I remember asking Tim Keller why he never wrote a book with his wife, Kathy, about parenting. After all, they wrote one of the most helpful books on marriage, The Meaning of Marriage. I interviewed them together for this podcast. (My wife captured this video with them after the book came out in 2011.)

So why didn’t they write the book? They didn’t feel like they’d been good parents, despite how their three boys turned out. The boys have families, and they’re in the church. The Kellers looked at friends they thought had been better parents. But they didn’t see the same positive outcomes with their kids. The Kellers, then, didn’t think they could give parenting counsel that would deliver what so many of us want: assurances our kids will turn out OK.

Melissa Kruger doesn’t promise that our kids will turn out OK. But her new book, Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age (Harvest House), reflects so much of what I admire about her and her husband, Mike. She grounds us with hope in the gospel: we can trust God with our kids, that his purposes can never be thwarted. And she grounds us with wisdom: we can grow in our parenting to better help our children flourish.

Melissa is probably our most popular regular guest on Gospelbound. I’m thankful she returned to answer all my questions on parenting. Somehow we even kept the conversation under 60 minutes this time!