"Experiencing God: Your Children's Lives

"Experiencing​ God:  Your Children's Lives"
Proverbs 22:6

Point your kids in the right direction--
when they're old they won't be lost.

Train children in the way they should go;
when they grow old, they won't depart from it.


Most of the kids who were "preacher's kids" when I was going through school, were some of the worst kids, behavior-wise.  It was like they had to prove they were just "normal" kids to everyone, but went overboard in the "normal" department, and quickly became abnormal.  So I was more than a little nervous raising two kids wondering when the wild times would start.  But I was fortunate in that neither Ryan or Kristin went through any kind of rebelliousness.  They were both great kids and great fun to be with as a father.

Being "preacher's kids", Ryan and Kristin grew up in the church.  They went to Sunday School every Sunday.  They went to church every Sunday.  I decided to wait till they were ready to accept Christ and then be baptized.  It was a proud day for me, getting to baptize my own children.  I was the one who taught Confirmation Class, and got to teach both Ryan and Kristin's classes.  They were two of the rowdiest classes of 7th graders I've ever had.  But they were also proud Sunday's when they each joined the church.

Their Christian faith took interesting twists and turns.  Kristin took to the faith with a sense of excitement and adventure.  When in high school, she got admitted into a select Christian choir and performing group that traveled all over the central states one summer.  She had a great time, and wrote me several letters about how her faith was exploding and how she found, in her own way, that God is real.

She went to Azusa Pacific University, the second largest Christian university in the country.  She had great Christian friends and grew into the depth of her faith in Christ.  She volunteered as a tutor in the slums/Watts district of LA with a Christian mission team.  She went to Australia one summer with another mission team.  She was challenged more in her beliefs and grew a lot during those college years.

Ryan heard a different drummer.  It all started when he was going through Confirmation Class.  One of the assignments was to write a statement of faith and read it to the Elders and other parents, and then do the same during a worship service.  Instead of writing a statement of faith, Ryan wrote a statement of doubt.  He wrote about what he wasn't sure about, and wondered out loud if he believed certain things about the Bible and the church and God.  He questioned his faith at an early age.  And it wasn't that he was just tossing out different aspects of his belief system randomly.  He was thinking deeply about his religious convictions, or lack thereof, and we talked a lot about that together.

I wondered, silently, if either of them was thinking about following their old man into the ministry.  Or if they felt any pressure to do so.  I tried not to even bring it up, and I think at one point we talked about it together, and I told them both I was not even going to say anything about it.  It’s one thing to want to be like your parents and maybe take on their profession/vocation.  But when that vocation is the ministry, there may be more guilt about feeling bad that they aren’t even remotely considering that profession.  So I didn’t even want to broach that subject with them.

But, in the back of my mind, I felt like if either of them might do so, it would be Kristin.

Then they stopped going to church.  I just thought it was that college/post-college aged thing that most kids go through.  But it has stuck.  Neither of them, and their spouses have returned to church.  Kristin's husband, Nic, grew up in a strong Christian family, and I know his mother is constantly on them to go to church.  Ryan's wife Amanda grew up in a Methodist church in Wichita.

Now, it's not a matter of just not going to church.  Kristin has become interested in exploring Zen Buddhism.  And Ryan is not interested in anything that has to do with religion, be it Christian or otherwise.

So, I guess I really don’t have to wonder about either of them going to the ministry.


So I wonder about this proverb in the book of proverbs:
Train children in the way they should go;
when they grow old, they won't depart from it.

There’s a couple of ways to look at this wisdom saying.  It’s all in how you interpret the phrase, “…they should go.”  If you look at it from a dictatorial, parental view, you are the one who is determining the “way they should go.”  You decide how you think your children should end up, and make sure you force them in that direction.  If you do your job well, according to the proverb, your children will keep going on the path you set for them.

But the proverb could be interpreted differently.  “Train children in the way they should go…”  In other words, know and understand your children so well, their inclinations, their gifts, their talents, their ideals, their wishes and dreams, that you help them grow in those directions—“the way they should go”—because it just makes sense.    It fits, for them.  You, as parents, help them become what they are individually inclined to be.  That you take them into account, not just your own agenda for them.

I, of course, like the second interpretation of the proverb, and that form of parenting over the first by far.  And in that way, I think I have been a good parent.  Even though, at this point, neither Ryan and Kristin have decided to make the Christian faith a part of their lives, I feel like I brought them up to know what the faith is all about.  It’s not like they are totally ignorant of Christianity, so they don’t even know what they are missing.  They do know what they are missing, and now they get to make that decision, and accept the consequences.  It’s not like I gave them the choice, when they were growing up, to decide for themselves about attending Sunday School and church, and youth group.  I didn’t give them a choice in that matter.  I upheld my part of the proverb:  I “trained my children.”  And a large part of that training was about the Christian faith.

