Day 24: Parenting Wisdom from Proverbs

“Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find?” (Proverbs 20:6 NIV)

Do you love your children? Do I love my children? The question almost seems absurd. Of course we do. How can there be any doubt about it? But I’m reminded of Jesus asking Peter again and again in John 21, “Do you love me?”

The thing is that love has to look like something. And Proverbs 20:6 tells us that one thing it looks like is faithfulness. Faithfulness gives love a voice and hands and feet. Anyone can make a claim, but God seems to be telling us that finding a person who proves that claim by faithfulness is going to take some searching out.
I can claim to love my kids, but if I am faithful, I will speak gently. I can claim to love my kids, but if I am faithful, I will serve them, sometimes by doing things for them that they can do for themselves. I can claim to love my kids, but if I am faithful, I will walk with them through trials and hard places.

And with Abba’s help and by His strength, when we show faithfulness to our kids—when we choose words that will build up rather than tear down, when we do things for them that we’ve done a hundred times before, and when we journey through tumultuous seasons—we take our claim of love and prove it.

-Elizabeth