God's Wisdom for Navigating Life

by Timothy Keller

  Prayer: Lord, you save us by your grace, yet you love us too much to let us acquiesce in sin, and so you discipline us (Hebrews 12:4–11). You are never, ever, too lax or too harsh, combining affectionate care with firm discipline. Let our churches and families do the same. Amen.

  October 3

  Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. (13:24)

  DON’T BE BLACKMAILED. While parenting requires far more than discipline, it never requires less. Boundaries must be absolutely clear and consequences absolutely consistent, imposed with gravity but not with exasperation and withering remarks. That way the child can grow to see that the real conflict is not a battle of wills with the parents but a fight for self-control, without which the world and life itself will punish them forever. Yet discipline is hard not just on the children but also on the parents. When punished, your children will instinctively cry out in self-pity and anguish, “You don’t love me!” But Proverbs warns that not to discipline is to hate them and to discipline is to love them. So don’t let children emotionally blackmail you. If you crumple and refrain from discipline, you are loving only yourself, not them.

  Child discipline also demands parental discipline. It is easy to punish in anger rather than in love. Rather than sitting on the couch, shouting unfulfilled threats with increasing irritability, parents must respond instantly to any disobedience while they are still calm, and see that consequences are imposed.

  What families have you seen do this well? What can you learn from them most?

  Prayer: Lord, it’s costly to love imperfect people. You could not call us to repentance and save us without suffering. And we cannot discipline our children (or admonish our friends) without paying a cost as well. But as we look first to you, and then to those we love, make us able to pay the price. Amen.

  October 4

  Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away. (22:15)

  REALISM. Many assume that children are naturally innocent and pure, and that only society teaches us to hate. But this verse says folly is natural to us. Foolishness is to be destructively out of touch with the reality of God’s created order. Children are naturally self-centered, they don’t understand how other people feel, and they don’t know how their behavior will affect others—all of these basic things must be taught.

  We must learn this lesson again and again. Arthur M. Schlesinger, who grew up in the early twentieth century, wrote, “We had been brought up to believe in human innocence and . . . the perfectibility of man. But nothing in our system prepared us for Hitler and Stalin, for the death camps and gulags.”209 It is just as disastrous if parents do not know the potential for folly and evil that every child’s heart contains. We have said that the rod of discipline is not necessarily corporal punishment, but it is punishment—real consequences with teeth in them. If sin and folly are deep in every child’s heart, it will take more than words to root them out.

  This view of human nature and child rearing is radically countercultural. Does it make sense to you? Why or why not?

  Prayer: Lord, our children are infinitely precious image bearers and hereditary sinners. In our churches help us to raise our childern with both truths about them solidly in view, with love and firmness, with truth and tears. Amen.

  October 5

  For I too was a son to my father, still tender, and cherished by my mother. Then he taught me, and he said to me, “Take hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands, and you will live. . . . The righteous lead blameless lives; blessed are their children after them. (4:3–4, 20:7)

  DO AS I DO. How can we pass our wisdom on to our children so they make it their own? There are three factors here. The first is words (4:3). We must open our mouths and instruct. The second is a parent’s blameless life (20:7)—a word that means not perfect but consistent. Children are highly sensitive to perceived hypocrisy, which will undermine all efforts to pass on your wisdom. Are your actions consistent with your professed beliefs? Do you repent and apologize to others, including your child, when you have wronged them?

  The third and most important, you must cherish your children (4:3). The verse literally says, “I was the only one in the sight of my mother.” A child should feel they are the object of powerful, unconditional love from the parent. One researcher interviewed youth who had continued in their parents’ Christian faith as adults. The key factor was not church attendance or family devotions or strictness of discipline. The main thing they said was that they felt they could talk to their parents about anything and they would still love them.210

  What families have you seen pass on their faith and values well to their children? What can you learn from them?

  Prayer: Lord Jesus, you awakened love for your name in us through the wisdom of your words, the beauty of your life, and the unconditional nature of your love. Oh, teach us how to do the same! Let us as parents, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors, draw our children to you, we pray. Amen.

  October 6

  Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. (22:6)

  OUTCOMES. Some think that to set children on the way they should go means we must respect their individuality and help each find their own way. Other interpreters think “the way they should go” simply means the right path for all people. But it may be that the ambiguity is deliberate, because one of the great mysteries is why some children when they are old embrace their parental training and others do not. Whose fault is it if a child’s life goes “off the rails”? Sometimes a foolish adult is the result of parental failure (29:15). But some children simply don’t respond to the rightful reproof parents give them (13:1, 17:21). Their choice—to listen or not—determines the course of their life (1:10–18).

