A young boy sitting in the backseat of the car yells out to his parents, “It’s not fair. Why can’t I have it?” The boy continues to grow older and older. He is now in his adolescent years. “Why, why do we have to go to church?” The boy is now a teenager. “You just don’t understand. You have never been through what I am going through!” The boy goes off to college. “I’m not a child anymore. I can do what I want to do.” The boy is now a husband and a father. “What am I going to do?”
His entire life he thought that he was being trained to be a child when in all actuality he was being raised to be a man. His parents taught him that life is not always easy, and we do not always get what we want. They taught him to work hard in this life and be responsible. They taught him to love others and stand up for what is right. They taught him care, compassion and love. Most importantly, they taught him about God and all the things that our Savior has done for us. They taught him about prayer and how our Lord is listening and watching over us.
Being a child is not always easy. Sometimes youths make the wrong decisions. Things can be confusing, and at times young people learn lessons the hard way. The same is true for being a parent. Each day is a new journey. Some days will be better than others. We will find mountaintops, and we will find valleys. Yet, no matter what, keep God first in life. “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
