Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6, NKJV)

If you ever need a reminder that life is not to be lived for yourself, your children and your grandchildren are certainly it.

One of our Links Players has a seven-year-old daughter who is ranked among the best golfers for her age in Southern California. I asked how old she was when she started to play. He said, “Four and a half.” When he would go hit balls at the driving range, he invited her along. With great excitement, she would say, “Yes, Daddy!” My friend told me, “My job as a dad is to train, and her job is to execute.”

Golf may not be what your children or grandchildren enjoy most, but you can have an influence in their lives for excellence. Especially when it comes to their faith. In fact, one of my favorite promises from God is today’s proverb.

You may have noticed, however, that this promise is preceded by an instruction. We must train up our children. We can do this as parents and grandparents, but also as aunts and uncles and Sunday school teachers. We train, then we pray that our young ones will execute.

While this is a simple enough principle, you only have to have a very little bit of parenting experience to know how challenging training up a child, especially spiritually, can be. But let me encourage you with a personal story.

When my son, who went with us to church from the time he was a baby, was 16 years old, I was serving as an elder in my church. One evening, he told me, “Dad, I go to church because you make me.” (Sound familiar?)

From behind me, my son stepped out and surprised us with these words: “I have been out of God’s army for seven years and I am now back!”In my mind I wanted to say, “You are dang right! As long as I am supporting you, you’ll go to church!” But that evening my heart (thanks to the Holy Spirit) spoke out loud and said, “You are right, Son. You need to own your own faith.” It was a hard decision for me to embrace. I thought to myself, What did I just do? I even went to the elder board later that week and announced, “My house is not in order. I need to resign.” But the senior pastor reminded me he had four sons of his own, and he saw this as a stage in many teenagers’ lives.

One morning during my daily devotion and prayer time, after much struggling in my heart, I heard one message from God: Just love your son. Jesus did this—just loved people. Even when they disappointed him or turned the other way. I had to keep asking myself, “What would Jesus do?”

My son came back to Jesus after college. We took a family trip to Israel with our church. At the Jordon River, my wife decided to get baptized with 40 other people on the trip. From behind me, my son stepped out and surprised us with these words: “I have been out of God’s army for seven years and I am now back!” I broke down and cried like a baby with such joy! It was our pastor who baptized them, but I decided to join in the baptism, too.

My son, who is now raising his own son, shares with me that because I loved him, even when he went his own way, it showed him God’s love. Besides his little one, he now ministers to 16-year-old boys and shares with their parents what he went through and how it was love from his earthly father that allowed him to see how unconditionally his Heavenly Father loves him.

Every young golfer is helped by a good teacher. More important by far, we have a great opportunity to be teachers of God’s love and the game of life to our young superstars—children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and others.

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Dereck Wong
September 9, 2019
Copyright 2019 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.

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