  So according to Proverbs, there are three factors that determine the way a child grows up—the hearts they are born with (“nature”), the quality of the parenting they receive (“nurture”), and their own choices. The three interact in complex ways that no one can control, except God himself (cf. 21:1). A parent’s final but most powerful resource, then, is prayer to the God who opens hearts.

  What families have you seen not pass on their faith and values to their children, though apparently they did things right? What can you learn from them?

  Prayer: Lord, we can feel either too responsible for our children’s choices—or too little. We know you put us as parents and adults in their lives to point them to you, but their hearts are in your hands, not ours. Give us more consistent, godly lives for their sake, and help us to entrust our children to you. Amen.

  October 7

  A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish man despises his mother. . . . “There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. . . . The eye that mocks a father, that scorns an aged mother will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.” (15:20, 30:11,17)

  HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER. How should children relate to their parents? “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). It does not say “love” or “admire” your parents, because some of us have foolish or even evil parents. And it doesn’t say “obey” your parents, because at a certain point you should grow up and no longer be under their tutelage (Matthew 19:5; cf. Galatians 3:23–25).

  There is only one thing you should do for all kinds of parents, no matter what they are like and how old you are—honor and respect them. Don’t despise, curse, or mock them, but bless them. This is what your conscience and heart need and what society needs. Find ways to show them respect at holidays, at gatherings, with phone calls, and even with social media. Give credit where it is due: “I learned that from you.” Let them change if they are trying—don’t stereotype them. And forgive them for things they may have done wrong. This honors the sacrifices they may have made for you that you kn
ow nothing of, and it models for the younger generations how they should treat you when you are older.

  Looking back at the last paragraph, have you honored your parents in these ways? Is there any way you could improve?

  Prayer: Father, many have mixed feelings about their parents. But help us look over their shoulders to you, our true Father, who gives us the love we need, and has given us our parents to serve us in so many ways. In the light of these truths, show us how to honor them. Amen.

  October 8

  A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother. (10:1)

  THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF SIN. Your sins always have a social effect. A man may consume pornography privately. But not only does it influence the way he relates to women in society, it also creates a market for it, making it available to others. A woman may insist that she has a right to commit suicide because she belongs to no one but herself. Yet even at the human level, that is wrong. What right does she have to darken or even ruin the lives of those who love her and who will be devastated by her suicide?

  The fact is that we are unavoidably interdependent. We became what we are not simply through our choices but through how we were loved and treated by others, for better and worse. We owe others much, and they us. And so your sins and follies are doubly guilty because they always bring grief to others. So here is the reality that 10:1 gives us. “Without the ties by which people are members of one another, life would be less painful but immeasurably poorer.”211 If we pull away, there is less grief but less joy.

  Have you seen the social effects of your sins? What are they?

  Prayer: Lord, no one is an island, and what I do in private affects how I live with others around me. My sins are first and foremost against you (Psalm 51:4), but second, and seriously, they are against my fellow human beings. Impress this on me, as one of the many ways you keep me from sin. Amen.

  October 9

  A prudent servant will rule over a disgraceful son and will share the inheritance as one of the family. (17:2)

  THE LIMITS OF FAMILY. Traditional societies are far more family oriented than modern ones, but they can make an idol of it. Often in those settings unqualified but blood-related people are chosen for leadership. Proverbs, for all its high regard for the importance of family, still puts individual worth ahead of pedigree.

  “It’s not what you know but who you know,” goes the cynical modern saying, but that is not the guidance of the book of Proverbs. In this text, the wise head of an estate will recognize that one of his employees is much better at running his enterprise than his son, and so will elevate the servant and even make him an heir (will share the inheritance). So character and ability outweigh blood and family ties. This principle works itself out in the New Testament, where we see it is never race and social standing but faith in Jesus Christ alone that brings you an inheritance in God’s family (Matthew 8:11–12; 1 Corinthians 1:27–31; Galatians 3:26–29). Privilege and insider status mean much to the world but nothing to God.

  Where have you seen things go wrong when pedigree was put before worth and merit?

  Prayer: Lord, centuries before the famous words that the “content of our character” is more crucial than racial and family ties, your Word said the same.212 Do not let us be blinded by family loyalty and love to the flaws and shortcomings of our kin. Amen.

  October 10

  Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. (17:6)

  GRANDCHILDREN. A crown speaks to the unique joy of grandchildren. In the harried, day-to-day maelstrom of raising one’s own children, it is hard to stand back and take in the wonder of a new life growing up out of your parental and spousal love. But the faces of your grandchildren evoke memories of your children, spouse, parents, and own childhood in a way that nothing else does. Grandchildren open a room in your heart that could not be unlocked by anyone else.

