Train Up a Child

Solomon's wisdom in Proverbs 22:6 remains one of the truest statements ever made about parenting: train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Yet many children today are not receiving that training, and the results are visible everywhere, disrespect for authority, trouble beginning at younger ages, and a generation growing up without the moral foundation God intended parents to provide. Children are entrusted to us by God Himself, and He carries high expectations for how faithfully we carry out that responsibility. A striking illustration makes this clear. A man once argued that children should be given complete freedom to think and act without guidance, believing this would allow them to reach their fullest potential on their own. His friend, without arguing the point, simply led him to a garden that had once flourished with vegetables but had since been abandoned and overtaken by weeds. The friend explained that after planting it, he had simply let it grow on its own, and the neglect was now painfully obvious.

Just as a garden requires consistent, careful tending to produce fruit, children require the same deliberate attention to reach the potential God has placed within them. God never designed children to train themselves. That responsibility belongs to parents, exercised with patience, consistency, and a foundation rooted in God's ways. Neglecting this duty, whether through busyness, misguided philosophies of freedom, or simple carelessness, produces the same result as an abandoned garden: potential lost to weeds that were never pulled. Let us commit the time, effort, and intentionality required to train the children entrusted to us, trusting that seeds planted and tended faithfully today will bear lasting fruit in the years to come.