Even When...
“Train up a child in they way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it” Proverbs 22:6
9/6/20262 min read
All my life I’ve heard this Scripture and somehow, I always interpreted it as a promise tied to a future timeline. To me, it sounded like train them up, set them loose into the world, and when they get old, they will return to the ways we taught them. I can even remember thinking, “How old is old?”
But recently I learned that some translations don’t say and when they get old, they say even when they get old and that small change shifted my whole thinking. It brought me from a future hope to a present reassurance.
As parents we spend so much time praying for and about our children, watching their decisions and driving ourselves crazy wondering if we did enough. We replay moments, question our decisions and sometimes carry guilt that God never asked us to hold. But today I come with good news. Even when means the seeds we planted are not waiting for some future moment to activate. They are already alive inside them!
Even when they make a bad choice.
Even when they fall down
Even when it seems they have wandered far from what we taught.
The Word, all the Sunday school, the VBS summers, Sunbeam choir rehearsals, the discipline, the love…all of it’s there.
The prodigal son is the perfect example of this. When he found himself desiring the slop of the pigs, Scripture says, “When he came to his senses” (Luke 15:17). He didn’t suddenly learn something new. He remembered what had already been planted. It was memory. It was formation. It was the truth inside him rising back to the surface.
God promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) and as parents we get to rest in knowing that applies to our children as well. Even when they drift, He stays. Even when they struggle, He stays. Even when they resist Him, He stays.
Beloved, your labor is not wasted. Your prayers are not ignored. Your teaching is not forgotten. Your children are not alone. God’s faithfulness is not limited by your child’s choices. Spiritual seeds grow quietly, often invisibly until the moment they are needed. That means as parents, we can release what we cannot control and rest in what God has already promised.