children

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (Prov 22:6)

For those of us with children, this is a comforting verse. We invest time and prayer, love and patience in our children. Though each child grows up to make their own decisions, we hope they will choose to walk as Christians. A few months ago I had a curious dream about one of my nieces. She is a very up-standing person, but does not live as one who has faith in God. Yet in the dream she said her faith was “not my mother’s faith.” I’ve also seen this niece in another dream singing in a church choir, when, in reality she does not attend church. Besides the Lord giving me glimpses of His work in my niece’s life, I have seen my own children in dreams, receiving the blessing of the Lord. In reality, one does not yet confess Jesus is Lord. The Lord was using the dreams as a way to show me that our adult children were in His hands, and He was at work in their lives.

Tonight I remembered the verse in Proverbs again, about our children not departing from the Lord. The Holy Spirit nudged me, saying “You treat you children as Christians . . . because that is the way you raised them.” It’s true. The Lord has led me to honor their upbringing and believe His promises concerning their eventual walk with Him. Though I would like to have the concrete evidence that they are saved, as with all God’s promises, I have to walk in faith. Also, the verse quoted above does not say that we train our children in the way of the Lord and then hit them up with it again after they are out on their own. If we try to evangelize our wandering children, they resent it. But if we treat them like Christians, without having an agenda of “return”ing them by our own efforts, it will go better. God is watering every word we have sown in our children’s hearts and it will grow into a harvest of righteousness one day.

My youngest son told me that he is a Christian. The Lord began giving him dreams long before this confession. I have come to see that God sees our children as His own. After all, it is the Lord who is the Husbandman, tending the seed we have planted in our children’s hearts and minds (1 Cor 3:7). He will complete that good work which He began in us all, and when it is time, we will see it. Amen.