Planting Trees--Proverbs series

As you all know, Carmen and I are in the early stages of the exciting adventure called “parenting.” We’re at that stage right now where Adrianna isn’t too hard to figure out. If she’s fussy, there are about four or five potential causes of her fussiness, and we can move down the checklist fairly quickly and get things figured out. I know things will change drastically from here, and I’m sure you’ll all have a few laughs at our expense as we try to figure this thing out.

I came across a song recently that I think beautifully captures the heart of what Christian parents are seeking to do as we raise our children. It’s a song by Andrew Peterson called “Planting Trees.” In this song, he compares the process of raising children to the act of planting trees, and his point is that in both activities, our goal is to leave behind a blessing for the people who come after us. When you plant a tree, oftentimes you are not the one who will receive the most benefit from its shade or its fruit—those who come after you will. In Peterson’s song, he wants us to think about raising children in the same way—that we will do it with the idea of leaving behind a blessing for future generations. In other words, our goal is to leave behind a gift in the form of our children that will be a blessing to others in the name of Jesus Christ.

Now that is certainly a lofty goal that can easily get hidden behind all the diapers and the temper tantrums and the sleepless nights. But how can we work toward a goal like that? Today we’re going to take a look at what the book of Proverbs has to say about raising children. There is much more that could be said about this subject, and that’s why people have written entire books about it. But today we’re just going to focus on the contribution that Proverbs makes to our understanding of biblical parenting.

I. Parents should be teaching moral principles to their children

I’m sure this sounds like stating the obvious, but let’s break this down into a few important points.

a. Parents bear the primary responsibility for teaching their children about life

This point is illustrated by the fact that much of Proverbs was written by Solomon for the express purpose of teaching his son. The last chapter also contains the teaching that a mother passed down to her son, so we might think of this book as a record of what we’re supposed to teach our children, because that’s the express purpose of so much of it. Just listen to how often this parent-child focus comes up in this book:

1:8–9: “Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, 9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”

3:1–2: “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, 2 for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.”

4:10: “Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.”

4:20: “My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.”

5:1–2: “My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, 2 that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.”

6:20: “My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.”

7:1: “My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you;”

31:1: “The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him.”

It’s clear that these parents recognized how important their teaching responsibility was. They told their children that their lessons could add years to their lives and would help them understand life. With something that is so important, it is clear that we cannot pass this responsibility on to anyone else; it has been given to us by God, and we must willingly devote ourselves to it.

As parents, we cannot pass this responsibility on to schools. We cannot simply send our kids to school and assume that they will come out prepared for life. Schools are a service for parents to use to help their children grow academically, but they are not a substitute for parenting. They’re not really designed to address the moral and spiritual aspects of life, nor can they easily overcome a lack of discipline in the home. So schools are a service for parents, but not a substitute for parents.

Nor can we as parents pass the responsibility to raise our kids to the church. The church cannot make up for a lack of moral and spiritual teaching in the home. Think about this—if your child attends our Sunday School and is involved in our AWANA program, then our children’s ministries are teaching them for about three hours a week. That doesn’t even come close to the amount of time that they spend with you, especially when they’re young!

The church cannot make up for that time difference, nor can we match the influence that you have in your child’s life. Your children might hear about Christianity from me, but they’ll decide whether or not they think it’s true based on your example. If you don’t teach them spiritual lessons, they might still learn some things about God, but they’ll probably learn that God is the God of Sundays and maybe Wednesdays, but the rest of the week He seems to be irrelevant to Mommy and Daddy’s life.

Now this is not to say that you need to have a daily church service with your kids. (You should particularly make sure that you don’t take up an offering. They really wouldn’t like that very much!) It can be very beneficial to have a daily devotional time with your kids, and there are many good devotional books out there that can help you do that. But it may be even more beneficial to just take advantage of those brief moments throughout the day that give you a golden opportunity to help your kids see life from a biblical perspective. In Deuteronomy 6:6–7, Moses says, “These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” This is plan “A” for teaching our children about the faith—parents using the everyday moments of life to pass on the faith to their children.

