Shepherding a Child's Heart

Adherence to Parental Instruction

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The second foundation of life is adherence to parental instruction.
Proverbs 1:8–9 reads, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to
grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” Proverbs 6 presents
an expanded repetition of this call to walk in wisdom:.
My son, keep your father’s commands
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
Bind them upon your heart forever;
fasten them around your neck.
When you walk, they will guide you;
when you sleep, they will watch over you;
when you awake, they will speak to you.
For these commands are a lamp,
this teaching is a light,
and the corrections of discipline
are the way to life.
(Proverbs 6:20-23)
The young person who adheres to the instruction of his parents
will be richly blessed.
It is often assumed that teenage children will find their parents
irrelevant. Most expect that by the teen years the parent-child
relationship is one of convenience and necessity, rather than choice.
Proverbs holds out a vision of children seeing in their parents a
source of wisdom and instruction. It asserts that children will be
enriched and greatly benefited by adherence to the values and
instruction of their parents. Rather than young people casting off, as
irrelevant, their parents’ outlook, Solomon directs them to embrace it.

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Should this surprise you?
Who should be more relevant to your children? You know them.
You know the subtle nuances of their personalities. You know their
strengths and weaknesses. You know their life experiences. You
understand them. You also know God. You have the Word of God.
You know the ways of God. You have struggled and battled to live the
Christian life. You understand the disciplines and dangers of
Christian living. You understand the world in which they live. You
understand the pressures they are now facing. You are committed to
them and to God. There is no one who loves them more, who is more
deeply committed to them, who accepts them unconditionally. There
is no one who will be more honest or more tender. To abandon the
instruction and teaching of Mother and Father is lunacy.
If you are living in integrity with God and your children, none of
the above is overstated. If you are honestly sharing your life
experience and how you have come to know God more deeply and
find him more and more satisfying, you are showing the viability of
Christian faith.
Your relationship with your children must be honest. You must
never give advice that suits your convenience or that spares you
trouble or embarrassment. You must be parents who have
demonstrated that you are not using your children in any way. If those
things are in place, your child will not generally want to remove
himself from parental instruction.
Our son, who was in college, was thinking about taking a long
weekend off to go on a bicycle tour of about 200 miles. He was six
hours away. We never “checked up” on him, yet he called for advice.
He had done a fine job of weighing the pertinent details necessary to
make a sound decision. He called, however, to run the idea by his
mom and dad. Why did he do this? Not because we required it. Not
because he was insecure with making decisions, but because he was
convinced that we are trusted guides. He also knows that we would

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not make his decision for him. We would simply help him examine
all the important data.
Remaining accessible to instruction is only part of adherence to
parental instruction. There is also another important constituent.
Adherence to parental instruction also requires retaining the structure
of truth in which you have been taught. It means learning to live and
work within the framework of truth in which you have received
instruction.
Aaron was a good example of this. His high school English class
was doing a values clarification exercise. An ethical dilemma was
posed to demonstrate the relativity of values and the brittle nature of
the values the students thought were solid. The teacher posed the
ethical dilemma and opened the class discussion. After the class had
become completely skewed on the horns of the ethical dilemma,
Aaron offered his suggestion. His suggestion resolved the conflict.
Guided by parental instruction, he offered a biblical solution that left
the teacher speechless. “Aaron, that’s an excellent solution,” she
murmured. “Your solution was better than the ones offered in the
book.”
Aaron was helped by adherence to parental instruction.
Unhampered by the valueless intellectual climate of our era, he was
able to demystify the dilemma. A child furnished with biblical
instruction has a firm footing in an academic climate where even the
teacher is lost in a sea of no principles or absolutes (see Psalm
119:99–100).