Reflections on Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. From KJV. I had someone give me the thought this morning that this may not mean what most of us think it means. On the surface, it looks like "There is a specific way to raise your kids that guarantees they will stick to those ways all their lives". Except then parents all over the world bemoan their misfortunes as they watch their kids stray from their upbringings. "We trained them as trained as we knew how to. How was it not enough?" Here's the thing. I don't think that's what Solomon meant. The individual who spoke to me this morning suggested that Proverbs 22:6 is saying "Train a child according to his inclinations/personality/interests and when he is old he will still be doing these things with excellent success." Which is entirely valid. Maybe you want your child to be good at math and become a rocket scientist. But maybe they have no inclination...