Does a Godly Home Guarantee Godly Kids? Part 1

Passage

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." Acts 16:31 (NKJV)

Pondering

This SUL (Spiritual Urban Legend) says something like, "The Bible promises that if you bring up your kids properly in the ways of the Lord they will eventually be strong in the faith.." People will confidently base this assumption on one or two main verses of Scripture, the commonest being Proverbs 22:6 and Acts 16:31.

Both of these verses are taken as promises by the Lord that if we do the right things in bringing up our kids then they will turn out great in the end, even if they stray away for a while.

The problem is that this erroneous thinking leads to three possible and very damaging results with faulty reasoning attached to them:

False Guilt: "My kids have turned out wrong so I must be at fault."
False Hope: "My kid is a mess now but I’ve done all the right things so they will come back to the Lord eventually."
Foolish Pride: "My kids are great. I’ve done all the right things. Yours are a mess, so you must be at fault!"

In the next few days devotionals we will see that these mind sets are not Bible based and will cause untold hurts if we embrace them. IF you have said any of the faulty statements above ask God to forgive you and calm your heart to have the right perspective.

Poem

I did all things right, my kids came out wrong,
I sang God's tune, they sang another song!
I blame myself and so do those around,
But this blame game really has no solid ground.

Prayer

"Father, help me to be the best parent I should be and to look at other parents in love, helping them and not hindering them from being the best parents they can possibly be. Steer me away from false guilt, false hope and foolish pride in all matters related to parenthood. Amen!"