As parents and/or future parents, the thought of raising children “to know and be known by God” by being their primary spiritual teachers often brings about feelings of anxiety, doubt, and fear. This responsibility seems so daunting that it can overwhelm people to the point of paralysis and cause parents to rely solely on the role of church programming. The good news is that right here in this passage, God gives us direct instructions on how we need to act as parents, simply and effectively. Does it take hard work and energy? Yes. Is it worth the effort? ABSOLUTELY!
As we see in the above passage, we are challenged as parents to heed God’s simple instructions. It’s an important message that we should hear today: Parents must become diligent teachers of God’s truth and continually impress it upon their children (v.7). This message comes with prerequisites.
First, we as parents must love God(v.5). We serve the One and only true Triune God, and we must love Him today with all that we are. This command means we must constantly be on guard to identify idols that pop up in our world and then throw them down, always keeping God on the throne of our hearts.
Second, we must treasure the Word of God(v.6). Parents must know God’s Word and treasure it so that it can be “on our hearts.” To treasure something is not only to know it but to adore it, to gaze upon it, to constantly think about it, and to give it high value. I believe you can know God’s Word without treasuring it, but you can’t treasure God’s Word without knowing it.
Third, we must be intentional in spending time with our children and use those times as a platform for modeling and teaching truth (v.7). In order to do this effectively, you naturally have to be together. This closeness means sacrificing time spent on other things in order to invest intentional time into your own children. For some of us, the challenge isn’t just physically being together but rather shifting the conversation when we are together to talking about the things related to God. When our children see, hear, touch, and feel our love for God as parents, they will emulate what they are being modeled.
In Jewish cultures for centuries, families have leveraged things like Mezuzahs and Tefillin as tangible, visual, habitual reminders of God’s truth. While we do not have those items, we can create reminders of God’s Word and truths for our children by keeping Bibles out and easily accessible in our homes (and by reading them!), praying at specific times during the day, decorating our homes or cars with art or even sticky notes with Bible verses, and playing music that intentionally leads us to worship of Christ either in the car or at home.
Out of the 168 hours in each week, we youth ministers average about two hours with your children. Parents have a much larger chunk of the 168 hours per week to impact the lives of the young souls God has entrusted to us. Let us today reevaluate how we spend and leverage time with our children. May we, by God’s grace and through the power of His Spirit, try to raise them with a Proverbs 22:6 perspective:
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” (NIV)