The Most Important Things to Teach a Child

Pro 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

2Co 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

What do these verses have in common? The answer is perhaps the most important lesson a parent could ever learn. I connected with a childhood friend yesterday by email, and today we talked on the phone. We had not spoken in twenty something years and much had changed. One thing that had not changed was our faith in God. As children we both had faith in God but it simply wasn't something that we spoke to each other about. I remember going to church with him a few times, but I don't think we ever spoke of our relationship with God back then. Today, God dominated our conversation. My friend and I were both brought up in a Christian manner from a very early age. By the time I was 13 my family no longer went to church although God was present in our lives. My friend's family continued their active church lives, and God was very apparent in their lives up until the time we lost contact with each other. Today we both thank God for the early spiritual foundation that our parents and the church provided. We spoke of this spiritual foundation toward the end of our conversation today, and after we hung up I began to give the subject some thought. I simply cannot imagine where my life would be without that spiritual foundation. When the times were rough, where would I have turned if I had not known that God was there? When my heart was broken, to whom would I have looked? When I was lonely, where would I have turned for comfort? When I was told my life was over, what different choices would I have made?

My friend and I both had seemingly abandoned God at various points in our lives by making very poor choices. We have also both paid a price for those poor choices. Are the prices we paid what brought us back to God? Absolutely not. What brought us back to God is the knowledge that the love of God would have prevented the pain had we simply listened in the first place. But what if there were no spiritual foundation? What if we didn't know that God was real? What if we didn't know that God wanted us to be happy? What if we didn't know that we could rely on God when everything else in life had failed? To whom or what would we have turned? Everyone makes poor choices in life at one time or another. Many times, a poor choice will have the appearance of solving a problem or issue. I say "have the appearance" because a poor choice will never solve anything. It may delay the inevitable, but it will never solve the problem. Will a cigarette solve the craving of a person trying to quit? No, it will simply delay the inevitable next craving and deepen the addiction. A simple prayer with belief will solve the craving. The problem is that if the person doesn't ultimately know that they can rely on God, it will not occur to them to say the prayer. The spiritual foundation must be there from the beginning. That is what Proverbs 22:6 is telling us.

Pro 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

What happens when a person marries a person of a different faith or a non-believer? This is a concept that we have a hard time comprehending when we are young. When we are young we let the temptations of the world cloud our judgment.

We tend to base our relationships and attractions on things which are ultimately of little or no significance. Appearance will diminish in every case. No one looks as good at 80 or 50 as they did at 21. However, when we are young we often base our relationships primarily on appearance. We often choose who we will be with when we are 50 and 80 based on what they look like when they are 18 or 21. That is a recipe for a divorce at the very least. When we are young, we fail to see the future. We give little thought to what lay ahead. We fail to understand that our priorities will change, and in many cases we do everything in our power to hinder that positive change. Today's youth are making relationship choices at ever earlier ages. These choices will affect them and their true partner in life that they will meet in the future. When we were young, many of us created bonds that should have never been created. We engaged in physical relationships with others, and we robbed our future selves of the lifelong enjoyment of a special bond that can only exist once. We traded the special for the ordinary, and deprived our future spouses of the special and condemned them to the ordinary in our ignorance. What a foolish time we must all pass through on our journey to spiritual growth and maturity. Even a good spiritual foundation is often set aside in this foolish time of life.

When that particular foolishness is over, and we feel we have achieved a certain level of growth we will on occasion backslide in another area. Then it is the stones that we have placed upon our spiritual foundations that we must rely. By then, we have most likely combined our foundation with that of another person. If our foundations were the same from the beginning then we could simply continue building together. We could begin interweaving the stones of our separate lives to build a unified temple which glorifies God. A temple of marriage built in such a manner will be very strong and will sustain any two people in a relationship. Both people in the relationship will always have a strong temple on which to rely. But what if the foundations were not the same from the beginning? If the foundations are not the same from the beginning, then a strong unified temple cannot be built upon both foundations. One foundation must be discarded, allowing both people to build on one foundation, or each person must build on their own foundation. Two individuals building separate temples will come into conflict with each other when it comes to children. Will the foundation for the child be built by the Mother or the Father? If the parents are building the child's foundation with different substances, it will be weaker than the foundation of both parents. That is what 2 Corinthians 6:14 is telling us.

2Co 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

Man has rejected this lesson from the very beginning. We see a great example of this in Genesis 6:2

Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

This is the beginning of the chapter in the Bible that is telling us about Noah and giving us the reasons for the great flood. The reason for the great flood was that the people had a poor spiritual foundation. This verse is showing us that the reason for the poor spiritual foundation was because the people of God were not concerned with what was truly important when they picked their spouse. What does the Bible say they were concerned with? Look at the verse again. "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair". The men of God were basing their choice on looks rather than what is important. Looks were more important than spiritual foundation. Has anything changed since that time? I suggest that the only thing that has changed is the list of things placed above "same faith" when selecting a partner.

A person who is on their own for the first time in their life will inevitably become lonely. Who will they turn to for comfort? A friend, an attractive stranger or God? Only God will provide true comfort. Everything else is an illusion that will compound the loneliness with much more severe issues. There is a common saying "live life without regret". Does that mean we should leave no road untraveled? Perhaps it means that God will spare us from the pain of some of those roads if we will simply listen. If a person truly wants to live life without regrets there is only one road, one way. The Godly way. The Godly way is the most important thing to teach any child. This Godly foundation will see the child through any hardship, and it will bring them home should they ever stray.