Direct Your Children

Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

Proverbs 22:6

WHEN ALAYNA WAS eighteen and still in high school, she moved out of her house and began making some really bad choices.

“What did we do wrong?” her parents cried. “After all, the Bible promises that if we raise our kids right, they’ll not walk away from the Lord. It must be our fault.”

So many parents consider this Scripture verse a reason to go on a guilt trip when their kids go astray. But actually it’s not. Once they’re in or beyond their teens, our kids start making their own life decisions. They begin to choose between right and wrong, just as we did when we were younger. And sometimes they choose wrong, no matter how well they’ve been raised and how godly their homes were. Sometimes, discovering who they are and what kinds of choices they want to make in life leads children on a path that looks as if it’s far from our faith, but we don’t need to despair. No matter what choices our kids make, God is with them.

And the promise in this verse does hold true. No matter what choices our kids might be making now, they know what the right path is. And most kids who walk away from their faith eventually return.

So know that when you teach your kids how to walk with the Lord, you’re teaching them a lifestyle that will stay with them the rest of their lives—whether they take a side road for a while or not.