Parents aren’t perfect, and in many situations they aren’t even loving or nurturing. Neither my husband nor I had particularly nurturing mothers, and neither of us had any relationship with our fathers. And nowadays, there are so many dysfunctional families that many children are raising themselves, or in foster homes being raised by people other than their parents. They may not have much of a relationship with their own parents, or even with any parental figure that they can really trust.

However, if you are a parent or a substitute parent, you should be praying diligently for wisdom and guidance from God in order to do a good job of raising your child (or children) for the Lord. There are some specific guidelines in God’s Word that will help. Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7 are two of my favorite verses: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” It seems to me that these verses are telling us that we should be living in a way that is pleasing to the Lord and teaching our children to do the same, both with words and actions.

Somehow, families have strayed so far from this teaching. I know many parents who quote Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Without being diligent to follow the above teaching, they expect their children to eventually follow the Lord, or they question why that didn’t happen to their children when they thought that they had “trained up their child in the way he should go.” However, Satan has deceived many parents by making them think they are actually training their children in the way they should go just by taking them to Sunday School and church, praying with them at mealtime and/or bedtime, and perhaps even having a short family devotional time.

Although doing those things are fine, just think about all the time that children spend away from their parents, either in a public (or even in a private school), and possibly taking music lessons, playing sports, maybe playing video games, watching television, or even just hanging out with others. I honestly believe that we need to start thinking differently about this, rather than going by what we have experienced ourselves, or see around us. If God wants parents “to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” from the time they rise up until the time they lie down, then there has to be some lifestyle changes within families. There really are resources out there that can be a help to parents who realize they need to make some changes. Contact me if you need some encouragement or ideas.

If you would like to read more on a similar topic, here is a link to another blog post: “God’s Formula for Raising Children in 2020” from Road Less Traveled Tours.