Mahatma Gandhi, the well-known leader from India once said, “Live as though you were to die tomorrow and learn as though you were to live forever.” I love it! Likewise, we must learn to be trained as though we are going to live to be a hundred. We must do whatever it takes. We must keep going until the very last tick on that clock. There was a wonderful 92-year-old lady in our congregation who I watched pick up a CD of one of my messages as she was leaving church one Sunday. I was thinking to myself as she ambled out the door, “The truth is, she could preach a better sermon and knows more on the topic than I do,” and yet she wanted to continue growing! We’re never too old to learn.
Let’s see what God says about eternal training:
1. Train, Using Every Resource Possible
The word “train” in this verse is the only time in Scripture where the King James translators rendered it in this manner. Most often, it is the word dedicate. Consider this example in Deuteronomy 20:5, “And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, what man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.” Dedicating your home was a very prominent thing in the Middle East. It was something that, for the most part, everybody in that culture did. It was a serious act of consecration. In essence, they were making a statement like, “this home cost us a lot… this home has taken a lot out of us and we want it to be used for the honor and glory of the Lord. We now set it aside to be used for Him.” When they would dedicate a home to the Lord they would pray, praise and worship, for it was a very serious consecration.
Joshua dedicated (trained) his home to God, “…but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). Training is more than education. It is more than a simple transferring of knowledge. To train is to prepare children for what they were designed. Just as a house is designed to be lived in, so children must be dedicated to serve God.
Training is more than simply giving out facts. Too many parents leave the transferring of ideals to whatever method they come. The University of North Carolina identified, in an insightful study, that there are over 150 different teaching methods. Here is just a partial list: lecture, class discussion, recitation, discussion groups, presentation from a panel, presentations by student panel, student reports, informal debate, small groups, task oriented discussion groups, collecting items, reading assignments, outlining portions of textbooks, formal debates, crossword puzzles, cooking foods, construction of vocabulary lists, diaries, dancing, panel discussions, term papers, jigsaw puzzles, testing, pretesting, gaming, simulation flashcards, flowcharts, interviews, models, music, drama, role playing, textbook study, notebook, quiz down, pen pals, photographs, slides, film strips, puppets, problem solving survey and storytelling. The point? The point is, let’s get the truth into hearts! However, whenever, wherever…let’s get it into those little hearts. Whatever it takes, train up a child. Training is “dedicating.” Dedication is a serious and deep commitment. Parents must not leave this to chance. Use every single method you can to truly dedicate them.
2. Train Them at The Best Times
“Train up a child in the way he should go…” (Proverbs 22:6).
Notice who the scripture says to train – a child. The definition of a child in the Hebrew Bible at times means baby, but most often it is referring to a young person. In each era of life there seems to be a “port of entry” into the spirit that is unique. For example, I don’t think that a two-year-old is going to be able to listen to a thirty-minute speech and get much application out of it. They might get truth from a thirty-second one though. Each era has its own capabilities. Children can learn extraordinarily difficult things in an incredibly short amount of time. For example, our firstborn son, Luke, was talking in small sentences by the time he was one, and I am not exaggerating! To have gone from the womb to a 1-year-old and to not only be saying words, but sentences, is just amazing. Oh the power of the human mind! I have tried to learn some Spanish as an adult. Thirty years later about all I know is, “Taco.” I’m not sure why we dumb down spiritual training. If children can learn a language when they’re 9 months old, why wouldn’t they be able to learn a spiritual language in their youth, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Parents must look for the best time to train. Strike when the iron is hot. As a boy, I liked working with heated metal coat hangers and beating them into a small knife. I would place the hanger on top of the coals in the fireplace and let it sit for several minutes. After the metal was red hot, I would go outside onto the sidewalk with a hammer and I would pound that thing until it was flat (I really wanted to be a Christian blacksmith when I grew up ). One thing I discovered about metal work was that if that metal lost its red color, there was no way you were going to smash it down. There was only a brief amount of time when that iron was workable, and that’s when you had to strike. Every child has a unique era of “hotness.” Train up a child scripture says. Whether they are a baby, a child, or a young person, take advantage of their youthful mind. This principle struck close to home for me as one of my daughters was readying for marriage. I realized, while sitting at the dinner table one night a few months before her wedding, that whatever opportunities I had to speak practical truths into her youthful heart were now going to be extremely limited. Strike while the iron is hot.
3. Train Them in a Godly Way
“Train up a child...” (Proverbs 22:6).
Train up, not whatever way that little vine wants to go, but train them up. Train up a child in the right way and in the way they should go. In the book of Acts, Christians were called, “the Way” (Acts 9:2). It’s an interesting name because it suggests a definite plan, not just whatever they want to do. I have had parents tell me that they let their children decide for themselves if they want to go to church. Wow…now that is parenting at its best right there – letting the children do whatever they want! First of all, that is hypocrisy. No parent really lets children do whatever they want. Do they make them go to school? Yes or no? They make them go to school because they know what’s best for them. When it comes to spiritual things, the devil makes parents think they are wonderful people by not pushing religion on them. Moms and dads are to train children up in the way they should go.
There’s a way, and it’s not just any way, it’s the way they should go and it’s not in the way they would go. Liberal educators and socialism says that people left to themselves, in a good environment, will do good things. Liberals say that people naturally do good things unless a bad environment has tainted them. Makes sense right? There is only one small problem. We all have an internal bent downward…a bias, and that bias is called a sin nature. It’s not my ENviroment that gives me the trouble as much as my INviroment; my inner bents. In theology, it’s called the total depravity of man. It would be nice if you could take a pig and put it out in a beautiful field, call it a sheep and then watch that pig turn into a sheep, but that just doesn’t happen. It would be nice if you could take humans and put them in a brand new apartment complex where they have security guards and gates all around and create a safe little utopia. It never fails, however, that if you put people in there, it won’t be long until it’s a mess. We see this unfortunate fact in communities all over America. People don’t naturally rise up to the way they should go; they have to be trained up.
