Listen, sons, to a father’s discipline,
and pay attention so that you may gain understanding,
for I am giving you good instruction.
(Proverbs 4:1-2a)
There are so many avenues of information being thrown at us. We have our news feed on our phone being updated every hour, friends and family members sharing with us about the most up-to-date information about helpful (and often times, random) news, and constant emails regarding changes and protocols that are required for working in 2021 and beyond. How are we supposed to process all of this information? How do we know what to pay attention to, and what to disregard? Did this dilemma exist before the 21st century?
In today’s reading of Proverbs, Solomon was speaking not only to his sons, but to “sons” in general. He wanted to get the attention of those he loved, the future generations. From this reading, there are three words of encouragement for us as parents and maybe in-the-future parents. The first is that the home continues to be a prominent area of learning for children as parents pass on information and life lessons, as mentioned in Deuteronomy 6. As parents, there is the temptation to shirk our responsibilities in training up our children in the ways of the Lord. But we need to remember all the other influences our children have in getting information. Some ways can be helpful and good but many have faulty foundations.
The second word of encouragement to parents is that we are called to persevere in our teaching of God’s truth. The first word of verse 1 is “listen”, so obviously there is a natural hesitancy or resistance from children when it comes to a parent’s discipline and instruction. When times of discouragement come because your children don’t listen to you, we still need to instruct them. Good parenting does not mean just being popular.
The third word of encouragement to parents is to go to God’s word daily to get this good instruction to pass on to our children. We need to be spending time in God’s word so our teaching will come from God’s word. We will pass along information from what we hear and study. Let’s make sure we are in God’s word daily and ask God how to impart His truth to our children.