Sweetness to a Child's Lips

“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

The above scripture has always been used as an encouragement for parents when it comes to their children. My own mother has always encouraged herself with this verse as she raised us four children on her own. I heard something this morning on the radio that really touched me and that I'd like to share regarding this verse. The word "train" in the Hebrew is hanak. It comes from the root meaning, "to put something into the mouth" or to "affect the taste." It refers to the process of a parent putting syrup or honey into the mouth of a newborn child to encourage sucking. In the context of the above scripture, we see that influencing a child takes more than preaching at them or even just taking them to church every Sunday. As parents, it's living in such a way that your children taste the sweetness of God through you--through your lifestyle, that it creates an urge or desire in them to serve God. In teaching, we call this modeling. We know that you can't just tell people how to do something, but you must show them. You can't just tell your kids to serve God, but through your righteous living, you can create a desire in them to want to taste the Lord for themselves. Although I am not a parent myself, I have seen this first-hand in my life through my own mother and my grandmother. Something precious that I will always keep with me about my own mom is those many nights when we were younger and how she would pace our home praying over every single one of us. She was a single-mom and she always tells me that when my dad walked out on us, the Lord walked in. She depended on Him daily to meet our family's needs. Was she perfect? Absolutely not (oh wait, she's reading this, so she was absolutely perfect lol). Yet, she allowed me to see through her own life how blessed and favored by God someone could be if they put their complete trust in Him. The taste is still in my mouth and its sweetness continues to draw me closer to a beautiful and wonderful Savior.