Do You Really Know Your Child?, Part 3

Train up, that is, cultivate an appetite for spiritual things within your child so that the child understands his own individual interests, inclinations, and giftedness. And when he or she reaches the age of maturity, he will not depart from what each one learned during such healthy and wholesome years of training. Proverbs 22 verse 6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he grows older, he will not abandon it. For many parents, this verse has become all too familiar, and sadly we often miss the implications. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues his brand new series called Restoring Your Family's Foundation. In this program, we'll be reminded that moms and dads need to tailor their child rearing skills to suit the needs of every child.

Chuck titled his message with a question. Do you really know your child? Train up a child according to his way, not your way. This verse is not about you or me. It's about a child.

It's about adapting our training to the child's way. In fact, Charles Rari in the footnote of the New American Standard Bible mentions that. Literally, the verse is saying, according to his way.

What does that mean? It means that each child comes into our home either by actual birth or adoption with a definite, pre-described way given by God, shaped while first in the womb. That way includes inclinations, interests, characteristics that are unique to that child. Even in a family of multiple children, each child comes with a unique set of gifts or bents.

The Amplified Bible reads it as such. Train up a child according to his way, that is according to his own individual gifts or bents. God put them there during those nine months he or she was being formed in the womb of the mother.

That's the way of a child. Each represents a uniqueness, curious, intriguing characteristics that attracts and captures our attention. You don't try to make one anything like the other. Now listen to the analogy.

So it is with each child. They are not soft, pliable, moldable pieces of clay, no matter what you may have been told. We're not able to mold them as we see fit, not without serious ramifications.

When we try that, that's when rebellion starts in the home. It's not about that. It's not like we're turning out cookies from the cookie cutter of our home and they all look the same when it's over. They're not meant to be. They weren't born to be.

They weren't prescribed to be. The most common mistake parents make is rearing all of their children just alike. Our children are as different as eagles are different from serpents and as different as large ships at sea are different from the intimate ways a man is with his wife. Think about those children in the Bible. Let's go there.

Let's use that as an example. Let's take the first children born to parents, Cain and Abel. Were they alike? Not at all. And when they grew up, were they similar?

Not at all. So severe was the jealousy, envy, hostility between the two that Cain murders Abel. Well, how about Isaac and Ishmael? Same dad. Surely they were alike. Not at all. They couldn't even get along and got to where they even had to put Ishmael and his mother out of the house for there to be a return to some sense of peace.

Well, you say you're stacking the deck. Okay, let's go to twins. Jacob and Esau. Were they alike? They're twins for goodness sake.

Just born minutes from one another. Esau the older of the two. He's a, he's a scripture calls him a hairy man. He loves the outdoors.

Jacob is altogether different from Esau. He loves to be inside. He liked to cook.

He liked the things of the home. One was the favorite of one parent. One was the favorite of the other, which only complicated things. That often happens when you don't know your children. You choose one that's most like you and you favor them.

Or you find one most different and you intensify the discipline sometime to the point of abuse. Jacob and Esau. How about Absalom and Solomon? Not at all alike. Well, how about David and his brothers? Or Joseph and his brothers?

Well, I'll admit it. How about you and your brothers? Don't answer out loud. Very different, aren't you?

You and your sisters. Different people. Doesn't mean you don't love them. It doesn't mean you don't relate to them. It just means you're different. It is the responsibility of parents to help children know what they're good at. How they're made.

To observe them so as to understand the inclinations within. You're good with your hands. Or you're, you're very skilled. Or man, you, what you do on the piano is marvelous. We're going to do our best to get you among the best teachers and develop that ability. Now, be careful.

Careful here. Because if, if you don't watch it, you're going to want to make your child to be just like you. Especially if you were frustrated. And your child will now do what you weren't able to do. Especially true among athletic fathers.

Who didn't quite make the grade and they've got a son that's good in athletics. And they push them. And push them. And push them. And push them.

And push them! Till the child not only wants nothing to do with athletics, he wants nothing to do with his father. I have a good friend who, whom I met at Dallas Seminary, he's from a farm. The farm was in the family for three generations. His father told him, you know, we're saving the farm for you, bud. When you finish school, you'll be back here and you'll begin the fourth generation of the family, on the farm. And my friend said to his dad as he was finishing school, he had gone to Bible school and realized the Lord wanted him in ministry. And he said, dad, you know what, I'm really called a ministry. I'm not interested in the farm.

And his very wise father said, good for you. We'll sell the farm. How many fathers would push back? No, son. And they use guilt. The farm's been in the family for three generations.

