That Makes Sense

Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Good morning Zebras,

Yesterday in church my pastor cleared up a question I’ve had for a long time.  And he reinforced a few things God has taught me.  He is doing a series on getting “Unstuck” and yesterday‘s topic was on getting unstuck in your family.

The key to getting unstuck in your family is, of course, giving God first place and he had a few suggestions on how to do that. 

First, if you want to give God first place in your family, you need to make sure your family has daily prayer and Bible study.  But then he said something that really encouraged me.  He said the goal of family prayer and Bible study is that each person in the family will develop the habit of going to God for themselves. 

I have struggled with the fact that my family did not do family devotions.  We went to Bible Study Fellowship together, we went to Awana together, we talked about God and the Bible and we would intermittently pray together.  But I always felt we could have done better.  I would hear people talk about what they did and I knew we were falling short.  Yesterday I realized that it wasn’t the method that was important it was the heart. 

Prayer and Bible study is not a “check the box” type of activity.  It’s something you want to model; it’s something you have to believe in; it’s something that should be a foundation of your family.  But it doesn’t have to be done every Tuesday at 5 p.m.

His second point was that you need to make sure your family is in church.  It is in church that children learn to worship and serve the Lord and they learn because they are watching you.  If you want your children to learn to worship, you need to worship. If you want your children to learn to serve, you need to serve. Modeling is true in all aspects of life. But it isn’t a guarantee. And that was what I learned.

Christian parents hold on to today’s verse as if it is a promise written in stone by God. If they will only do this…then their children will turn out perfect.  But I have always struggled with that.  If this is a promise from God then it should always work.  Parents who do A, B and C should always have children who love and serve the Lord.  But it doesn’t always work that way.  And yesterday I learned why.

This verse is in Proverbs, which the Bible dictionary defines as: a collection of moral and philosophical maxims of a wide range of subjects presented in a poetic form. This book sets forth the “philosophy of practical life.”  It is the book on how we should live, not a book of God’s promises. Proverbs usually prove true, but they’re not guarantees. That’s when the light bulb went on because that made sense.

If you raise your child up in the Lord, there is a good chance they will follow Him, and if they walk away, that they will return, but it can’t be an A+B=C type of result because that leaves out free will and the sovereignty of God.

Love,
Jill