It is important to educate and train your children. The question, of course, is what do you teach them and when. Here is one truth that is seldom taught because it something that people don’t like to talk about, especially with children:
We live and die at God’s pleasure.
It is good and necessary to teach children skills that will last a lifetime. It is also good to teach children that life is unpredictable for humans. As the Psalmist says our days are like grass and wildflowers. There is a burst of beauty and then the flower is gone.
This truth must not be avoided. Children must be taught that we are not to live for ourselves, we live for God. Human life is fleeting. Psalm 103 teaches:
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.The wind blows, and we are gone—
as though we had never been here.
—Psalm 103:15-16
It is important to teach your children to obey God, to live wisely and safely. It is also important to teach them life on earth is like a beautiful flower that is here today and gone tomorrow. This may not be an easy thing to teach, but it is cruel not to do so. Why? Because to withhold something that is so clearly taught by the Holy Spirit will leave your children unprepared for changes that happen in a literal heart beat.
Psalm 103 is a psalm of praise. This is a truth to be taught in praise of God. It is a truth to rejoice in. God is in control of life. What he does is good. Do not withhold this from your children. Without this truth life will not make sense and will seem harsh and random. Embracing this truth means that your children can know that the lovingkindness of God is forever. This is the bedrock they need and you need to live in the praise of our Great God.