Train Up a Child

You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. —Luke 1:76

When you think of John the Baptist, perhaps your mental image goes to locusts and wild honey. But what I find particularly riveting is a statement John made to his disciples once Jesus started to draw large crowds. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

The only thing that mattered to him was that Jesus be magnified. But I don’t believe he came up with that line out of thin air one day. I think he could give such a profound answer because it’s what he’d been taught as a child. His parents instilled in him a sense of God’s mission and purpose for his life from the cradle up. John had always known he’d be a “prophet of the Most High.”

This is why you were born, my son.

Every child needs to be told that God put him or her on this earth for a reason, with a role to play, and with a calling to a God-honoring way of living.