One of the most famous biblical passages on parenting has been presented as a good-news-bad-news type of pronouncement: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). It’s good news because there is a concreteness to it, an implied promise — if A, then B. If you do it right, she’s in. Which leads to the bad news part: If you do it wrong, he’s out. And every Christian parent, at some point, worries and stresses over doing it wrong.
Perhaps we’ve focused on the wrong things where this verse is concerned. We’ve focused on our part of this whole training process when we should be focusing instead on God’s. Instead of this verse serving as a personal indictment of my failures and shortcomings as a parent , I choose to see the promises this way:
God’s truth is powerful. When Scripture talks about “train up a child,” I don’t think it’s talking about merely a set of rules to adhere to. Rather, I believe it’s talking about presenting the truth about God as a foundation for living. God’s truth is a powerful beacon, pointing people in the way they should go in life. This truth is so powerful, its affects are lifelong and life changing.
God’s truth endures. There will come a time in everyone’s life when adolescence ends and maturity begins to surface. I’ve experienced it in my own life; its that moment when you realize how truly remarkable and smart your parents are. You start having those “aha” moments about things they said or concepts they kept drilling into your head.
God’s truth is like your parents’ truth on steroids. It has effect, as this beautiful passage from Isaiah illustrates:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. ~Isaiah 55:10-11
The book of Hebrews uses a different analogy for the power of God’s truth: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (4:12).
As a parent, when you have introduced and presented God’s truth to your child, to your teenager, it will have an effect. The power belongs to God, not to you. This is why it is so important that teenagers read God’s Word and develop their own relationship with Him, even if it looks different from their parents’.
Do you trust God’s Word and truth to be powerful enough to speak into your teen’s life without you there to interpret? Do you trust God’s Word and truth to be powerful enough to speak into your teen’s life even though it came through you?
The above is excerpted from Chapter 10 of my new book, The Stranger in Your House.