Listen, My Children. Get Wisdom.

Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction;
    pay attention and gain understanding.
I give you sound learning,
    so do not forsake my teaching.
For I too was a son to my father,
    still tender, and cherished by my mother.
Then he taught me, and he said to me,
    ‘Take hold of my words with all your heart;
    keep my commands, and you will live.
Get wisdom, get understanding;
    do not forget my words or turn away from them. (Proverbs 4:1-5) 

You may know the importance of passing on wisdom to your children, but any of the following may be going through your mind when you consider speaking to your kids this way:

‘Who am I to say this to my child?’: You may not feel like you have much wisdom to pass on, or you don’t know enough of the Bible to share with them. Or you may feel like a hypocrite because you don’t believe your life represents the values you want to pass on, or that you would be able to consistently live up to those values. The truth is that all of us who follow Jesus are a work in progress and have wisdom to share. Even if we don’t know much about the Bible, we can still read it to our kids (especially from a Kids Bible!) and share what we learn from what we read.

‘I want my children to think for themselves’: The message fed to us from our culture is that parents should allow their children to come to their own understanding about who they are, what they believe, and what they value without too much interference. The truth is that our kids don’t learn any of this in a vacuum, and will accept the messages fed to them by our culture (which are often in opposition to the good news of Jesus) unless we give them a biblical alternative.

‘My children don’t want to hear it’: Yes they do. Even if they resist you now, they will learn from you and remember it later.

‘This wasn’t passed down to me’: The writer of this passage in Proverbs 4 lived in a culture that valued wisdom, which was passed on from parents to children. Many of us have parents who communicated values (either spoken or unspoken) that we don’t want to pass on to our kids, or they didn’t adequately live out many values worth passing on. No matter what legacy of wisdom was left to us, we are in the same boat as most of the parents in Bible stories who were also given cracked foundations. 

Even if our children are no longer living with us, let us pray for humility and confidence to pass on wisdom from God our Father who continues to transform us.

This reflection introduces the message on 16th May about parenting. You can listen to it below.