If you want good fruit in your kid’s lives you need to know this.

With three young children we moved to the Hill Country of Texas to plant a church. The salary was sparse and it seemed like planting a garden would be a good way to stretch each dollar. I prepared a gorgeous bed for the tender seeds – cleared out the rocks and weeds, turned under and thoroughly prepared the soil, carefully planted each seed at just the right distance and depth.

To my amazement, though I had cleared out all the rocks, within a few weeks more appeared. Then unseen seeds began to produce demon weeds. The war was on. At the start it was a constant battle against weeds and rocks. It was always a lot of work but eventually my garden began to produce vegetables equal in size to the weeds and stones.

I discovered children are a lot like that garden. They appear so innocent and pure – a fresh garden bed just waiting for us to plant seeds of our wisdom and experience into their fertile little minds. But too soon we discover that hidden in their little souls are seeds of selfishness, greed and meanness. Obviously these come from your spouse’s side of the family.

If unattended the most carefully prepared garden is soon overcome by weeds – the seeds of which were there all along. In the same way, a child left alone, undirected and undisciplined, soon becomes a disgrace.

Plants naturally grow toward the light but children do not. They must be directed toward the Lord, restrained from going the way they would naturally grow because they are born with the seeds of sin in their heart – seeds that will naturally flourish if unchecked.

As parents we must carefully dig out the weeds so we don’t destroy the precious fruit growing right beside them. I’ve seen parents so overreact to crush the weeds that they also damage the good fruit in the child’s soul.

Parenting requires a delicate balance between expecting the best of and from our children while at the same time realizing they are products of a fallen world. Their “heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

We can’t freak out when they behave like a demon and we can’t think our job is done when they glow like an angel. Guard the good in their heart and carefully root out the evil.

A rod and reproof impart wisdom, but a child who is unrestrained brings shame to his mother.
– Proverbs 29:15