Have you ever heard someone say that Proverbs are not promises? Have you ever thought about what that means? I think about Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
I am not comfortable where my son is spiritually right now. I have much more influence on him now than I will very shortly when he gets his drivers license. Of course, it only diminishes after that. At some point, he might come around from his current stance that he knows more about life than I do. But what does Proverbs 22:6 say about my job as a parent to this point?
As a parent I know I have made many mistakes. Unfortunately, I believe I will make more. When I hear that the Proverbs are not promises, it helps me justify how I have helped to mold my son into who he is now. I realize God is not done with him. However, God gave him the "gift" of choice. It was and is my job to mold that gift so that he makes correct choices. But what if he doesn't? What if he chooses not to have a relationship with God?
2 Timothy 3:14-17 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
All scripture includes Proverbs. All scripture is truth. I wonder if buying into the statement that Proverbs are not promises, it helps me feel better about the job I have or haven't done as a parent? If I am being the parent God wants me to be, would not Proverbs 22:6 be a promise?
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2 comments:
Hey - I just wanted you to know I have read, re-read and thought about this over and over. Hence my delay in commenting. Of course, by now you may have mentally moved on - but in blog world you have only progressed as far as your last blog, so... :)
First, I have and will continue praying for you guys.
I think the question you ask is a scary one that people struggle with because of all the variables that we can't seem to keep in line with how we understand that verse:
People always have the questions -
"What about this parent who did it all right... and this one who did it all wrong... and look at their kids who "turned out" good or bad?" (Depending on which conversation you may be having.)
I think you are right to trust scripture, including Proverbs. God is believeable, and He doesn't set out to mislead or decieve us to have hope in something that He won't actually work in. Certainly we have to use insight. Not every promise that is verbalized in every book of the bible is a direct promise to us personally. For example, there are some quoted promises that were for a specific individual or just the Jewish nation, etc. I don't think that is the case here, though.
He tells us to train them in the way they should go. I am thinking of another verse that speaks of the fact that God's word given out never returns in vain or without effect. That is a promise. I may not always know what His Word's effect is, and it may not match up with what I had envisioned, but I can trust His guidance.
"...And when he is old, he will not turn from it."
Of course, I have in my mind that means my child will never get off the path. ( My dream & desire.) But I am sure that God sees the "success" in the prodigal son who found his way back as much as in the one who never left.
The span between "young" and "old" have a lot of roller coaster rides in between.
But He is faithful. And you continue to be faithful to Him.
Certainly B. has his own choices to make, ( or we would all train our children right into heaven!) But God is trustworthy in giving us reliable direction to follow.
Granted, I wish He would have inserted an actual training manual with details and specifics outlining the "way He should go."
But really - I don't think we need that like we think we do. We know The Way. Your situation has it's challenges, no doubt, as yours isn't the only voice he hears.
But your God is trustworthy- and a perfect Father who loves B. even more than you. You remain faithful to pointing B. to Him. Even when it seems B. is off the path you want Him on.
God was faithful in your own life, even if you had all convinced they may have failed you because of the choices you made. Look at you now.
See B. then (20 years from now), as well as now. Love him like he is already there. Keep showing him the Father. Keep believing your Father will work in that & be faithful.
I don't know everything about the meanings of this verse, but it is always right to believe God, even if he reshapes our understanding along the way.
Love you guys!
I don't know if this is helpful or more troubling, but here goes anyway. While I do believe that the Scriptures are inspired, they cannot all be read the same and none of them can be read like a recipe. None of us would a Robert Frost poem the same way we would read Shakespearean tragedy, much less a letter from our mother. Likewise, none of us should read one of the gospels the same way we would read one of Paul's letters or a Psalm. All of these, while inspiried, are different types of literature about God, humanity, and creation. (And none of them gives an easy bullet pointed list on how to succeed in life, how to be saved, or how to raise a child. It might be easier if it did, maybe harder. We have no way of knowing.)
The proverbs are just that, proverbs, reflections on life. Proverbs are generalizations on life that people have made after observing the way things happen in the world. They are not intended to be hard and fast rules, saying "if you do x or y this way, you will always get z." If they were, how could Solomon have concluded that we should both "not answer fools according to their folly" (25:4) and "answer fools according to their folly" (25:5)? Can both be the correct response if these are scientific truths? I don't think so. Rather, they are both true generalizations about how the world often works.
Unfortunately, our churches have often abused the proverbial literature in Scripture. In doing so, they have periodically driven parents away from the church or into them deep guilt with the way they have read Prov. 22:6 as a scientific law rather than a general rule on life. I have known far too many amazing, godly parents whose children have chosen to go another way to their own fault, not at the parents' fault.
Doug, I don't know if this is helpful, if it makes sense, or if you will even find it here, but I think you have the right answer in your post, but you put it as a question. You have attempted to train him to walk the way of Christ. You have modelled that lifestyle for him. Now, he has to chose. The choice is not yours. It has to be his. Your job is to continue to show him the way and the love of Christ.
I seem to remember a story in Scripture about a father that modelled the life of faith for his boys. Yet, neither of them realized it and chose another way. The younger took off, left home and lived wildly. The other stuck around, but did so with bitterness, malignful intent, and much resentment in his heart. At the end of the day, one of them awoke from their ethical slumber and remembered the way their father had always modeled the way of Jesus for them. He "came to his senses" or had a "conversion experience," so to speak. So, the prodigal gathered himself together and went back to his father, knowing that even the servants were treated in a godly manner by his father.
Who knows when we will chose to walk our lives of faith WITH God? Often, though, it only happens because we learned how to walk that life, how to walk "the way [we] should go" from people who walked it so well in front of us before. Keep walking the way, but also keep looking on the horizon. I pray that the day will quickly come when you see his head journeying the pathway home...
I love you and am thankful for the faith that you model for me, even from so far away. (Plus, you have to keep my dad in line! That's a full time job.) I will continue to pray for y'all.
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