If There Is Only One Thing We Can Teach Our Children, Let It Be This

If strength is wasted on the youth then wisdom is wasted on the aged. How many of us who are older have looked back on their life and thought "If only I had known..."? How many of us had thought that we would have done better if we had listened to the sage advice of the more experienced people in our youth? It's funny how that works.

I distinctly remember my middle school French teacher giving me some of this sage advice. I struggled with French more than my classmates. They used to elect me to do the daily reading because they loved laughing at my poor pronunciation. So as soon as the course became an elective I dropped it. I saw no use for it. My dear patient teacher told me that I would live to regret that decision. I laughed to myself. Why would I ever need French in Nova Scotia?

My outlook in life was limited by age and lack of dreams. I had not yet learned to dream beyond the moment I lived in and so I could not imagine the possibility of living anywhere other than my home province. I could not imagine living four years in Belgium and 21 years in Quebec (and counting). Yes, twenty-five years living in French culture, needing to read, write and speak French. That teacher was prophetic.

Unfortunately we do not always see the value in teaching wisdom to our children. We train them in Biblical knowledge, in academics, in life skills and even in people skills but wisdom itself we leave up to a vague notion of it being absorbed or something.

Even a casual perusal of Proverbs will leave you with the impression of the importance of training our children to value and pursue wisdom. Solomon credited his mother and father with his training but he recognized the real source was the Lord. His mother and father taught him the importance and shared with him what they had learned but this only became important when he realized his need. In knowing his need, he went to the source and asked for more wisdom from the Lord, and he received it.

Solomon in turn shared what he had learned with his children but emphasized that they would have to pursue it for themselves. The reason is because there is wisdom we gain from experience but the real wisdom of value is what the Lord gives to us through revelation and insight. James told us that this comes by asking, just like Solomon.

Our children may not take our advice. They may never even seek it. But we can instill in them the knowledge that the source is found in the Lord and we do not need experience to gain it. Wisdom is ours for the asking. Father wants us to have it because we need it in this world. Jesus told us that we were being sent out as sheep among wolves so we need to be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. Jesus enjoyed using images that seemed at conflict with each other. But this conflict is resolved in Spirit who is responsible for equipping us in this world. He equips us with wisdom so we know when we need to be either or both of these things in every situation of our life.

What is important to understand is that we will not find wisdom within ourselves or within the world. The wisdom we need is from another realm and is accessed by Spirit. We were never intended to live this life on our own. We were never intended to live without Father. We were designed to need him and to live in cooperation with him. This is the greatest lesson we could ever teach and instill in our children : we cannot do it alone.

It is not so much that wisdom is wasted on the aged, it is simply that we do not always understand our need for wisdom until we have gained in maturity. So let us teach our youth that they need more than themselves and that determination alone is not enough to change this world. We were intended and created  for union with our Creator, our Father, our Lord and our King. Let's teach them how to walk in step with the Spirit and they will never lack anything.