"I warned you when you felt secure, but you said, 'I will not listen!' This has been your way from your youth; you have not obeyed me." - Jeremiah 22:21
There is a young boy, not my son, whose father is not around. Even when the father was physically present, his heart and mind were elsewhere.
This boy, whose physical father has been distant at best, comes to our 5pm Sunday worship. He likes to sit next to me in worship. And whatever I do in worship, he does.
If I stand in worship to sing, he stands. If I lean forward to listen more intently, he leans. If I bow my head in prayer, he bows.
Though children do indeed sometimes act like children because after all they are children, God made children to want to learn of God from parents and parent-like adults. God made children to want to learn from their parents how to worship and pray and live in the Lord.
In today's Bible verse, God makes a direct connection between what Jehoiakim does now (i.e. not listen) and what he did as a "youth".
God makes this direct connection with the training of youth and their practices as adults.
What will they know of God? It depends on what they were trained as youth.
Will they value worship? It depends on what priorities they were trained with as youth.
Will they have a daily relationship with the everlasting God or be like the guy who once told me that he might think of God once every two or three weeks? It depends on what a child is trained to set his/her heart on daily when they're young.
I'll say it again, though children do indeed sometimes act like children because after all they are children, God made children to want to learn of God from parents and parent-like adults. God made children to want to learn from their parents how to worship and pray and live in the Lord.
Look at your child, if you have one. Today's Friday, what you teach them about the presence of God today is at least as important as also going to worship with them this Sunday.
If you do not have your own child or maybe they're grown, be like Jim who has been Leonard's Big Brother for years. Leonard was born very different from Jim. But when you're around Leonard, it feels like you're around Jim. Leonard is learning about a daily relationship with God from Jim. It shows.
God makes a direct connection with the training of youth and their practices as adults.
This is why God speaks to youth in Ecclesiastes 12:1, saying, "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find no pleasure in them.'"
This is why God speaks to adults in Proverbs 22:6, saying, "Train up a child in (or as one translation has it "Start children off on") the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it."
Dear God, you have made the connections clear between what we teach and train the children in our world to value and to practice and what they will do as adults. You are present every single day, offering life, worship, forgiveness, guidance, and conversation with you. Help us as adults to joyfully learn to walk with you daily and to boldly invite the children in our homes and communities to do the same. Amen.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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