Training Up

This Sunday we talked about the passage in Mark 9 where Jesus calls his followers to welcome children in his name. Engaging and caring for children is what serving our King looks like. (See Mark 9:37.)

There’s another reason, that I didn’t get into that morning, that our love for and ministries with children are so important. It’s simply that, a kid today is already being formed into the adult they’ll be tomorrow. That’s why Proverbs 22:6 famously says, “Train up a child in the way, and when they’re old they will not stray.” (I love that translation—it captures how proverbs are meant to be catchy.) The way Eugene Peterson put it, in his Message Bible, is “Point your kids in the right direction— when they’re old they won’t be lost.” Childhood is the most impressionable time of someone’s life, and so you want to give them the right impressions about the things that matter most.

Every adult in a child’s life is making impressions on them—aunts and uncles, family friends, grandparents, church volunteers, teachers and classroom aides. Of course, as Andy and Sandra Stanley have pointed out, the source of words determines the weight of those words, and words from a parent weigh the most. So, think about the children in your life:

1. How much do your words (and example) weigh to them?
2. How are you using those words and that example to train them and point them in the right direction?

We should be realistic about the influence we do or do not have, but we should also always be intentional about giving them the right impressions—about themselves, about other people, about money, health, their bodies, the environment, priorities, and, certainly, about faith.

I never realized until someone pointed it out, but that proverb is not just a prescription for how to guide a child: it’s also a warning. Whether you realize it or not, whether you are doing it with care or not, you are training children in the way they’re going to go. We are constantly training them in what kind of behavior is acceptable, what attitudes are normal, what activities are important or unimportant.

Every now and then I’ll hear someone say, “Practice makes perfect,” and someone else will immediately chime in, “Perfect practice makes perfect.” This is point they’re making: you can be trained badly. You can be discipled in the wrong direction. The warning of the proverb is, take care how you train a child, because whatever way you train them in, when they’re old they won’t stray from it.

No one’s going to do this perfectly. God knows I don’t. But we can all strive to do it deliberately, to give thought to the impressions we’re making with our words and examples.

Do you give thought to the words you use and example you set around children, to leave the best impressions you can? Are you intentional about interacting with kids and being a positive influence in their lives?

Remember: engaging and caring for children is what serving our King looks like.

Listen to this devotional right here: