Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Wisdom from Proverbs”
Our Bible verse for today: “Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death.” Proverbs 19:18 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
I once saw a movie called “The Boy in the Bubble”. It was about a boy with a compromised immune system and he could not safely be exposed to ordinary life. Therefore he lived his life shut away in a protective enclosure that shielded him from anything harmful.
I think that’s a good illustration of how children are being raised in our society today – they’re being raised in a protective bubble, shielded from anything unpleasant, anything challenging or disappointing. So rather than the winners getting a trophy and the losers applauding them at the banquet, now everyone gets a participation trophy and nobody ever loses. College campuses have been turned into “safe spaces” where young people don’t have to hear ideas they don’t like or which they disagree with. And if you spank your child you might just get a visit from agents from Child Protective Services.
There are many other examples I could site but you get the point – our society is pampering our young people. To borrow a phrase from columnist George Will, “We’re raising a generation of delicate little snowflakes”. And as Bill Gates once said in a college commencement address, “The lessons learned from that kind of an upbringing bear absolutely no resemblance to anything in real life.”
In the Bible God is much more realistic about what it takes to raise a child well. It’s what Christian child psychologist Dr. James Dobson once called “tough love”. It is love that’s soft, warm, kind, and compassionate most of the time, but also tough when it needs to be.
The Bible is clear that children need rules and guidance so they understand exactly what behavior is good and acceptable, and which is not. They should be complimented, encouraged, and sometimes rewarded when they behave well, and they need fair but firm correction when they don’t.
In recent years I’ve spent a lot of time working with young men in jails and prisons. These are young men who have been caught-up in the drug culture and who are doing time for associated crimes. A common part of many of their stories is the lack of discipline and correction they received from their parents when they were growing up. In some cases these young men even learned how to do drugs and commit crimes from their parents. So now, as a young man who is incarcerated but trying to turn his life around, he needs to learn the lessons he should have been taught as a child.
It has been observed that if a child doesn’t respect and obey a teacher today, he won’t respect and obey a police officer tomorrow. And if parents don’t ’discipline and correct their children now, jail guards might have to do it later.
As Solomon said in Proverbs 19:18, if you will discipline your child now, there’s hope for tomorrow. If you don’t, you are setting him or her up for a lifetime of failure.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 