of our children because they weren’t trained as soldiers. Maybe we trained them in comfort and security, and now they won’t leave it.