I am the youngest of seven children. My siblings range in age from five to 15 years older than me. Due to this age difference, their lives growing up were quite different than mine. The oldest three grew up without a toilet or running water in the house and listened to the radio for entertainment. Right before I went to kindergarten, we got both running water and a television. Additionally, by the time I entered junior high, all of my six siblings had either moved out of our house. So, from that point, it was almost like being an only child. In all of this, the greatest benefit for me was the fact that my mom and dad had been parents for 15 years already when I was born. The older kids were their guinea pigs, and I got the benefit of what they had learned while rearing them. Because of this, I always thought they knew exactly what to do in every circumstance as they reared me.

So, when my wife and I had our first two boys just 10 months apart and began to raise them, I turned to my mom for advice. One time while requesting her help with what to do with one of the boys, I listened to her wisdom and then asked, “How did you figure out just what to do with every one of us in each situation?” She burst out laughing and said, “Oh, Danny! I never did figure that out. Every time I thought I had you all figured out, you changed on me, and I had to rethink things. So, I just prayed a lot, did the best I could, and left the rest up to the Lord.”

That was not what I expected or wanted to hear. I was struggling with knowing how my wife and I were going to raise two very energetic and mischievous boys. Until she said that, I had hope that some major moment would dawn when everything would become clear, and we could just move forward with confidence, acting on deep parental instinct, knowing exactly what to do in every situation that would come up. Ha, ha, ha. Mom was right. That had never taken place in her life, and we were to find out over time that it would never come to pass in our lives as parents. Nevertheless, her words helped me again and again over the years that followed. So, my wife and I just tried praying a lot and doing what seemed the best to us, trusting the Lord to make up for our mistakes made with good intentions.

Hebrew 12:9-10 reinforce what my mom told me. “We had human fathers disciplined us, and we respected them...For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them (ESV).” These verses are in a longer section (Hebrews 12.3-11) on how the Lord disciplines his children and how his children should respond to this discipline. The noun and verb used to refer to discipline here come from the Greek word for child and referred originally to bringing up children. In time they came to mean instructing, training and correcting someone regardless of age. The basic idea is that of giving someone standards by which that person is to act, and enforcing consequences for obedience and disobedience. All of this is done for the purpose of forming character in that person.

In relation to children, this process is complicated by the fact that human parents at best base their discipline on what seems best to them at the time. For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them. The verb seemed “expresses the subjective mental estimate or opinion formed by man concerning a matter (Complete Word Study Dictionary).” Good referred to that which is “profitable, advantageous (Complete Word Study Dictionary).” Parents at best try to do what they think will have the optimal effect on the character and future life of their children. However, since their knowledge is limited, they make mistakes along the way.

Nevertheless, when such imperfect discipline is carried out with a sincere desire to benefit the children, this training causes the children to respect those in authority. You had human fathers disciplined us, and we respected them. Jewish teachers divided the 10 commandments into two halves with the first five focusing on one’s relationship with God and the second five on one’s relationship with others. So, they saw the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you (Exodus 20.12 ESV) as a part of one’s relationship with God. They argued that if a person does not learn to respect his or her parents, then that person will always have a problem respecting the Lord. Teaching children moral and spiritual standards, and enforcing those standards with appropriate consequences, trains them to respect the authority behind those standards. This will benefit them in time, both in their relationship with others and with the Lord later on. However, verse 11 in this chapter makes it clear that while such discipline is beneficial, it is not something that the one being trained by it welcomes at the time. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening. It’s painful! But afterward, there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way (NLT). Human parents should do their best to teach their children to obey moral and spiritual standards. However, they should not expect their children to welcome the enforcement of consequences for improper action. Parents must pay the price of being disliked by their children at the moment to see them turn into responsible adults in time.

That is what my mom did. No, she was not perfect. No, she did not have a super wisdom that enabled her to always know exactly what to do in every situation. She just tried to train me up in the way I should go with the hope that I would continue to go this direction when I became an adult (Pro 22:6). She just had a sincere faith that she aimed to pass on to me just as her mother had to her (2 Tim 1:5) and it worked.

If you are still in the child-rearing phase of your life, don’t fret about doing everything perfectly. Just seek the Lord’s wisdom (James 1.5) and do the best you can to teach your kids that there are standards to be lived by and consequences for obeying and disobeying them. Then pray, pray, pray that God will lead your kids to him and keep them living in his way to the end of their days.

DAN UPCHURCH is a native of Bollinger County. He and his wife, Lori, spent many years as missionaries in Ukraine and currently serve in Poland.