At times, life can seem like a fixed card game.  To your right is a neighbor who is holding pocket aces.  Their family is like a Norman Rockwell painting, and they never seem to struggle.  You, on the other hand?  Your family is more like a reality TV show than a Rockwell painting.  You look at your cards, and you feel like you’ve been dealt a crummy hand.

Gerard and Jeannie’s youngest son was a brilliant high school athlete with a close relationship with the Lord.  Yet, one day he made the mistake of taking hallucinogenic drugs that put him into a disoriented state for several days.  Gerard and Jeannie cared for their son, calming him down, hoping that all the drugs would finally run through his system.

I remember the day my dad brought home that shiny new motorcycle.  My brother and I couldn’t wait to hop on that hog and careen down the streets of our town.  But wisely, our father put the motorcycle in the garage and told us boys not to ride it unless he was there.  Well if you’re the parent of a teenage boy, you might see where this story is headed.  When my dad left one day, his car wasn’t halfway down the street before we pulled the forbidden vehicle out for a spin.  The result of our ill-conceived joy ride was my brother breaking his jaw, a friend breaking his ankle, and a busted air conditioning unit.  While a friend’s dad took the necessary people to hospital, I was given the unwelcome job of trying to smooth things over with my father.  It did not go well.  I had broken the trust my dad had given me.  After meting out the consequences, my dad sold the motorcycle and did not talk to my brother and I for close to three months.

It was a beautiful day for a run.  Though the Boston Marathon is by invitation only, the runners assembled were not your superstar athletes, but rather your typical moms, dads, accountants, firemen, grandpas, grandmas, students and scholars.  They were average people who, through hard work and dedication, had earned the opportunity to run through the streets of the city.  But before many of them made it to the finish line, the goal that these runners had spent years preparing for, the bombs went off and a senseless and mindless tragedy changed the course of the race forever.

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”  For many of us this verse is overly familiar.  But I’d like you to take a step back and look at this passage with a fresh pair of eyes.  I know that many of us may have unconsciously read Proverbs 22:6 as saying “teach a child” or “instruct a child.”

But that’s not what the verse says.

The Hebrew word chanokh, which is translated in this verse as “train,” is used as a verb in only three other passages in the Bible and describes either dedicating, consecrating, or equipping.  In each place this word is used, its meaning goes far beyond simply gaining knowledge or learning discipline.  Chanokh conveys more the idea of encouraging, preparing, and guiding children on the path to adulthood.  It’s the difference between “teaching” a child and “training” a man or woman of God.