HUMAN CLAY: Dedication, Direction, and Discipline

Read Proverbs 22:6.

When I worked with clay on the potter’s wheel, there were basic skills used to shape each vessel.  Yet, the clay was not totally identical, and the results likewise differed somewhat. The vessels were not mass-produced as on an assembly line, but were unique creations. Sometimes, the clay contained grit that caused the potential to be marred, and it had to be broken down and begun again.

Similarly, Proverbs 22:6 speaks to the dedication, direction, and discipline required in molding the human clay of our children.

There is dedication.  When Solomon says to “Train up,” the word means to dedicate. This is why we practice a ceremony in our church life called “baby dedication.”  It is a public act of dedicating parents to the task of training their children in God’s ways, and committing those children into God’s hands.

There is direction. It is “a child,” that we are directing. We are pointing them in God’s way and pouring into them God’s truth, if we are helping shape them for His purposes. As pottery clay is best shaped before long exposure to the atmosphere begins to render it rigid, so the word “a child,” points to the strategic time before puberty, when a youngster is most pliable. There is a window of time—all too brief and adults must seize the day!

There is discipline. This requires persistence “in the way he should go.”  Unlike actual clay, human clay is more resistant. It can bow up in our hands and even get up off the potter’s wheel!  Yet, we must discipline ourselves in persistence and discipline the child to overcome resistance. The right amount of pressure is needed to make a useful vessel. Too much or too little and the clay is misshapen.  Part of this discipline is understanding, “the way he should go,” as the Hebrew means, “in his own way,” that each child is a unique creation and requires nuances of difference in training.  A cookie cutter approach won’t work.  We had five kids and I assure you that each was different and responded uniquely to our efforts to train them.

So, the general principle is, “when he is old he will not depart from it.”  I wish this was a promise, but it is a proverb—a wisdom principle. Generally speaking, the child so trained will never get away from what we have poured into them.  Even if there is a period of time when a child wanders, what we have put in them remains in them. The prodigal son left his father’s direction, but his father’s direction never left him. He knew the way back.

This is our duty.  Carpe diem—Latin for “seize the day!”