Questions about Control
May 7-8, 2022
Leslie Leyland Fields

How can we make sure that our kids “turn out right”? Surely we just have to find the right way to “train up a child,” as Proverbs 22:6 tells us (right?)

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

Consider the story of Samson:
“A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless. The angel of the
“Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” (Judges 13:2-5)

How does Samson’s story end? “He had led Israel for twenty years” (Judges 16:31).

In Samson’s life we see only sin and tragedy, but God sees much more. Samson appears again in a surprising place: The Hebrews Hall of Faith chapter.

This is how God prepared them for parenting: by calling them into a deep, daily, dependent relationship with himself.

What does God want from us as parents, grandparents, as uncles, aunts, as husbands, wives, as sons and daughters of our own parents?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

“And love your neighbor as yourself.”

Let go of parenting formulas and perfectionism. Our limitations as parents will not limit what God wants to do in our kids’ lives.

When we love and pursue God first, we are able then to love our kids with the love God gives us.

Closing Prayer for all of us who are weary:

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, (mothers and fathers) being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19 NIV)