Train children in the right way

Bringing up children to go God’s way is a challenge. The Book of Proverbs instructed parents to “Train children in the right way, and when old they will not stray” (Prov 22.6) or in the words of the GNB, “Teach children how they should live, and they will remember it all their lives”.

Perhaps because I was born during the London Blitz I was an excitable child. My parents tell the story of how at one of my earliest birthday parties my maternal grandfather had to take me into another room to calm me down, while my mother and grandmother entertained the other children. Only recently I have discovered at a friend’s birthday when I was around seven or eight I was hiding behind the curtains from where I threw cake and orange juice on the assembled company. Although I can still be excitable, I have thankfully calmed down somewhat.

Understandably my parents were concerned for my spiritual well-being. As a child I joined  a Crusader Bible class, at church I was involved in the youth group, and at my secondary school I was an active member of the Christian Union. I represented my school at the Surrey Schools Christian Fellowship, of which I became the chairman.

Although my secondary school, Trinity School of John Whitgift, was for boys only, through the church youth group as also through the Surrey Schools Christian Fellowship I met girls. However, we were all very well behaved. Today some might say of me and my friends that the Christian life we experienced at that stage was very narrow in outlook. Yet at the time we did not feel constricted. Instead we enjoyed one another’s company. We had a great time at the parties we were invited to. No doubt by today’s standards they were pretty tame, but as I look back I am so glad that there were no sex and drugs. A few went out with one another, as it were, but most of us were just friends.

Our life together at this stage was heavily influenced by another Proverb: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov 1.7), or as the GNB puts it more prosaically “To have wisdom you must first have reverence for the Lord”.

Many of the young people with whom I spent time were at independent schools. I was a public school. Most of my Crusader friends were also at public schools such as Dulwich College, Alleyne’s, James Alleyne’s, and the City of London. Through the Surrey Schools Christian Fellowship I many of the girls attended schools such as Croydon High and Old Palace. As young people we were blessed in gaining a good education, with the result that almost without exception we all went on to university.

It is not enough, however, being bright to make a success of life. To return to Prov 1.7 we were taught to put God first – in the words of Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, “the first step in learning is bow down to God, only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning” (The Message).

“The fear of the Lord” is essentially a positive experience. We were encouraged to be wise and to respect God and his ways, to accept God’s authority in how we related to one another. We were brought up to be “God-fearing” young people. In that regard I find it significant that the Psalmist said on two occasions:  “Fools say to themselves, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14.1; Psalm 53.1), as though God does not matter. Not surprisingly many who refuse to take seriously God’s values make shipwrecks of their lives. By contrast through our daily ‘quiet times’ we sought to make God the controlling principle in our lives.

In today’s society, where the Christian faith has been marginalised, Christian parents have an even greater challenge than did my parents and the parents of my contemporaries. However, one thing is certain, when young people are ‘trained in the right way’ they should go, they are never the losers for such an upbringing.