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The Purpose of Parenting

What is the purpose of parenting? 

To feed them, provide a roof over their head, to love them, to make sure that they have a good education. 

Maybe some days it might just be to keep them alive. Providing for your children’s needs is important.  
But have you ever truly asked yourself that question? Have you even had time to ask yourself that question with all the demands that life is throwing at you?  

Another important question to ask is “what is influencing your purpose as a parent?” Social media, culture, maybe it’s how you were raised.  
I get it, life is busy.  Life is even busier with children. But are you just plodding through life doing the best you can with what you have?  If so, you might actually be missing the mark.   
Wanting the best for our children should be a natural thing for parents, but what really is the primary purpose for you as parents? What is the best thing that you can be doing for your kids?  Whenever you have these important questions, you should always turn to God’s Word for answers.  

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

While this is a pretty familiar verse to most parents, I wonder if you have ever stopped to truly understand what it is asking of parents.  

I want to put before you two thoughts: the first is the command to parents to ‘train up a child’ and the second is about ‘the way he should go’. 
 

What does it mean to train? 

When I think about training, I think about preparing myself for a specific purpose, goal or task. I’m sure you have all trained for something, whether that is an event like a sports team, musical recital, or speech.  Maybe it's retraining yourself on a skill you forgot or getting your muscles working again after an injury.  Whatever it may be, training yourselves takes a lot of intentional, devoted and focused time pursuing your goal.  
Training up a child is no different.  It is going to take a lot of intentional, devoted and focused time.  There are not going to be a few large moments in their lives when you train them.  But it is going to be done in the thousands of small everyday moments of life.  

Some of these moments will be difficult, like the early moments of the mornings or the tired moments after you have had a hard day at work.  You will also be training them in the moments you don’t want to be, moments like when you are worn out or sick.  But it is also going to be in the joyous moments when things are going well, and you are having fun with your children. In all of these moments, you will be training your children.  God has given you the gift of children, and you are to steward them well. Are you prepared to put in the long hard days of training your child?

The next question that needs to be asked is what is the subject of my training?  

In his book Duties of Parents, J.C. Ryle starts off the first chapter by talking about ‘the way they should go.’  

He says that you are to train your children in the way they should go, not in the way that they would like to go.  You need to remember that your children’s hearts, just like yours, are prone towards their own selfish desires because of their sinful nature. Solomon says in Proverbs 22:15 that ‘folly is bound up in the heart of a child’ and in Proverbs 29:15 that “a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.’ Ryle goes on to say that “whatever you do, don’t give them up to their own wayward tastes and desires.  It must not be their likings and wishes that are consulted, because they do not yet know what is good for their minds and souls any more than what is good for their body. Just as we decide what is best for them to eat, drink and wear, we should be consistent and deal with their minds in the same way.  Train them in the way that is biblical and right, and not in the way that they fancy.”
Our job as parents is to train them in the way of the Lord. Are you truly training them today?

Here are some questions to think about:

#1. If you did not teach, instruct and guide your children regarding what they ate, drank and wore, what would happen, one month, one year, ten years from now? ^{(pg.     12 Duties of Parents)} Now think about this in terms of what they think and believe. 

#2. What would their knowledge of and relationship with God be like? (pg. 12 Duties of Parents) 

#3. What are you running to first to help you train your children, the world or God’s word?

For further study:
Duties of Parents by J.C.Ryle
Raising Men, Not Boys by Mike Fabarez
Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul Tripp