Train A Child In The Way He Should Go...

In Proverbs 22:6, King Solomon wrote, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn (depart) from it." How true I find this advice.

I recalled how when I was young my own parents taught me certain values in life and till today I can still remember them well and in turn I have passed some of these (plus others that I picked up along the way) on to my own children. And just the other day I was watching the 7PM Korean soap "Precious Family" and was being reminded how precious the early lessons were to the youngest daughter in this family. She broke up with her boyfriend whom she very much wanted to marry but because of family restrictions, she could not.

And at one point, out of her frustration, she arranged to meet up with her ex-boyfriend and they rented a hotel room so that they could talk and try to comfort each other. And it was there and then that she said she was very tempted to throw her virtues out the window so as to have one last fling before they go their separate ways. At precisely that moment, her conscience caught her and she retracted. She reminded herself that she was the youngest daughter of the vice-principal of the middle school in her district and being of a certain pedigree, she cannot let her family reputation go down the drain.

And that reminded me of how we should train our own children. No, I am not saying that we should nag at our children to guard our good reputation but rather we should show them Christ and His love for them and to encourage them as beloved children of Abba Daddy. Once they know their true identity, they will not want to go the way of the world but will learn to appropriate the love that Daddy God had showered on them and will bear His image.

Well, the Apostle John recognized that and he was so filled with the love of Abba Daddy that he changed from a hot-tempered, foul-mouthed fisherman to become the Apostle of Love and wrote the Gospel of john and his three letters to the churches to encourage them and there was a bonus issue - he got to meet with the Risen Christ in a vision and penned what he saw in the Book of Revelations.