Since the Proverbs 31 Woman has an “enterprise perspective” she sets goals for herself. She also sets goals for her children to reach and helps them reach those goals. She teaches her children the benefits of a goal reached. She sees an earthly and a heavenly gain in this, since she fully understands how the physical and the spiritual are connected. She has trained up her children to help her and to take on worthy projects themselves that she watches over for their profit, just like her heavenly Father does for her.
She has put a lot of thought and course-plotting to the future of her children. It is pitiful to see young men and women today wasting away because they have no clue what life is all about or what they should be doing with their thoughts, their time, their talents, their strength and their money. They just live each day without a care for their future.
Parents make idols of their children when they give their children everything they scream and ask for. If we allow our children to be lazy and unproductive – we assist them in ruining their lives. As wise and productive mothers (and fathers) we should be the ones our children are taught by. We are wise to employ our own children under us in any way we can think of or they think of. It allows the parent to instill the principle value of sowing and reaping, as well as giving them a way to see what they can do.
Children will fall away from godliness if sent off too soon to learn and be accountable to someone else but you, and especially someone without faith in Jesus Christ. Putting your child in a place where God and His principles are not honored is the perfect way to destroy your child’s future. If that child has been offered to God and dedicated to Him then you are responsible for your child’s upbringing in the truth and training in righteousness. If you do not follow through then it puts God in a position He shouldn’t have to be in; that of doing what you should be doing for the children you dedicated to Him and that He has entrusted you with. Dedicating our children to the Lord makes us responsible for how they turn out.
As Christian parents most of us have dedicated our children to the Lord, but do we understand what that really means? Like most Christian parents, we had the pastor pray over each one of our children and over us as their parents. We should understand the responsibility we have to God on behalf of these children to care for them properly and to raise them up for His glory and Kingdom. The thing that so grieves God’s heart is that He sees so many parents (who have dedicated their children in this way) not following through. When times get tough, they fall away from the Lord, from their marriage, from being the parents their children need. God expects us to live up to our vows we’ve made to each other and to Him; that we be faithful. He will help us to be faithful if we will not give up and go our own selfish way. This teaches our children more in life than we realize.
We made mistakes as all parents do, but God trained us by those mistakes. It made us better counselors to our adult children when they began raising our grandchildren.
Many parents send their children off to Sunday school, to public school, on mission’s trips or into the military to learn what they should already have established in their character because of your input and prayers.
When you send your son (or daughter) off to do something good for other people they should be able and willing to give of themselves; to be of good (godly) use simply from the way you raised them at home. A troublemaker should be conquered at home. A child’s meanness is to be removed at home with the rod of learning on their seat of understanding or they will become a threat to society – as we see so much of today.
The ignorance in children is the responsibility of the parent primarily, and not the responsibility of schools, and not the church or government either. Ignorance is not the lack of worldly knowledge; ignorance is the void of God’s truth and love; the foundation that we then build upon.
Before you send your young adult off anywhere in the world ‘with your blessing’ you better be sure that your child will in fact be a blessing there, instead of a troublemaker. Our children represent our parenting skills; they represent the values we instill in them.
My husband and I have helped send young men (fresh out of high-school) to far-away places on “mission trips” only to hear that they caused trouble partying or slacking off – wasting their team leader’s time and the financing of their supporters. When you send your child or anyone off they are representing you – the sender. It is your responsibility to make sure they are ready and prepared for the work of the Lord there, no matter what job they do. If you are financially supporting someone for their ministry or work in an area you better know if that person is responsible or not before you back him up and send him/her off.
Whatever the Proverbs 31 Woman has that is of value she is not selfish with it. She finds a way to share her wealth and wisdom with others when the Lord has put some person, family, community or nation on her heart or in her path; whether they need Bibles, food, clothing, words of hope and encouragement, or even sending them her own trained and prepared children.