CHILDREN

PROVERBS 22:6 “TRAIN UP A CHILD IN THE WAY HE SHOULD GO, AND WHEN HE IS OLD HE WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT.” (KJV, NKJV, RSV)
     “Train a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (NET)
     “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he grows older he will not abandon it.” (NASB)
     “Point your kids in the right direction – when they’re old they won’t be lost.” (MSG)
     “Teach children how they should live, and they will remember it all their life.” (GNT)

     It would be (and should be) with great fear and trepidation that anyone would dare write about raising children. Well, maybe not Dr James Dobson…but I know I am fearful.

     Every parent knows that their experience raising children usually starts from scratch. Most of us can claim that we learned how to do it from watching our parents. However, not long after starting down that road, every one of us who would be honest recognizes that we really don’t have any idea what we are doing.

     Only those who have no children at all dare give advice to the rest of us about the right way to raise children. Fortunately, it is pretty easy to ignore those fools. Read all the books you want to. Go to conferences for advice, seek professionals for counseling. In the end, most of us would likely confess that our success and failures come largely from a lot of “trial and error.”

     I have found that even those who can brag about highly successful results from their parenting rarely do. The honest truth tends to be that we do the best we can and hope that at least some of what we teach our children “rubs off on them.”

     Almost every parent I know wants what is best for their kids. Every Christian should be able to acknowledge that our little ones were all “gifts from the Lord.” We kind of wonder sometimes though, what our “gifts” from Him were meant to teach us. Sometimes, you want to jump right into “Black Friday” after Christmas to see what you can get in exchange for returning a gift you might not have really wanted.

     I guess the honest acknowledgement here is that every parent realizes that raising children means we are given the job of training and caring for other human beings. Just like we are, every one of them is different. They all have different personalities, respond to training and discipline differently and NEVER come with an instruction manual to tell us how to do it right.

     I would like to say that the Bible is very helpful in this regard. But as an instruction manual, it is kind of sketchy. Take our memory verse here. “Train ‘em right and when they get old, they won’t depart from it?” That doesn’t provide me with a lot of comfort…especially when my wife and I are trying to figure out how to get through to them as teenagers. “Hold on, and they will come out alright in the end?”

     The Bible is full of examples where the children did not come out all right. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t hide the fact that a lot of sons and daughters were real stinkers. Maybe that’s because they were all from a different country and culture. But, you don’t have to look very far to find plenty of examples of rotten people coming from even the best homes here in America too.

     Probably the overriding, most important lesson we need to learn is to love our children. The Bible is good about teaching us to do that. Psalm 103:13 says, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on his faithful followers.”

     There are some Scriptures which kind of promote disciplined punishment (See Proverbs 13:24, 22:15, 23:13, 29:15 and 29:17). Also, however, these need to be balanced with the Godly advice from Ephesians 6:4, “Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” And Colossians 3:21, “Do not antagonize your children, so that they will not become discouraged.”

     Cheryl and I raised four children of our own. The overriding lesson I think I learned from those decades of experience was that we were learning as much, if not more, about raising them as they were learning from us what they needed to know. It was definitely true that we made plenty of mistakes in the process…not as many as they did in “growing up”. But to expect to achieve perfection in how we fulfilled that particular calling of our lives was always completely unrealistic.

     We did our best. We always loved our children deeply. We tried to never treat them partially or harshly. (All children will tell you that you were easier on the youngest. I don’t know about that.)

     Cheryl and I did a lot of praying for our children as we tried to be good parents. We asked the Lord for advice constantly. We always tried to train them in love. Then, we found out that after twenty or thirty years of trying, they turned into adults that, more or less, developed lives of their own. Suddenly, we went from “Don’t do that!” to “I don’t think I would have done that quite the same way.”

     Teenage years and adolescence were probably the hardest. However, suddenly after they become adults, now you have a lot more years wondering if anything you taught them ever found a place in their hearts. Gone are the years of “guiding” them in a right direction replaced by hoping they find the right way on their own. That can be frustrating.

     That must be where Proverbs 22:6 comes in. All those years of loving “trial and error,” our years of guiding sometimes can look like none of it ever “took.” We can find ourselves asking absent ears, “did you listen to anything I ever said?” Sometimes, I think I can hear the Lord quietly asking us the same thing.

     Come to find out, after it all, I guess we are all children, huh? They are our children and we are the Lord’s. Yes, we are also sons and daughters of our own parents who must have also wondered if we learned anything from them either. But, in the end, we are all children of the Father who loves us like He hopes we will also love our children.

     I don’t think the Lord is going to be too hard on parents who lovingly did their best to raise the children the Lord put in their trust for eighteen to twenty years. It may even be that the Lord looks at how much grace we gave our own children and teaches us through giving that same kind of grace.

     I think, if we love Him, love each other as He loved us and love our children as we try to raise them in the knowledge and nurture of the Lord, He is going to stand by His promise in Proverbs 22:6. It might not seem like it yet. But the promise is that if we train a child in the way he or she should go…in the way He would teach us to train them…when they get older, we will find they haven’t departed from it. I am counting on that! You can count on that too.

     “I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are living according to the truth.” 3 John 1:4.

     Questions to consider: Why did the Lord make raising children so hard? Why do the children that come from exactly the same parents vary so much in personality, temperament and abilities from each other? What lessons has raising your own children taught you that come straight from the Lord? Our culture has come out against physical discipline of our children while the Bible seems to teach differently. What is the proper balance of Proverbs 13:24 with modern teaching on child discipline?

     Scriptures to study: “The one who spares his rod hates his child, but the one who loves his child is diligent in discipling him.” Proverbs 13:24 “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord.” Colossians 3:20 “He must manage his own household well and keep his children in control without losing his dignity.” 1 Timothy 3:4 “You must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house…” Deuteronomy 6:7