"So the king of Israel answered and said, "Tell him, 'Let not the one who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off'"(1 Kings 20:11)
s more and more believing parents
are seeing the bankruptcy of humanistic practices
in childrearing, they are starting to reject the common Christian practice of
mimicking the world in its various childrearing practices. Such practices include
such obvious things as discipline through "time-outs" instead of spankings, education
through government schools, sexual seduction through recreational dating, and
more. Many Christians have quite simply had it, and they want out. So far, good.
But biblical balance is a hard thing to maintain. The more Christian parents find their way to declare war on worldly parenting, the better. Some among us have begun to beat spear upon shield in an odd sort of way. It is one thing for a husband and wife to resolve before the Lord what they feel called to do in the task of parenting, but it is quite another to predict the fruition of that agenda, as though the thing were as good as done, to a bystanding and bemused Christian community.
Like anyone else engaged in difficult and demanding work, parents ought not to be noisy about the details of their plans before they come to fruition, ought not to count their chickens before they hatch, and ought not to disregard the apostle James.
"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit'; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.' But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil" (James 4:13-16).
If we are to remember that our lives are a mist when it comes to such mundane matters as making money, how much more should we be cautious and humble when it comes to the details of our children's future?
For an extreme example of this, many see that our common system of recreational dating is not at all biblical, and so they are returning to the concept of biblical courtship. But some are even going beyond courtship, and have begun to talk about arranged marriages. Even this is not necessarily a problem. Arranged marriages are not necessarily unrighteous. Abraham, for example, arranged Isaac's marriage through a faithful servant (Gen. 24:2-4).
But when arranged marriages have honored God, it has been the result of parents taking full advantage of their maturity and wisdom. Older parents of young women, for example, can often see through the pretensions and bluster of the young suitors knocking at the door -- and often with much more clarity than the object of all the attention does. But suppose that the parents are talking very publicly about arranged marriages, and making plans, when the future bride and groom are both six months old, and the parents are just a few years older than when they started dating. "Come now, you who say . . ." Not only are our lives a mist, but this truth that we are all wisps of cloud certainly includes our children. A few moments' reflection should show the numerous ways in which our fond early hopes concerning the children of close friends could be dashed. After fifteen years have passed, the differences are starting to become apparent. One child is intelligent, the other is slow. One is gregarious, the other painfully shy. One is very pretty, and so is the other one. In short, time reveals much that wise parents should take into account in a question of such importance. But when the shoots first appear above the ground it is difficult to distinguish wheat and tares.
Certainly parents may publicly express their desire that their children walk with God throughout life. Indeed, the Bible requires parents to be quite visible in this commitment and desire. But the reason parents may be publicly committed in this desire is the fact that God has given many promises concerning this in His Word. God has promised that faithful parents may trust Him for faithful children. But God has promised us nothing about the godliness, intelligence, personality, and graces of someone else's six-month-old.
For another example, while we may trust God for the character of our children, He has not promised us anything about our children's intellectual capacities. Suppose parents have undertaken a rigorous program of homeschool-ing, or they plan to enroll their children in a world-class private Christian school. Having done so, they announce proudly to all their friends that their child is going to be a NASA scientist. Well, maybe. The best educators in the world cannot put in what God left out. "Come now, you who say . . ."
Parents should set goals for their children, and then they should act in a way that is consistent with those goals. Such goals are certainly lawful. And, because interests vary widely, so will the goals. Some goals may be athletic, some musical, some linguistic, and so on. But parents must remember that, in all such work, they are utterly dependent upon the will of the Lord. And because His will in these things has not yet been revealed, we must guard our lips in humility, and if we say anything, say, "If the Lord wills. . . "
