Let Them Fly!

The wise writer of the proverbs – King Solomon once wrote,

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

Some people, illustrating those wise words might have chosen a picture of a vine or bonsai tree – a plant which can be molded and shaped as the one cultivating it wishes. In actuality, to use such an image might be a more accurate interpretation of Solomon’s words. If parents begin early to mold and make – to train up their children, it would be reasonable to expect that later in life the way those children had been trained would have become second nature to them.

So, why did I chose an archer, an arrow and a target?

I use it because this advice is given to people about people and the environment in which we raise our children will work against our every effort to train them up – the best we can do is point them in the right direction and let them fly.

Throughout the proverbs (which was not the official training manual of the kings offspring but a collection of the things he did teach), Solomon pointed his sons toward wisdom and away from foolishness; he led his sons to get understanding – to fear the Lord, to obey His instructions and to honor Him; this is the target toward which the king aimed his children. In aiming them toward a target, Solomon was also aiming them AWAY from some things: he was aiming them away from immorality, away from wickedness and away from ungodliness.

Whatever might be said of the fact that some of the kings words to his sons did not line up with his ways before the Lord (see 1 Kings 11:1-13), he did POINT his sons in the right direction and then when they were grown, let them fly.

Things act upon the trajectory of our arrows. Outside influences, like the wind steer our children – peer pressure, independence (especially the kind of independence which accompanies college life), the crosswinds of alternative views – all of these buffet our children once we let them fly and if we’re being honest, they don’t always hit the target toward which they were aimed.

Solomon’s son Rehoboam didn’t. We read in [2 Chronicles 12:1]:

“Now it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom and had strengthened himself, that he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel along with him.”

The fact is that [Proverbs 22:6] is not a guarantee that if you point them in the right direction your children will always hit the target toward which they have been aimed – Solomon’s words are an observation, an encouragement and an exhortation full of good advice but they are not a command or a guarantee.

The ONLY guarantee that one might come away with from those words is the guarantee that an arrow will never hit a target it wasn’t aimed at.