A Different Take On 'Train Up Your Child'

We were having dinner at Wendy's tonight, and I saw a horrific display of disrespecting parents. There was a boy who looked about pre-teen age with his father and grandmother. The boy looked at his dad (who had a cast on his arm) and he said," I can't stand you; why don't you just shut up!" He continued to say 'shut up' many times. My wife saw the grandmother giggling. Well, me in all my country charm, just about offered to this man: "Obviously, one of your arms is healing and your boy needs a thrashing. Do you want me to take him out back?" Apparently, it's not polite to talk about that in public, so I didn't say anything, but you all are going to hear about it now.

Proverbs 22:6 says," Train your child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it."

Now, I'll admit: I like to play with words. The Word of God also says that there is power in words; both for life and death. So, I like to see what life I can eke out of them.

Let's picture training your kid as being a lot like making a place for a locomotive to go. This is going to be a challenge to all the parents (in fact it's challenging me even as I write it). Let's start at zero: picture a train with absolutely no track. It's big, it's powerful and it has the potential to do great things. But it can go nowhere. If it tries to go anywhere, it'll just tear up everything around it. This is not a good thing, especially as we refer back to training children. You have to start somewhere, even if you haven't done much of anything. You may say," I don't know how to teach." I tell you, if you're able to hold down a job, make a living, etc., you could teach them something, even if it doesn't seem like much to you.

So let's go back to the train analogy. Picture a locomotive with not enough track. It's got a full head of steam, making good progress, and it's really going somewhere. Somewhere along the line, it runs out of track. This is possibly worse than having no track at all. We've all seen what happens when trains come off the track. This is a challenge, again, to all the parents: don't ever give up! Don't give up on your marriage and don't ever give up on raising your kids, either. You've started a good thing, now finish what you've started.

I've got to believe that the best way to raise kids is with vision. Picture this: you've not only got them started and kept them going, but you've given them a vision that will far outlast you. You need to understand that the family is the most important thing that you'll ever do. You could give your whole life to some company or job and they'll forget you in six months. Your family will remember you for generations. Understand that you have a position of power and influence. There is no better 'track' to follow than God's Word. It will not only help you steer your own life right, but that will lay the foundation for the future generations of your family.