By example

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

BY EXAMPLE

Prov 22:6

6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

NIV

Many parents have clung onto this verse as they witness their children flailing around in the world seemly far from the ways of God. The hope is they will return to their roots of faith in Christ Jesus. However, although they may seem to be far from the Lord, their hearts still know him. One cannot erase all memory. Every experience we have is indelibly imaged in our memory. Once we have the knowledge of God, it is impossible to not have it. It is, however, possible to decide to act on the knowledge, or suppress it. Yet it is still there, unable to be forgotten. So then the hope is the Holy Spirit will break through their darkened heart and bring them back to their first love. However there is something else here which bears some thought as parents. Do we as parents tell our children, not just in words, but in our deeds, “do as I say, not as I do”?  That is to say we start up or train our children's lives by our life, not by our words. Do they see inconsistencies in our life? Of course we cannot be perfect parents, who can? But if we are always expecting them to be perfect and we are not, then what are we saying? Are we being hypocritical with our children? Is that how we have trained them? This proverb says nothing about training our children in the ways of the Lord. It simply says that however we train them they will live it out in their lives. If we train them with our wavering faith, they will live with waving faith. If we train them to be judgmental, they will live a life of being judgmental. If we train them to be self-righteous, that is how they will live. Again it is not the words we use to train them, but our lives. Children watch parents and learn what life consists of from the behaviors and attitudes of their parents. Boys see how their father either loves or mistreats their mother. Girls watch to see how their mother either loves and respects or disrespects their father. Training has occurred and we can be sure that will be lived out in their lives. Now we also know that Jesus break ever fetter. We do not have to be chained to our past. Although we cannot ever forget our training, the start of our lives as children, when we come to Christ, the old self dies and a new creature is born. We can live a new life. Our children can live a new life in Christ. Yes it is important how children are trained. Yes, we would hope as believers we train them up in the ways of the Lord. But we also have trained them according to our failures. They have seen us in all our glory and all our failures. If we have failed in some way, we also cannot beat ourselves up, as Christ forgive us as he does our children. Yet each person, each parent, and each child must at some point make that individual choice to walk with Jesus. Each of us must make that decision to allow Jesus to break those chains of the past, and create in us a new heart, a new start, a new life. No matter how much past we have, Jesus can make us new. Yet the fact remains parents have a very profound effect on their children and how their lives are shaped. Let us always be an example of both faith and trust in our Lord.