Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son,
but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.

It would be hard to find a verse in the Bible that is more ignored or explicitly denied than this one. People can’t understand God’s love because they were never accurately loved by their parents. That’s not to say their parents didn’t love them, it’s to say their parents didn’t know how to do it right. Allowing children to run wild, not to mention letting the children be the final arbiters of what goes on in the family, is not loving them at all. Children do not have the background of experience to guide them in making right choices most of the time. Parents don’t always make the right choices either, but they have much more foundation and framework for doing so. That is a good metaphor for God and mankind, because God always knows what the right choice is, and we very often do not. If children are given no say in their lives, then they will have no practice in making decisions. Likewise, if children aren’t allowed to taste the consequences of their bad decisions, they can be ruined for life. Since some consequences are truly dangerous, parents often need to substitute physical punishment. Small children in particular do not understand rational explanations, but they do understand a spanking. That’s what this verse is talking about.

I touch on this subject every time I do premarital counseling, in an effort to give the couple some foundation in parenting, but it really came home with my grandsons in the house last month. Biblical truths can be hard to express when those needing to hear them are so emotionally close to you! On the other hand, parents without such a close connection can resent anything even being said. I’ve got to be doubly sure that I speak the truth in love, and not in resentment, pride or anger, and I’ve got to cover the whole issue in prayer. It’s interesting that grandparenting has given me further insight into God as our Father, on top of what parenting gave me.

Father, I do pray for my daughters and their husbands as they parent my grandchildren, but this is a much broader issue than that. The devil hates the parent-child relationship just as he hates the husband-wife relationship, because they speak so much of Your relationship to us, and so he does all he can to mess them up. Help me be useful to You in establishing Your right order in families, tearing down the works of the enemy and setting the captives free, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!