Friday,
March 31, 2023
Train up a child in
the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
An “age” is an measure
of humanity’s time. If you add a modifier
to the noun it tells you what kind of age it was. The Stone-age, Bronze-age, and Iron-age are
three successive periods of humankind’s development from the primal to more
sophisticated eras of lifestyle.
On a more “local”
level there is the age of a single human being, passing time in a microcosm (compared
to antiquities). First is the primal age
spent in the womb, followed by the baby age, toddler, pre-teen, teen, young
adult, middle, and old ages. When you’re
a pre-teen, undergoing the beginning stages of hormonal and bodily changes, it
seems an eternity before you’ll get a driver’s license. Time speeds up when you’re 75; every time you
turn around it’s a new decade.
I have called our current dilemma the Age of Offense. Every word or deed offends (at least) somebody. Depending on your tribe (Millennial, Gen-X, Z, Boomer, or whatever epoch you occupy), the later the generational label, the more likely you’ll spend most of your days angry, stressed-out, or ready to kill. The chart in yesterday’s devotion (part 1) depicted a glum indicator of the fast rise of K-12 mass shootings in America in the last decade.
Personally, I can think
of no other time when children have been under more stress, pushed to the limit. The sense of hope, joy, and wonder seen in a
child’s face is rarer now, than anxious despair or downright fear. Children are abused by violence!
Scripture enjoins parents
to train them up.
This is an imperative command.
Solomon says: YOU
train them. He’s sounding the alarm to
parents that they must engage with their kids. That means you don’t leave it up to the
guidance counsellor, or the preacher, or some babysitting device (phone, TV, et
al). You spend time with them.
Solomon also says to
train them in the way.
This phrase can refer to a specific path for them to follow, but it more
likely refers to helping them find the path where they learn God’s way best.
Some children are introverted, they
learn best by reading and observing.
Some are extroverts, they learn best by experiencing. But one factor that’s true of all
children is that they learn by YOUR example.
If you send them to church, they will eventually come
to the conclusion that church is for children, and they will grow out of it. The “bussing of children” to attend Sunday
School in the 1950’s-90’s proved that.
We now have generations of adults who believe they’ve outgrown worshipping
God. They were trained-up
by lazy parents that were too busy to bring them to church,
and those kids now are not departing from what they
learned.
Parenting is not a
one-size-fits-all discipline. You must
engage, spend time understanding who they are, and how they
learn. That’s a big project! The five minutes before bedtime, reading them
a story, will not accomplish that.
Frankly, it means putting your own time on hold to work with, study,
talk to, play with, instruct, protect, celebrate, hold accountable, and
encourage your children.
I can hear the eyes
rolling….but, please…if Susanna Wesley (who had 19 children) spent quality time
with each of her children, you can manage your two, three or six kids. It depends on your adult
decision making about what’s important!
For You Today
There are about 2,500 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper explore
some of these: Lapsed Atheists and Trained-Up
Title Image: Pixabay.com
1 & 2 Images without citation are in public
domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted
from The New Living Translation©
