If you were
to look through the journal I use to keep prayer requests for the congregations
I serve, a common petition would be for children and grandchildren not
following the Lord. We are – by practice, not by official polity –
family-integrated congregations. Does this guarantee that our children will
stay in the Lord? No. In fact, nothing will. Not AWANA. Not family worship. Not
the latest program or curriculum. Nothing guarantees that the children of the
covenant family will grow up to be faithful confessing members of the covenant
family.
From the
repeated prayer requests and my own heart’s desire, I can guarantee one thing:
we would do anything if we could guarantee their future faith. But we can’t.
How can we make sense of this frustrating state of affairs? I’ve been wrestling
with it recently, and connected – by the Spirit’s light in His Gospel – the dots
yesterday on a 5K struggle of a run (it gets harder when you don’t do it every
day - both running and keeping the Gospel front-and-center of everything).
“Train up a
child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it”
(Proverbs 22:6, NASB). “See?! See?!” We’re tempted to force the Sovereign’s
hand by our consistent efforts to train them in the faith, thereby manipulating
Him by our works to keep the next generation in the faith. This is my
definition of magic, or witchcraft: doing things in the physical realm to
influence the spiritual realm. This does not honor God. Proverbs 22:6 (or the
rest of Proverbs, for that matter), is no cause-and-effect contract between God
and His people.
“So I turned to consider wisdom,
madness and folly; for what will the man do who will come after the king except
what has already been done? And I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels
darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.
And yet I know that one fate befalls them both. Then I said to myself, ‘As is
the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely
wise?’ So I said to myself, ‘This too is vanity.’ For there is no lasting
remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days
all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die! So I hated
life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me;
because everything is futility and striving after wind. Thus I hated all the
fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to
the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or
a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I
have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity” (Ecclesiastes
2:12-19). Wisdom (as in Proverbs) is better than folly, but it doesn’t make any
promises. Despite what pop culture’s wisdom says, our destiny is not up to us. But,
the Preacher of Ecclesiastes tells us, wisdom is still better. Why? If the
results aren’t guaranteed, what’s the point of being wise in the rearing of
future generations? All of our “labor under the sun,” be it in business or
child-training, may be passed onto fools who will deny the existence of God. Is
it time to hate this grievous life? Well, if we keep pursuing wisdom as a means
of a religion of works (witchcraft), then yes, go ahead and start hating. That’s
where you’ll end up in your bitter frustration. I know. I have longed to change the hearts and minds of those who leave the faith more times than I can tell. It does hurt.
But that’s not why we train up our
children (and grandchildren) in the way they should go (the way of the Lord). We
train our children because God has commanded us to, regardless of the results.
Before we can expect our children to obey Him by faith, we must obey Him by
faith (as opposed to evangelizing them in an effort to manipulate them or God).
"Now this is the commandment,
the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to
teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to
possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your
God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the
days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should
listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may
multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in
a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel
“Fathers, do not provoke your
children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the
Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
Beloved, there are promises attached
to obeying by faith, but we are not the executors of the estate! We teach them
because we have been commanded to do so, not as a part of a religion of
self-effort, but as a Gospel obedience to the King Who has saved us and given
us commandments.
Back to the prayer-journal I keep
for our little congregations (I just remembered getting a question about
prodigal children from a mother at a Q&A in the Philippines
And trust that God is in charge,
even when things aren’t as we wish they would be (or feel, in the
works-religion that we must crucify every day in our hearts, that God must make
them be because of our efforts).
Believe and obey, commanding others
to do the same, starting with our families and going throughout the world. Train
them because you’ve been commanded to by the One Who loves you and has saved
you, not because you’re trying to force the King to obey your will. This is the
Great Commission. It is built upon faithful obedience to the One Who is King
over heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18-20).