We want to keep it here. That father said no. And you know what? That man went on to his doctorate. He's doing very well in ministry because that's where he's made for. And the father is wise enough to realize it.

One of the greatest things you can do for your child is help your child know who he or she is. It really is. And you have to find that out. It takes time. By the way, did you see the part of the verse that says when he is old, he will not depart from it? It doesn't mean when he's 70 or 80.

The Hebrew term means when there's hair growing on the chin. When does that happen? When a young man is, what, 16, 17, starts to shave. When he's reaching maturity. Now it's making sense.

Now we've got a promise that's worth claiming. Listen to a paraphrase. Train up. That is, cultivate an appetite for spiritual things within your child, your child of any age as long as he's under the same roof. Make sure that will is brought into submission so that the child understands his own individual interests, inclinations, and giftedness. And when he or she reaches the age of maturity, he will not depart from what each one learned during such a healthy and wholesome, during such healthy and wholesome years of training. You know what that creates for a child? Security. You become secure when you know who you are.

Truth be told, and I do not mean this in any way insulting, but a number of you do not know who you are. And you spent half your life trying to figure out what you're good at. That was your parents' job. It's not a knock on your parents.

They didn't know that that was their job. Most don't realize that that's the responsibility of parents. That we have children with bents, good bents and evil bents.

We'll look at that next time. And we're to cultivate the good bents so that they become better and better at those things and we're to counteract the evil bents lest they be left to their own way. Remember the verse I read, a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother, gets his own way isn't in the Hebrew. The Hebrew says, but a child who is left gets his own way. A child who is left brings shame to the mother. Left where?

Left in the original state in which he came. When the evil bent is not dealt with. One wonders how many in prison are there not knowing who they are.

Not knowing why they've become such rebels. How often a child is asked, why did you do that? And it was a wrong thing to do. And maybe the child was 17, 18 years old and the answer is, I don't know. I don't know why I did that. When you help a child know who they are, they'll know why they do what they do and they'll realize on their own what is right and what is wrong.

How good is that? Talk about making a great contribution in the life of your child. The greatest thing you can give your child as a parent is a sensitive spirit so that you understand how God made them and then a willingness to pass that on to the child so that he or she knows himself or herself while growing up discovering this to be a reality. It takes wisdom, it takes understanding and it takes knowledge. Again a verse we will look at next time. By wisdom a house is built. By understanding it is established and by knowledge the rooms are filled with riches.

The kind of riches that make for greatness in families. The greatest gift you can give your child is a knowledge of who he or she is. Now, I'm not going to leave you like this because you've got that guilty look written all over your face and I know some of you say, where were you when we were younger? When our kids were little? Wait a minute, do you have grandkids? Are they small?

Well not now. You've got great grandkids? You see God's planted so you keep having little kids around you. Start there.

Start there. By the way you'll find it a lot easier with grandchildren. They just have a built in respect for grandparents. And with that respect you can build on it. You know what sweetheart? I notice you're really good with numbers. Do you like math? Oh yeah, I really do. You ever thought about majoring in math and getting into engineering?

You might, you might really love it. And a great mistake we make as parents is comparing our kids. Remember going through the dreads of comparing report cards? Remember that? Don't answer out loud.

I remember in our home when I would be compared to my brother's report card. My brother's card. Boring. A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, and A. Me? I had variety. Oh boy.

What letter do you want? I got it. But I didn't know that was okay. I thought there was something wrong with me.

No, I'm just not my brother. Susie and Sally are in the same home and dad says to Susie, what's the matter with you? Sally does so and so.

Why don't you do it? Susie says, because I'm not Sally. Don't talk back. She's telling you the best thing she could tell you. She's not Sally.

Quit treating her like Sally. Why am I yelling? Because I feel strongly about this. Because I want your family to be wholesome, healthy, and fulfilled. And it's not automatic just because you have a big family or because you have twins or triplets. It happens because you take the time to study your child, pour yourself into that life or grandchild or whatever, that little one, and before you know it, they crave time with you. And guess what? Leading them to Christ is the simplest thing on earth.

Because you've loved them enough to get to know them, they want to know why you love them. And suddenly Christ steps into the scene. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes God's wisdom. It takes patience. It takes a willingness to forgive.

It takes vulnerability. How many of you have a story your children haven't heard of your own failings, your own discoveries, your own past? I've never said this publicly but I'm going to say it. I buried both my mother and my father nine years apart, even though my dad was 15 years older than my mother. When I buried my father, it was like burying a stranger. I didn't know him and he didn't know me. That's why he said to me, just come on to the machine shop where I am, learn the trade, rather than, you know, son, I've noticed these things about you and you and I are different in these ways and so I really respect the parents.

