Message
My father, who was a farmer, would always separate the best fruits after a harvest so he could plant their seeds in the next planting season. This is because the quality of the seeds a farmer plants is a major determinant of the quality of his or her harvest. A seed may seem small and insignificant, but it decides the kind of fruit a tree will produce. In the same vein, a child may seem small and unimportant in the scheme of things at the moment, but the kind of adult the child becomes will shape the future of the family’s lineage. Therefore, how parents raise their children matters much more than the material things they give them.
In today’s Bible reading, an angel appeared to Manoah’s wife and told her she would give birth to a son. Her husband was not with her at the time; however, when he heard what the angel told his wife, he prayed that God would give him his own encounter. God answered his prayer, and when he saw the angel himself, he asked an important question:
And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?
Manoah was a very wise father who wanted to know how to order and direct the child that God was about to bless them with so that everything God had said concerning the child would come to pass. Every parent must ask God for direction if they want to raise their children in the way they should go (). Some parents train their children the same way they were trained and complain that the children are not responding to their training. There is a way to ‘order’ every child, but parents cannot find it without getting acquainted with the One who made the child. Farmers know that some soils are best for some seeds, but if you take that same seed to another type of soil, it will either not bear fruits or grow at all. For instance, a plant like the cactus can thrive in the desert, but if you plant a water lily in the desert, it will dry up.
God knows the best way to train a child in the way he or she should go. If you are a parent, ask God for the manual on how to train your children so you won’t raise them in a way that is contrary to how He made them.