The sons of Samuel

Now it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice. – 1 Samuel 8v1-3

Parenting is an amazingly wonderful job. I am so proud of all our kids. Believe it or not though, not one of them is perfect. They take after their dad in that regard. We have tried to do our best to raise them up and teach and guide them in the ways of the Lord, and praise Him for the results so far. God has worked and He is working in their lives to shape and mould them into the people they need to be.

We are told in Proverbs that if we ‘train up our children in the way they should go, when they are old they will not depart from them.’ That is an interesting passage, especially when we see how seldom that happens with the men and women of the Bible.

Here for example we have Samuel, and faithful servant of God whose sons reject all that he stood for. What happened here? Did he fail to teach them properly? Did he neglect his responsibilities at home? Did he fail at parenting where he seemingly succeeded in His service for God?

I don’t know and far be it for me to judge his parenting. There is a debate about the passage in Proverbs. Is it a hard and fast promise or is it a principle? After all this time and life experience I have to say that I just don’t know.

Obviously men of God have children who don’t always turn out ‘right.’ Is it their fault? Did they do something wrong? How do we balance that with children making their own choices and decisions as adults?

I don’t have all the answers. I think however of the father of the prodigal son when his son went astray. He waited for his son to come back. He was ready to receive him home. When children go astray, or even when they don’t go exactly the way we think they should, we still are their parents.

If and when our children do not walk in our ways I don’t think we can mull over whether or not we somehow ‘blew it.’ We love them, we pray for them, we offer godly counsel and advice, and we make sure that our hearts and door are always open for them. The we trust the One who loves them more than we possibly can.