Trust Your Training

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)

I have a friend who is a bicycle training coach with Echelon Cycling. His teams always do well in the competitions they enter. His training is intense and disciplined. Just before each race he tells each team member, “Trust Your Training.”  He knows that at points in the race, there are factors that trigger adrenaline and competitive fervor and cause you to take off like a rabbit. But that doesn’t leave energy for the rest of the race… and as we know from the childhood classic The Tortoise and The Hare, the race doesn’t always go to the fastest. (With the possible exception of Usain Bolt).

There are times in parenting when we can lose sight of how to raise our kids to follow Christ and we are just trying to hang on to the end of the race. There were lots of times in our home with four children that the chaos was pretty extreme.  I remember when an unsuspecting neighbor, who was an only child, came to our house for the first time after school.  All he could do was stand frozen at the door with his eyes and mouth wide open as pandemonium ensued… it was loud... backpacks and shoes had been dropped like landmines from the door to the pantry, in spite of their mother’s instruction to put everything in their “cubbies.”  The tyranny of the urgent need to get a snack had reduced them to hypoglycemic little gremlins racing for the snack box.  Eventually some semblance of  order returned after they had been revived by fruit rollups ( at the time it was a “healthy snack choice” now, we are not sure).

As parents, my wife and I heard different messages about how best to parent our children according to the latest trend. There was always a plethora of material out there, some of it was good, but some of it was modified puppy training. If we expect Pavlovian responses in our kids when they are small we can’t be surprised if they dog us when they are teens. Parenting is about healthy relationships, not just behavior modification. Though our little angels definitely needed behavior modification, we hoped do it in the context of a loving relationship with Jesus.

When my son was in college, we were a little worried if we had done our job with this human being God had placed in our lives.  His mother asked him if he was behaving.  He said, “Mom, trust your parenting!” We took a little guarded optimism about not ruining them completely. By God’s grace they are all still “in the faith.”

Parenting can be treacherous and confusing. But in the end when you pray a lot, stay in His Word and love them well, you will train up your children in the way they should go and they will not depart from it.  

Scottie the Miracle Dog!

When the kids were young, my wife and I tried to help our kids see the power of God revealed through prayer. We said prayers with them and tried to make a big deal of how and when God answered. At times, we even wrote our family prayer requests on a large sheet of paper stuck to the refrigerator, and then, when God answered we would write down the way He answered, put the date He answered and then we would all celebrate and thank Him for His Goodness. We wanted our four kids to see His power and love displayed in answered prayer.

This plan to teach our kids to pray was going great when my young son decided he wanted a dog. He prayed faithfully and fervently with my wife for weeks at bedtime prayers for that dog. I, however, had just become the senior pastor of a church that had recently survived an ugly split and with four young children, my plate was pretty full.  In my selfishness I justified not getting a dog because I didn’t have a lot more time or energy to add “pet care” to my “to do” list. So, thinking that I would eliminate the possibility of adding a new canine family member, I said, “Well the only way we are getting a dog, is if God puts one in our backyard.”  I felt extra assured that would not happen because the church had just built a 4 foot high chain link fence around the parsonage backyard. My son, however, was not shaken, he knew that God answered prayer, so he redoubled his prayer efforts.

Then you know what happened?  I woke up one morning and looked out the back door and there, right in the middle of the backyard, inside the fence, was a medium sized black dog that looked like a small wolf. Of course, I did a double take and said to myself, “I don’t see a dog in my backyard,” thinking maybe that if I denied seeing it, said dog it would disappear. So, I hoped that maybe the dog would just go away. But my son looked out the door and said, “that is the dog I’ve been praying for!” “God sent my dog!”.  I reluctantly put some water out for the poor mutt that had obviously been on the streets for a while. My animal-loving wife could do nothing but laugh at God’s sense of humor and her pastor husband’s lack of faith in the power of his son’s prayer. My son instantly named the mutt “Scottie”, before we actually knew the dog was a female. And so, from then on she was affectionately  known as “Scottie... the girl dog.”

But God was not through answering the prayers of that little boy and humbling this daddy. After a few weeks, I asked my wife, “how much are you feeding that dog? She’s getting fat.” She said I’m not feeding that dog any extra.  So, at that moment we looked at each other and said, “she’s pregnant!” So my God, “who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think,”(Eph.3:20) gave that little boy and his sisters 6 more mutt puppies, much to their glee.  They did recognize that 7 dogs were probably too many to keep for ourselves. So, we all agreed to share the joy of puppies with other people. Fortunately it was the Holiday Season and we were able to advertise Christmas puppies and give them all away. But my whole family knew that God had abundantly answered the fervent prayers of a little boy.

Even now, all my kids are grown and they will call home, share their prayer requests with us believing God for answers, and we thank Him for His response.  The answers aren’t always exactly what we asked for, but we still recognize that God answers, even if He says. “No” or “Not yet.”  

I'm excited that a version of this story has been included in Guideposts: The Joys of Christmas 2019. https://www.shopguideposts.org/joys-of-christmas-2019.html 

Life

House full of:

Bottles, bottle warmers, diapers, diaper geni

Toys, bouncer seat, story books, fruit gummies

Pack n Play, strollers, cribs, changing table

Riding toys, action figures/dolls, puppies, uncrustables

Purple dinosaurs, Pokemon, Sesame Street, Toy Story

Tricycles, Legos, dirt, bandaids

Soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs, footballs

Dance shoes, pom poms, uniforms, hair bows 

Swimsuits, tennis raquets, bats, batons

Friends, siblings, relatives, teammates

Bibles, worksheets, spelling words, math tables

Exuberation, heartbreak, table talk, encouragement

Cleats, tennis shoes,Sperrys, Polo

Trampolines, bicycles, airguns, slingshots

Video games, video games, video games, video games

Car keys, textbooks, laundry, girlfriends/boyfriends

Prom attire, friends, hormones, image

College boards, campus visits, acceptance, freshman

Happy tears, sad tears, proud moments, restarts

Big decisions, jobs, gray hair, Aspercream

Prayers, Supplications, Intercessions, Praises!