Originally put together for our grown-up children, with much love and admiration, who, like us, are not perfect parents, but whose hearts are in parenting.
SUMMARY 5: YOUR CHILD’S DEVELOPMENT AND A GOD-WARD ORIENTATION
Contrasts between a mocker and a wise adult’s/child’s response to instruction.
Proverbs 9:10 teaches us what ultimately determines whether a child responds as a mocker or as a wise child/adult. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom......."
Parents with their feet on the ground, face the reality that folly is bound up in the heart of that child - even your beautiful child!
And this folly needs to be driven far from that precious child - by discipline.
Proverbs 9:15: “ Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him/her.”
Something is wrong in the child’s heart that requires correction.
Their HEARTS need to be addressed.
Your child’s heart is not neutral......
there are certain kinds of motives, wants, goals, hopes and expectations that rule your child’s heart.
Children are not simply the sum total of what you as parents and other people put into them. Your children have to RESPOND. They will either listen to you, or not; they will either worship God or worship idols.
Will your child listen to you - will your child listen to God?
Parenting is not just providing good input and creating a constructive home atmosphere and positive interaction between a child and his/her parents.
There is also another dimension: God.
Your child is either growing up to get to know and love God or…fighting to make sense of life without God.
Part of the parents’ task is to shepherd their child’s heart and point him or her to the God totally worthy of worship.
Parents have awesome roles and opportunities and, like the children, need God's wisdom which start with fearing and respecting and obeying Him. We pray along these lines for our children and grandchildren, ourselves and every reader for God-ward hearts.
