Daily Devotion - Thursday, April 30

An Important Reminder

“Train a child in the way they should go,
and when they are old they will not turn from it.”
--Proverbs 22:6

How often we hear this verse quoted. Sometimes it is used as a hopeful prayer and sometimes it is stated as an experienced truism. As we begin to make our preparations for the month of May, we are drawn to think of children. Springtime provides an excellent time to release the pent up energies of winter. Parents of young children are training children to “look both ways before crossing the street” and hundreds of other important things to remember. Parents of teenagers are praying for good decision-making, safety behind the wheel and hundreds of other important prayers. Parents of grown children still hope and pray for blessings to surround their children. The following words by Kahlil Gibran are perhaps some of the finest penned words on child-raising:

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

God bless and keep the children.

--Ben Keckler
04.30.09