I never heard that in my life. See, the joy of parenting is to help a child know himself or herself. And the better they know themselves, think about it, the better mates they make when they marry, if they marry, the better citizens they make, the better neighbors they are, because they're secure. They're not trying to please everybody. As soon as I really understood who I was, I gave up the whole nonsense of pleasing people. That gets you nowhere.

Furthermore, you can never do it. My desire is to please Christ and when I please him, it's amazing how that aligns me to work with people in a fair, objective and loving way. And it frees me from feeling like I have to be what somebody else wants me to be.

As I can only be me. Same for you. Same for your children.

Think on these things. We'll be back next time to look deeper into the bents in our children. Your children have the bents. Ours do too. Some of them are really good.

Some of them are not good. We cooperate with the good. We counteract the evil. If we don't, society has to. And that's when it gets really ugly. Probably a major reason we're dealing with what we are today. I would venture to say most of those who indiscriminately kill and assault have no clue who they are.

So they've learned to solve life with their fists and with weapons. What a tragic way to live. Bow with me, will you? If you've never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is a great moment for you to turn your life over to him. Ask him for guidance. Ask him for forgiveness.

Ask him to guide you in your life. To reshape the way you think. To humble you. To use you. To become your son and daughter's hero. Or your grandchild. So that someday they can say, I'm who I am because of the parent God gave me or the grandparent God gave me. Trust in Christ and so much will be filled into the gaps and the hollows of your own life.

Trust him now. I thank you, Father, for beginning to open our eyes to a simple verse. Thank you for putting it in the book called the Bible. Guide us, we pray, as we apply it in this fast moving, angry, hostile age in which we live. May we become different kinds of people.

People who know ourselves because we know you and you've enabled us to realize who we are. Guide us in our steps toward maturity to put life together correctly, wisely, and to help others do the same. In the name of Jesus, I pray.

Everybody said, amen. You're listening to the Bible teaching of pastor and author, Chuck Swindoll. His topic today is knowing the unique traits that God has bestowed on every child. This is Insight for Living. And what you heard today represents one small portion of a larger teaching series. It's brand new and it's called Restoring Your Family's Foundation. And if you'd like to learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. This seven part study embodies the culmination of Chuck's wisdom on the family accumulated over the decades as a husband, father, grandfather, and great grandfather. I'm pleased to remind you that Chuck wrote a helpful book on this topic as well.

Actually, it's a classic. His book is called Marriage from Surviving to Thriving. Let's face it, marriage and the family have changed drastically through the years.

Men afraid to be men, women ashamed of being women. And yet the Bible upholds a much more hopeful design for your marriage and home. In Chuck's book, you'll receive wise biblical counsel on how to move your marriage relationship from surviving to thriving. To purchase Chuck Swindoll's book called Marriage from Surviving to Thriving, call us.

If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org slash store. Bear in mind that your gift to Insight for Living large or small will help cultivate healthy families. There's hardly a day that passes when we don't hear from a grateful couple, a relieved husband, or a forgiven son or daughter.

Total wisdom is timeless and lives are changed when we learn to apply what God taught us long ago. To join us in this mission to help families and make disciples of Jesus Christ around the world, we invite you to give a generous donation. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org slash donate. By giving a donation today, you'll be doing for some young family what someone once did for you.

Once again, the web address where you can give online is insight.org slash donate. Treat yourself to a vacation you'll never forget on the Insight for Living Ministries cruise to the great frontier with Chuck Swindoll. Honestly, I had no idea that a cruise to Alaska could be so much fun, and without a doubt the stunning views took my breath away. God's artistic genius is on full display in Alaska. In fact, I guarantee this, you'll come home refreshed and filled with awe for his majestic creation. Yeah, at one point our ship was getting chased by dolphins.

They were playing and spinning in the waves. It was amazing. You'll have plenty of time for adventures on shore, lingering conversations around mealtime, and strolling through the idyllic ports of call. You'll be a part of some of the best parts of our day, laughing, singing, and celebrating our God. Plan to come with us, won't you? The dates are July 1st through July 8th, 2023. To learn more, call 1-888-447-0444. That's 1-888-447-0444. Or visit Insight.org slash events.

The tour to Alaska is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend. I'm Bill Meyer. Chuck Swindoll continues his brand new series called Restoring Your Family's Foundation next time on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Do You Really Know Your Child?, was copyrighted in 2022 and 2023, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2023 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide.