Passage Read: Proverbs 26-29
Meditation Verse: 29:15
Thought
A child who gets his own way, whether by temper tantrum or by parents who will not oppose him, end up bringing shame and disgrace to his mother and his father. The rod and reproof bring wisdom. Children need rebuke and discipline and training so they learn they are not the center of the universe, but need to submit to and respect authority, especially God's. Parents are supposed to know better what a child needs and what a child should do. A parent who thinks that granting a child's every desire and wish will eventually bring that child to hold the parent in such high regard that they will gladly do whatever the parent asks is deceiving himself or herself, and destroying their child. Interestingly enough, as this verse points out, it is more likely to be the mother rather than the father who thinks appeasement is the right way, the loving way, to parent. The father naturally tends toward establishing his right to lead his family, so will oppose the child's desire when it does not line up with the father's plans or when the father perceives the need to bring the child under his authority. The mother, on the other hand, is more likely to be concerned with how the child feels, and wants him or her to only have good feelings and experiences, so she will give him or her whatever the child wants, only to find she has trained her child to be selfish and uncaring of others, arrogant and self-absorbed and ungracious towards those around him or her. The father who joins the mother in this kind of child-training will also find the child eventually to be an embarrassment.
Application
Appeasement parenting creates long-term problems for the one parents thought they were helping. If God wants to save the child, He must being much pain and hardship into the life of that grown child in order to humble that person and bring them to understand their relationship to God and their need to submit fully to Him. It's no wonder, then, why God doesn't grant my every request and brings trouble and hardship into my life. He intends to establish His right to rule over my life. Not that He needs to prove Himself, but He's trying to save me and correct my thinking about myself and about His place in my life and my place in His universe. God's rod and reproof bring wisdom, and my stubborn, arrogant, rebellious heart needs it as much as any child needs the rod and reproof of truly caring parents.