Not only do parents have the responsibility to teach moral principles to their children, but…

b. Parents should teach their children about every aspect of life

As you read through the book of Proverbs, you encounter teaching on a very wide range of subjects—everything from money to fearing God to sexuality and friendship and laziness and humility and leadership! Think of a question about almost any aspect of human life and behavior, and you can probably find at least one proverb that addresses it. I believe this shows us that our responsibility to teach our children extends to every aspect of life. There is no section of life that lies outside of our responsibility to teach our children. Now maybe you hear that and think, “That sounds great, Tim, but I’m no Solomon! I’m not an expert in every area of life.” Neither am I, but that’s why Solomon and others wrote down godly wisdom for us, so we could pass it on to our children, too. We don’t have to personally know all the answers—we just need to remember that we have a message from God that does have all the answers and we can always turn to it to learn what we need.

There should be no issue that is off-limits for a discussion with our kids. We should remind them of that, and even beyond that we should take the initiative to talk to our kids about potentially embarrassing subjects. Perhaps the granddaddy of all embarrassing subjects is the issue of sexuality. I don’t know of anyone who really enjoys talking about this issue with their kids, but we have to get past that knot in our stomachs and address this issue. You don’t want the bathroom wall at school to be your child’s primary teacher on sexuality! And when our children are being told today that casual sex doesn’t hurt anyone and homosexuality is okay, we have got to counter those messages. We can’t simply assume that our children will adopt our point of view on those matters; we must lovingly teach them about God’s good plan for sexuality and patiently deal with any questions that they have.

So we must take the lead in teaching our kids in every area of life, and…

c. Parents should start to instruct their children at a young age

Look at Prov. 4:1–4 with me. Notice how Solomon describes himself when his father began to instruct him about life [READ 4:1–4]. Solomon describes himself as being just a “tender” child when he started to learn these things. That word refers to a child whose character is in the early stages of development. He was in his formative years when he began to receive this instruction. This is a great observation to help us see the importance of teaching our kids when they’re young. We always remark about how our children grow up so fast. We need to remember that as we think about teaching them! We need to remember that they probably know more than we think they do, and they can probably understand more than we think they can. Do you remember how frustrating it was for you as a child when people treated you like you were dumb? Well, remember that as you deal with your children—they will often be slightly ahead of where we think they are, so get an early start on teaching them.

For all of you parents around my age, I think it is almost certain that we will have to teach our kids about sexuality at a younger age than we were taught. That brings up some tricky questions about how to be age-appropriate as we deal with that issue, but we probably need to get started sooner than we think.

Or if you know that you want to take a particular approach to dating. It’s probably not a good idea to wait until your kids are 16 or 17 and then say, “Oh, by the way—here’s how we want to approach dating.” Start young and help them see your point of view so they’ll know what to anticipate.

Now I know that for many of you, its too late to get an early start on teaching your kids, but its never too late to serve in that teaching role for them. God can still provide many opportunities where they might come to you for guidance, or you can let them know that you want to serve in that role for them. It will certainly take some wisdom to approach a conversation like that. You don’t want to say, “Son, as I look at you, its pretty obvious that I messed up as a parent. But now I want to fix things. Whad’ya say?” No, it will probably require you to humbly say, “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I have not been a perfect parent. I’m proud of who you are despite my imperfections. I don’t know if you feel like I failed to teach you about certain things, but I’d like to help you now if there’s any way that I can.” And from there, you can gently ask about different things in their lives.

It may not be possible to travel back in time, but its always possible to seek to do what God has called us to do. And when you make that commitment, oftentimes you’ll be amazed at the doors that God will open that may have seemed like they were permanently shut.

As parents, we have a precious and sacred responsibility as we raise our children. We will probably feel inadequate more often than not, and we may often get discouraged. But God has marked out a clear path for us, and as the psalmist has said, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:7–9). The path may not be easy, but it is firm and sure, and it provides us with a firm footing from which to lift our children up as a gift to God and to the world.