Harry Chapin, Cat's in the Cradle

This song is about parental modeling. Like it or not, children copy their parents. Harry Chapin tells the story of a man whose boy grew up just like his absent father. Check it out here.

Though some children don't grow up to copy their parents, Proverbs 22:6 (Bible in Basic English) is generally true. "If a child is trained up in the right way, even when he is old he will not be turned away from it."

It seems to me also that it's easier to go astray than to stick to good examples which our parents teach us. Eli's two sons were one example, as 1 Samuel 2:12-14 (BBE) shows us. "Now the sons of Eli were evil and good-for-nothing men, having no knowledge of the Lord. And the priests' way with the people was this: when any man made an offering, the priest's servant came while the flesh was being cooked, having in his hand a meat-hook with three teeth; This he put into the pot, and everything which came up on the hook the priest took for himself. This they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there."

If Ely had removed his wicked sons from being priests, 1 Samuel 4:10 and 11 (BBE) might never have happened. "So the Philistines went to the fight, and Israel was overcome, and every man went in flight to his tent: and great was the destruction, for thirty thousand footmen of Israel were put to the sword. And the ark of God was taken; and Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were put to the sword." Ponder that!

David is another biblical example of poor parenting. With his many wives and his rape of Bathsheba, it's no wonder his family had so many troubles. It would take too long to list them all here.

Even Abram had difficulties when he tried to rush God's plan through getting Hagar pregnant. As Genesis 21:12 and 13 (BBE) shows, it caused him grief but God blessed Ishmael anyway. "But God said, 'Let it not be a grief to you because of the boy and Hagar his mother; give ear to whatever Sarah says to you, because it is from Isaac that your seed will take its name. And I will make a nation of the son of your servant-woman, because he is your seed.'"

So if our heavenly Father, whose example we must follow, hasn't sent Jesus by Saturday, I hope to post about angry people head-butting their way through life.