As parents, training our children is a challenging exercise in perseverance. We may succeed here or there, but consistency is a constant struggle. The Book of Proverbs lays out the principle of long-term faithfulness:
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Lent is a great training camp. In this season we learn that we ourselves need to be trained by our Father in heaven even as we train our children in truth. What parents wish to learn and pass on are patterns that children will carry throughout life. Much like worship, parenting is the art of instilling life-long rituals. Training is more than memorizing concepts or learning new ideas, training is catechizing our children in the way of truth.
Lent gives us the perfect training theme: the cross of Jesus. The cross instructs us and our children that there is no glory before crown; no victory before the war and no feast before fast. The cross teaches that in serving the least of these, beginning with our children, we are truly free.
Our children need habits more than facts. They need to see the cross of Jesus as the center of their formation. They need the crucified Lord as their Savior. Once the cross becomes the great marker in their journey they will not depart from it. They will live their lives feasting in the empty tomb. Lent is ultimately a season where our Father in heaven trains us in the way we should go.
Prayer: O great Father, who carried us in the wilderness, do not cease to train us to serve you, to form us to love you and to prepare us to endure this journey well. We long to learn from your ways and we ask that you would give us hearts of wisdom that we might not depart from your ways through Christ our Lord, amen.
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