but a foolish child is a mother’s grief.”
Parents and children are inextricably connected. Whether parents were good parents or not, there is a connection that never fades. Children want to be able to trust their parents, to depend upon them, to trust them. And likewise, parents want to be able to be proud of their children, to watch their successes, to note their growth and maturing.
The Heavenly Father loves families. Just the fact that He has chosen, as one of His names, to be called “father” demonstrates to us how much God loves families. The Lord’s prayer begins “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). The Lord Jesus Himself taught that God wanted to be known as our father. Not “the” father or “His” father or “their” father, but “our” father. As our Creator, God understands—better than anyone else—the innate desire within the human heart to have a family.
The very last verses in Malachi (the last verses, in fact, of the Old Testament) are very interesting:
“Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6 NRSV).
It’s interesting that the prophecy about the coming prophet, John the Baptist, is linked with the idea that families will be reunited and that only when families are united will God withhold His hand of judgment. I think that humility toward one’s own household is the most difficult humility of all.
The people who know us best are the ones with whom we’ve lived. They are also the most difficult to forgive for they have the most potential to harm us. We have opened ourselves in the most intimate way to our family and the deepest hurts come from them. It is within the family that we have the greatest tendency to turn our hearts away, rather than toward. With people on the outside (outside the family unit), we can keep up walls of defense. We can also continue to see these people in a “best light” because we aren’t with them 24/7/365. However, within the family unit, defenses and walls come down. People are most like themselves and often the least courteous. It is at home (unfortunately) that we often see people at their worst.
I think that, as believers, we have to make a conscious effort to turn our hearts toward those in our family, both the family with whom we live and the family of God. In this sense, a wise child is one who is willing to see that parents aren’t perfect and is willing to forgive.
I think that one of my greatest surprises in life was to realize that my aging grandmother, rather than being wise about relationships, had a horrible time choosing good husbands. I knew she had been married four times (only one husband died), but I didn’t realize until, when near her death she was considering divorcing her fourth husband, that she had such bad judgment with men. I’d always thought that those older than me should be wiser than me, more adept in the things of life. But that isn’t so. We grow older, but we don’t necessarily grow wiser unless we are particularly sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. And then we still remain sinners (saved by grace).
Wise children are those believing adults who realize that their parents are far from perfect, but still warrant forgiveness because the Lord has forgiven us. Every one of us lives with the mistakes of the elders who have gone before. It’s what we make of our lives and how we look at those mistakes (of others) that determines, I believe, whether or not we are wise.
© 2008 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. International copyright reserved. This study may be copied for nonprofit and/or church purposes only without permission when copied in its entirety (including this notice).
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