Walking with the Wise #508: The Power of Parenting

“Be wise, my son, and bring my heart joy,

so that I can answer anyone who taunts me.”
—Proverbs 27:11 (HCSB)

Parenting is hard work, but it is well worth whatever work you put in. To leave a child to their own devices, whims, desires, and appetites without giving them proper guidance, instruction, or correction is to invite shame later in life. If we train our children to be wise and prudent in their decision-making and choices in life, it will bring us great joy and will prevent someone from criticizing our beliefs later in life because our children are the proof of our beliefs put into practice. If they do well, there is no criticism, but if they end up being a fool, we are made to look like fools ourselves.

Be sure, there are no perfect parents, nor is there any perfect parenting technique. After all, God is the only perfect parent and think about how often we have rebelled against Him! What is needed is love, compassion, structure, discipline, nurture—and that all bathed in prayer. Talking to parents with grown children serving the Lord, the one constant I find has been prayer. After everything else is removed, there is a parent on his or her knees in prayer, laying that son or daughter before the Lord, asking and pleading with God to intercede in his or her life. Prayer is the expressed dependence on God that shows that without God we are nothing. And that is what shapes not only us, but the generations who follow after us.

Be wise, love your kids, and take the time to give them what they need, not necessarily what they want, so that Christ might be present in your parenting, directing them through you to follow Him—where true satisfying joy is found, both now and in the years to come. Amen.