Provoke not your children to wrath

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. - Ephesians 6v4


God has honoured and blessed us with six children and now three wonderful grandchildren (so far). Parenting is one of the most wonderful of our callings. At the same time it is one of our most challenging.

What a responsibility we have. God has entrusted individual souls to us. We get to play a major role in teaching and moulding them. We are entrusted to insure that they are brought up in the “nurture and admonition” of the Lord. The problem is that we start out with no experience. But God does issue us with the perfect handbook.

There is a lot we could talk about here. The Bible is packed full of instructions, but here we have one simple aspect of parenting – “Don’t provoke your children to wrath.” When I first started parenting almost 30 years ago now I don’t think I had any idea what this was talking about. I did the right thing; I read the word of God. I read books on parenting. I started parenting in the late 70’s, still a very much “anything goes” time and I did not want to make that mistake. So I made sure that our eldest son was kept in line. He was, shall we say, precocious. He seemed that he was always in trouble for something, and I, being the dad, always wanted to sort him out. As I look back over these decades I realise how many foolish choices I made. Far too often discipline crossed over into provocation. When I consider now my choices provocation at times may have bordered on cruelty. I never abused my children physically, but I know that I provoked them, especially our eldest, with my words and actions.

Praise God though, we learn and develop. Praise God that He is patient and loving even with parents. Praise God as well for His intervention. God has allowed that oldest son to grow into a true man of God, who is now on his own parenting adventure.

My thoughts today to parents in the early days? Don’t neglect your responsibility to loving correct and discipline. At the same, be careful to avoid the provocation that is so easy to do.