Training and Encouraging

 

In these two photos we have a climbing rose that has been encouraged to use the support of a man made Arched Trellis on a house in East Dubbo, and a Wisteria that has been encouraged to grow on a Paper Bark tree at a farm near Gilgandra. Both of these climbers could have existed without the support that they have, however although they may have made some sort of a display on the ground they would have also been a harbor for snakes mice, and weeds, and there is the ever present possibility that animals may have eaten them.

It is for sure that when we train up a young vine the way it was mean to grow, when it is old we will have a very beautiful display that will give us constant pleasure. The bible instructs us to do the same thing with our children; the actual words are: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). If you have a tree in your garden and want it to look as beautiful as this one then you will have to plant the vine and nurture it and encourage its flexible limbs to twine around the tree and in a few years you will be delighted with the result. The tree and the vine become so much a part of each other that we see them as one unit. This is how God wants us and our children to relate to Him.  He wants to be so much a part of all our lives that we share everything with Him. God wants us to start training our little ones in His ways from the day they are born, (as the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy tells us to: in Chapter 6 Verse7) whilst their young minds are pliable and receptive, that way they grow up to depend on God as an integral part of their lives, like the vine in the tree. There will be exceptions to that rule of course, due to outside influences such as poor example at pre-school, the media, and possibly atheistic primary teachers. What they learn in those first 6 formative years though, will determine their basic attitudes for the rest of their lives. This is where Parents, Grandparents and Great Grandparents who love them and are loved by them, share a great responsibility to influence them by their Christian example in all that they say and do. Remember the poem: “I would rather see a sermon than hear one any day, I would rather one would walk with me, than merely show the way. The eye is a better pupil and more willing than the ear; fine council is confusing, but example is always clear. I soon can learn to do it if you will let me see it done, I can watch your hands in action but your tongue too fast may run”. Example is so very important!

In saying all this I am nevertheless aware that some people reading what I have written, may not have had that close relationship with God themselves, and that’s normal enough; but we are not dead yet either, and God is in the business of changing lives. Therefore if you are one of those people and want a closer relationship with him, he will help you achieve that because his Holy Spirit is just waiting for your permission to let him help you.

If you haven’t already done so, try and see yourself as a vine, and God as that tree that will support you; what a relationship! The way to get that support is to ask for it in prayer, read the New Testament and, if possible, fellowship with other Christians at church (Hebrews 10:25), the bible tells us to do that. In John chapter 15, Jesus says that he wants us to “Abide in him and his word to abide in us”. Therefore If we are going to comply with that, then we need to “down load” his word from the New Testament into our minds, and that is just commonsense because we do that in everything else: Nurses study books to know how to nurse, Mechanics study about engines, and Teachers study teaching. There is nothing strange or unreasonable about Jesus request! If we want to succeed in anything we need to understand the subject, and in this case discover the great unfailing love he has for us.            Best wishes, Tom.