Foundations for Life

posted by Navigators on August 22nd, 2025 in Discipleship | Generations | Grow

By Levi Swatzentruber, Canberra Labouring Community

University students are at a pivotal time of life, they are forming convictions, making life-direction choices and often forming what they believe for the first time. Yet, one opportunity which God has given me has reminded me that there is another time of life still more pivotal …

Last year, J (the high-school son of some friends of ours) asked to shadow us for a week to fulfil his school’s work experience requirement. We gladly welcomed him into our lives and enjoyed his keen participation in some of our weekly activities, from staff meetings and prayer walks to Bible study and student meetings to fasting. I was delighted with his enthusiasm and eagerness to learn and was keen to keep investing in his growth.

Fast forward to August this year, J and I have now been meeting regularly for most of a year, even though he is not a university student. I look forward to my 7am meeting with him at a local coffee shop before he walks to school. He shares vulnerably, is faithfully memorising Psalm 119, and actively sharing his faith. Recently, he told me of an opportunity he had to use what he was memorising to encourage a friend who was struggling in his faith. I am encouraged by his maturity which surpasses many of our believing university students’ – who are older and have been discipled for longer – and this points to a difference.

The difference shouldn’t be a surprise because, after all, God designed spiritual growth to work this way: to get its foundation through families. The difference in J seems directly linked to the investment of his parents in his life from infancy. Where many of our students are considering truths for the first time, struggling with disciplines and in situations where decision-making is ill-supported, I see a foundation already laid in this young man through his parents that points to how God has always intended it to be.

The difference … seems directly linked to the investment of his parents in his life from infancy.

Unfortunately, it is rare for the students that we meet at the ANU to come from homes in which their parents love Jesus and have been devoted to investing in their children’s relationships with Him and so we often are their first exposure to discipleship. But, in instances like J’s, I find encouragement that as parents we can set our children up for a life of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever without many of the hindrances of beginning later.

Please, pray with me that J would continue growing as a disciple and all of us who are parents would persevere in seeking to raise our children to love and follow Jesus.

Levi and Lindsey live in Canberra with their four children, and work among students at the Australian National University. To find out more about them and their ministry, visit: navigators.org.au/staff/swartzentruberll/

If you would like to partner with us in supporting the Zwartzentrubers, use the contact button on their Staff Page or email us directly at [email protected].