We humans naturally will go to the lowest common denominator. If you give a person a choice between a narrow, hard road or a broad and easy road they will by default pick the easy way. When the Holy Spirit has been brought into the lives of sons and daughters through wise parenting, He can change that bias!
4. Train for Spiritual Battle
I get a sense of urgency when reading Proverbs 22:9. Not just any kind of training will do. God is saying to train them and equip them for conflict in their spiritual battle. What kind of an army would it be that would take young men who are sitting on their couches playing video games, then hand them a gun, put them on a plane and then say, “You are going to fight in Afghanistan.” That would be terrible! Both for themselves and others. They need good leaders to drill them and whip them into shape and get them ready. Life is a war.
It seems to me that the overwhelming mindset many modern parents have is, “How much fun can we help our kids have?” Of course fun is important. It is especially important as a reward after they’ve done their duties, such as homework. However, the Bible doesn’t say give them as much fun as possible. It rather states to train them. Nowhere do I read, “Make sure your kids have lots of fun,” yet it seems like that’s the unwritten rule in today’s world. I see it portrayed again and again in the media. The more fun everyone has, the better the parents are made out to be. If we adopt that kind of a mindset, we are going to raise a child that will lose in life’s battles. They are going to get eaten up by the enemy.
We need to train them to follow their spiritual commander; Jesus! I had to laugh when I read one of the newest rulings in the U.S. Army. They are not going to allow tattoos below the elbow and the knee and also above the shoulders. Why? Well, it seems they have done studies and discovered that people who get tattoos are less disciplined. Even the U.S. Army knows that to allow young adults to do whatever and look however they want is not in their (or anyone else’s) best interest. Nevertheless, it seems as though many parents today are fine to let children become whatever feels good. God says train them up!
5. Train Children, as they are Capable
“Train up a child in the way he should go:” (Proverbs 22:6).
Notice it says to train a child in the way that he should go. Charles Swindoll wrote that he felt like this phrase meant, “as they are bent.” Every tree has its own unique style that is special to it. Gardeners allow some flexibility while still keeping the tree within some fixed parameters. An application might be this: let’s say your daughter has an interest in music, so you try and facilitate that within financial, time and style reason. In my studies, the words “should go” actually comes from a Hebrew word which means, “according to the rate or proportion of.” The original concept in Hebrew is from the word, “mouth.” For example, if we’re planning to feed a baby, we don’t prepare them a T-bone steak! If we do, we grind it all up so as to make sure they don’t choke. God is saying in this verse that you train up somebody according to the “rate or proportion thereof.” That is, to train them as their “mouth” can take it. When they are little, you give them milk. As they get older, they get meat, but only a little at a time. The same is true spiritually. Parents are to be constantly helping them acclimate to adult food. How crazy it would be to allow an 8-year-old child to still be drinking out of a bottle! Every parent needs some time alone, but while you have the children still at home, take as many moments as you can to try and put even a little taste of food in their mouth.
6. Train Them with all Seriousness
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
There is a serious and extreme responsibility to parenting. Parents only get one chance. Children are young only once. The hope is that something you’ve put in them, as they are young, will carry them through the rest of their life. I’m confident that this happens when it’s done with seriousness, prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit.
I have a little wide mouth water jug that I use when playing tennis or exercising. My drink of choice in this little container is green tea with some Splenda in it. When I first got it this jar it was all clean and bright, but after months of having green tea inside, its plastic walls have gotten stained. One day, I just wanted to drink plain water. I put the water into the stained jug and guess what? After a couple of hours, the water tasted just like green tea! That plastic hardened jug had been so steeped in green tea that it had left a lasting impression. It was permanently embedded into the very molecules of that plastic. That, my friend, is what parents should hope to do with their son or daughter, to permanently taint them for the Lord.
Unfortunately, some children will and do depart from the faith. In fact, Solomon, the human author of this verse, did for a time. But years of ministry, reading and observation have taught me something about this verse. Here it is; that absolutely, hands down, and without any doubt, when parents are serious about getting the Word into their family, that son or daughter will NEVER be able to get away from it. They may not obey the truth but it will be in them all of their life. They can’t get away from it, even if they tried. They can go to Antarctica or the North Pole or in the deepest jungle and escape the truth. They could put earphones on and go into Scientology and wash their mind, but they will never get away from the Word that was placed in them by concerned parents! If the Word of God has been driven into their DNA, it has been permanently imbedded and they will never get passed it.
There was a wonderful older man that began attending our church. Nearly every time I preached, he wept. I mean, for several years, every time I preached he would be stricken with grief. I asked him his story. He recounted that he had been raised in a solid Christian home but walked away from it. He told me, “I may have walked away from God, but He never walked away from me!” He said, “This is going to sound strange to you, but I actually used to be at a bar with a drink in front of me witnessing to somebody about the Lord!” He wept because he realized how many years he had wasted. Thank God he came back to the Lord and was a faithful supporter and friend of the ministry until he moved.
Hallelujah! What a blessing to know that as Bible-believing parents, we have forever “messed up” our children, but it’s the good kind of messing isn’t it? My mom used to tell me, “Son, all these little children of yours are just like little computers…just keep programming them.” Amen, Mom…I did it!
