Even When They Are Old
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Meditating upon that verse this week, from Proverbs 22:6, it was that latter phrase that struck me — “Even when he is old?” See our eldest child is seven. To put that in perspective, when she is old, let’s say 77 — I think Proverbs would be okay with calling her old at 77 — it will be the year 2094, which alone seems absolutely ludicrous to me. I cannot for the life of me imagine it, in fact I struggle to even belief it could be reality one day.
And yet, should the Lord tarry, and continue to uphold her, and continue to uphold our world, it will — my children, your children, in their old age.
We could ask, what will they be like in old age? What will they love? What will they fear? What will they call good? What will they call bad? Where will they look for life and security and satisfaction? Proverbs 22:6, I believe, tells us:
“Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Said another way, you want to know where our children will look for life and security and satisfaction when they’re old? Odds are, they will look for it in the same places we told them to look for it, when they were young.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Now, I don’t take this as a promise without exceptions. I believe Proverbs works in the realm of generalities — there are exceptions to the rule; there are children trained in godliness who end up departing from godliness. And yet though generality it may be, it is still weighty enough to demand our attention: What we train our children in today, they will likely continue in tomorrow, even to old age.
Which should make us ask ourselves, what are we training our children in? With the words that we say? The things that we do? In our demeanor? In our tone? In the way we schedule our time, spend our money, place our focus, expend our energy? Where are we telling them, with our life, to look for life?
As some of you know, we have a parenting conference coming up, Friday night February 16 and Saturday morning February 17 over in Mounds View at The North Church. We want as many of our people as possible to register for it and attend. In fact, if we can get enough of our people there, they’ll even reserve a room there for us to hang out in between sessions and process through things together.
More than anything, I think this conference will simply offer the busy, overwhelmed, and distracted parents of our church the time to simply stop and ask questions. Where are we telling our children to look for life? And what do we need to change, to make sure they’re hearing, “Son, daughter, life, true life, eternal life is only found in Jesus.”
Lets pray.