  Nevertheless, Bruce Waltke reminds us that while in the Old Testament childlessness was a curse, it is never spoken of that way after Christ. “By contrast . . . Jesus Christ, who had no biological children, blessed the Church to reproduce spiritually, not physically (see Matthew 28:18f; Luke 24:50f; John 20:22).”213 In The Great Divorce the childless Sarah Smith of Golders Green is surrounded in heaven by countless men and women who she spiritually mothered.214 One’s spiritual family includes all who trust in Christ (Mark 3:31–34). And you can have far more spiritual children and grandchildren (1 Corinthians 4:14–15) than you ever could physical ones.

  Do you know Sarah Smith–type believers, with far more spiritual children than physical?

  Prayer: Lord, those of us who have lived to see children and grandchildren praise you for the peculiar joy of seeing new generations. But remind and teach us that yours is the true family, and helping people grow in faith creates children who will live with us in fellowship with you forever. Amen.

  October 11

  A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. (17:17)

  WHEN FAMILY COMES THROUGH. The Bible keeps us from making an idol out of the family, even as it lifts up its importance. There are friends who are better than siblings (18:24) and colleagues who are as well (17:2). Our truest brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, are other believers in Christ (John 1:12–13; 1 Timothy 5:1–2). So family relationships should not always take precedence.

  And yet family ties can be uniquely deep and they often shine brightest in times of trouble. Unlike a friend who is around at all times, there are members of your family who may not want to hang out with you socially—and you may not find them to be people you would choose as friends. But when the chips are down, in a time of adversity, family members will often stand with you even to the point of great sacrifice. Like Jesus himself, they will walk through fiery furnaces with you (Daniel 3:25).

  When have you seen, in your life or someone else’s, an example of the truth of this proverb?

  Prayer: Father, we thank you for our families and friends who walked with us through the dark valleys. But most of all we thank you for Jesus, the one who truly “sticketh closer than a brother” (18:24) for he alone can walk with us through death’s door into the light he has won for us. Amen.

  October 12

  To have a fool for a child brings grief; there is no joy for the parent of a godless fool. (17:21)

  YOUR UNHAPPIEST CHILD. This text homes in on just one of the more diabolical effects of sin. In judo the key is to use your opponent’s strength and momentum against him. In the family, evil uses one of the features of love against you. There is no joy for the parent of a godless fool. When you love someone, you essentially put your happiness into the happiness of the one you love. That is, you make the other person’s joy and peace a part of your own. You cannot be fully happy unless the loved one is happy as well.

  Once a child is born to you, your heart will be naturally bound to him or her. This means, first, that you cannot rest contently if any of your children is in difficulty. It also means that, for the rest of your life, you can be only as happy as your unhappiest child. Children should be aware of the power they have to bless or curse their parents, just by the way they live. Parents should let the pain they may feel for their child become a spur to extraordinary prayer, not worry (Philippians 4:6).

  Where, in your own life or the lives of others, have you seen children’s power to bless or curse parents? How are you using that power?

  Prayer: Lord, our family ties are—by their very intimate nature—often painful. But teach us how to use these bonds for spiritual growth and ministry. Let anxious parents be motivated to powerful prayer for children; let thoughtless children realize their power to bless parents with encouragement and love. Amen.

  October 13

  If someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness. . . . Like a bird that flees its nest is anyone who fl
ees from home. (20:20, 27:8)

  RECONCILIATION. 20:20 speaks of those who are angry at and bitter toward their parents. The consequences of an unreconciled relationship with one’s family are serious. Their lamp will be snuffed out means, at least, that their happiness will be extinguished. 27:8 does not mean that there may not be a good reason for leaving one’s home, only that there is no real replacement for home and family. To be alienated from family is a deep sadness.

  But what if your parents have truly wronged you—how can you get the freedom to not resent them? It comes only by grasping the ultimate parental love of the Father through Jesus (John 1:12–13). If parental care and approval are the main source of self-worth and security, then you will be overdependent on your parents if they are relatively good parents, and unbearably angry with them if they are not. If, however, through Jesus Christ, your true brother, you have come into the ultimate family and received the ultimate fatherly approval, you will have the freedom to not need your parents so much, and to forgive them. In Jesus you are always home.

  Have you tended to be either too resentful of or too dependent on your parents? What effects of that have you seen in your life?

  Prayer: Father, many are bound and shaped by bitterness toward family members. Perhaps no resentment can distort our lives and relationships more. Show us your grace—which both chastens us and lifts us up—so we have enough humility and joy to forgive even the most grievous sins by our family. Amen.

  October 14