And I like the rendering of this proverb in The Message Bible:
Point your kids in the right direction--
when they're old they won't be lost.

The important words here are “right direction.”  What’s the right direction?  As we’ve been reading in Experiencing God, the right direction is toward a relationship with God.  The proverb, in this version, says that a parent’s responsibility is to do the pointing.  That doesn’t mean your kids will eventually go the direction you’re pointing.  But at least you have done your job.

As in the more standard version of this proverb, the parental responsibility is to “train.”  When Ryan was really young he loved to hit balls with bats.  As soon as he could stand, hitting something with a bat was one of his favorite things to do.  So I started “training” him.  I got him one of those fat bats.  Then I’d pitch a balloon to him.  The balloon came in slow enough he could get a good eye on it and whack it.

Then I changed to a beach ball.  It came in a bit faster, but was still large enough and slow enough for him to get a good eye on, and whack it.  As he became proficient with each type of ball, I just kept getting a smaller and smaller ball, until we were down to a wiffle ball the size of a softball.  And I got a skinny plastic bat, so he had to keep a better eye on the ball when I pitched it to him.  By the time he was two, he could hit an underhand pitched baseball nearly every time.  I had trained him, and he had a natural aptitude for it.

When he got old enough for T-ball, they called him “Boomer” because he could hit a ball over the outfield fence into the cemetery on the other side.  But when he got old enough to play little league, as good as he was, he decided he just didn’t like baseball.  We had spent hours together, him pitching to me, and him hitting his booming home runs.  But despite all that “training” he chucked it.  It was a bit hard for me, but I had to listen and pay attention to what his passion was and the way he wanted to go.  Baseball wasn’t going to be it.

And he did the same thing with the Christian faith.  Something that he had an “aptitude” for ended up being put aside.  Again, it was, and has been, really hard for me.  It isn’t a pride thing, or an ego thing for me.  I had to prayerfully ponder that one for a long time.  Did Ryan and Kristin's choice for setting aside the faith hurt because it somehow made ME look bad?  That here I was, a pastor, and my own son and daughter have left the faith?  That it somehow reflects bad on me, so I should be all embarrassed?  No.  I wouldn’t go there.

Blackaby is understandably proud of his children and now some grandchildren, who have followed him into the ministry.  And that they are strong in their Christian faith.  But I am just as proud of Ryan and Kristin for all they are doing with their lives, even though, for now, it is outside the faith.

I have done my part.  I have trained.  And I have pointed.  And I think I did my part well, in that respect.  But at this point in their lives, this choice as to what they believe or not believe is up to them.  What God has asked of me, as their father, is to train and point towards God every chance I got.  That’s what God asks of any parent.


The other part of this proverb is also a great comfort.  As The Message Bible has it, “…they won’t be lost.”  One of the great things about being a Christian parent is understanding that it’s not all up to you.  First, when a child is baptized, the congregation takes a vow to help the parent bring up the child in the Christian faith, to be a real part of their Christian nurture.  All of you who have said "yes" to that question numerous  times when a child is baptized, are promising to have a part in that child's Christian journey.  Every one of you who has had a child baptized, also has the whole congregation to lean on in raising your children in the faith.  I take YOUR promise very seriously--and hopefully you do too when it comes to the training and pointing for the children of this congregation.

But, even though you do your Christian training, and your God-pointing, if your kids choose otherwise, you still have hope.

“They won’t be lost.”  What that says to me is that God is promising he has other resources.  That to God, our kids will not be lost.  God will not let our kids be lost, if we have done our job as parents.

I see this time and time again in Ryan’s life.  God keeps putting people in Ryan’s life that are also part of God’s God-pointing work.  One of Ryan’s best friends while he was a student at KU was also a PK—preacher’s kid.  His father was a Lutheran pastor.  When Ryan and Amanda got married, this friend was Best Man.  I had a conversation with him at the wedding, and I found out he and Ryan talked a lot about God and what they believed or didn’t believe.  I smiled to myself because I knew what God was up to in my son’s life.  And it was a further affirmation for me that “…they won’t be lost.”

I’ve kind of realized, I probably won’t be the one who tips the balance when and if Ryan or Kristin choose to open themselves back up to a relationship with God.  But I have been a large part of Ryan and Kristin's journey in the faith.  I’ve done my part as their father.  And I have faith that God is continuing that work.