So, Well, good morning to you. I hope to encourage you today from a verse in the Proverbs, chapter 22, that I alluded to in yesterday's devotional. If you heard it, I just alluded to it in passing. We were talking about the fact that in parenting there are no guarantees. that there is this verse in Proverbs that sounds like a guarantee, Proverbs 22, six, in the King James and the New King James Version, it says, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. That sounds like to the sensitive Christian parent that if I, you know, what is the way that a child should go? Well, a child should go in the ways of the Lord. A child should go in paths of godliness, in paths of righteousness. A child should get converted. A child should become a Christian and live like a Christian. That's the way a child should go. So if I will train up a child in the way that he should go, then he'll never depart from it. When he's old, he'll not depart from it. He'll stay in that path for the rest of his life. And I mentioned in relationship to these fathers and sons in 2nd Chronicles, Hezekiah, good king, had a wicked son when he became the king, Manasseh, and his son was pretty wicked too, Ammon. He didn't last long. But then Josiah became the king, and he was the son of Ammon, grandson of Manasseh, great-grandson of Hezekiah. And he turned out good. He turned out right. He brought about great revival in contrast to his father and grandfather. So his upbringing was not one of righteousness and yet he brought about revival. Manasseh's upbringing was one in righteousness and he brought about idolatry. So I pointed out that there aren't any guarantees and alluded to this verse and said this verse isn't giving you a guarantee that if you parent your child in a way that is directing them in the paths of the Lord, that they're never going to stray from it. And a lot of parents think that. So they rightly, rightly so, make sure their children are in church with them. They have devotions with them. They teach them the truths of scripture. And they need to do that because we're told, bring up our children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. But too many parents look at Proverbs 22 6 and engage in those activities as a formula, thinking that, you know, if I make sure my kids are in church, if I have devotions with them every day, if I, you know, teach them the doctrines of scripture, the truths of scripture, then they're never going to depart from those things. And then they're blown away when their children leave the nest and turn away from the Lord, and they're terribly defeated, and feeling like, I must have done something wrong. Well, the problem is understanding Proverbs 22.6, and that's what I wanted to encourage you with today. What does this verse really mean? What is it talking about? Let me give you a different rendition of that verse. It's from the New American Standard, and it reads this way. Train up a child according to his way, and even when he is old he will not depart from it. Train up a child according to his way. What would that mean? Does that mean I need to train my child to be evil because that's what's bound up in the heart of a child? No, no, no, no, not at all. It's simply encouraging parents to know their children and understand the bent that their children have, that their particular child has, in terms of their predilections, their skills, their talents, their innate skills and talents. So for example, when our daughter was young, we recognized she had a talent for playing the piano. And so we got her into piano lessons. And to this day, she doesn't play a lot, but to this day she can sit down at a piano and play music and it'll never leave her. On the other hand, other children don't have any musical ability at all. They don't have any sense of rhythm. And so some parents make the mistake of trying to force their children into music, some kind of music career, you know, and they don't have any gift for it whatsoever. That's a mistake. That's a mistake. Sometimes parents try to live their fantasies through their children. They were never a big basketball star, but they want their son to be a basketball star. So they get him into basketball early on and push him and push him and push him. so that they can be the next Michael Jordan or something like that. No. Listen, the challenge for us as parents is to understand our children, understand their gifts, their talents, their abilities. Some children are artistic. Some are very academic oriented. Some are very, you know, they love math and science. Others love writing and reading. And so our task is to train them according to their area of giftedness. And this proverb is what is telling us that. we do that, they're going to stick to that direction throughout their life. They're going to have that giftedness and an improvement of that giftedness throughout their lives. That's what this verse is really talking about. And I hope that helps you. If you're a parent and you've been beating yourself up because your adult children have strayed from the path that they were brought up on, because of Proverbs 22.6, don't use Proverbs 22.6 as a basis of beating yourself up. Yes, every parent, every wise parent will look back on his parenting and say, you know, I could have done this better. I should have done that, perhaps. But there's no real value if you have been a Christian parent bringing your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. There's no value in using Proverbs 22.6 to beat yourself into some kind of a failure because one of your children has strayed from the path. I hope that is a help to you and encouragement to you today. So our Father and our God, I pray that as parents, you would help us to be wise. We need to understand our children, and I pray that you'd give us the heart to do so and the skill to train them according to their areas of giftedness, how you've equipped them so that they might serve you effectively as you lead them to faith in Christ and to growth in godliness. We pray this in Jesus' name. All right, listen, I hope you have a good rest of your day and that the Lord will bless you in it. Good day.