Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.
The gift is from the Lord, and the aim is to send.
Week 4 of 4
Arrows, not trophies
Children are a heritage from the Lord. They are not a proof of the father.
Behold, children are a heritage of Yahweh. The fruit of the womb is his reward.
Psalm 127:3
Psalm 127 calls children a heritage and a reward, then compares them to arrows in the hand of a warrior. An arrow is made to be sent. A trophy is kept on a shelf so the man looks successful. Malachi ends with a promise and a warning: the hearts of fathers turned toward children, or the land struck. A father who uses his children to settle his own name has already turned his heart away. The work is to aim them, bless them, and release them toward God, not to display them.
Scripture
Formal study reading, written for this series
Formal study reading, written for this series
Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine and your children like olive shoots around your table.
The blessed man fears the Lord, and the table is the sign, not the stage.
He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.
The last word of the prophets is fathers’ hearts turned toward their children.
NASB, the Amplified, and the ESV open on Bible Hub. The Legacy Standard Bible opens on its own reader. Close, Expanded, and Easy on this page are original study readings. WEB is the World English Bible, public domain.
A heritage is received
Nachalah is an inheritance. You receive it. You do not get to pretend you produced the glory of it. Psalm 127 has already said that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Children sit inside that sentence. The anxious father, the performing father, and the absent father are three ways of laboring in vain. The warrior image is not violence against them. It is skill, care of the arrow, and the courage to send it in a true direction.
Malachi 4 is the closing note of the Old Testament in the Christian ordering: hearts of fathers toward children. The gospel begins with a child, and with a Father who does not turn his face away. A man who will not turn his heart toward his own children is living against the grain of the story he claims. Turning is repentance. It can begin late. It should begin concrete.
In the house
Ask whether this child is being aimed or displayed. Display looks like their manners in public, their grades as your credit, their obedience as your reputation. Aim looks like knowing them, blessing a direction, and letting them become more than your echo.
Turn your heart in a way they can recognize: a meal you do not rush, a question about their actual life, a blessing spoken over them that is not a evaluation.
Seven days
At the table
- 1Are your children a heritage you received, or a project you are grading?
- 2What would it mean to send them rather than to keep them as proof?
- 3Which way is your heart actually facing this month?
- 4Where do you need to turn toward a child you have criticized more than you have blessed?
Your note
Stays on this device. No account.
A prayer
Father, unless you build the house I labor in vain. These children are a heritage from you, not a trophy for me. Turn my heart toward them. Teach me to aim and to bless and to send, and spare me from using them to settle my own name. You turned your face toward us in your Son. Make me a father who turns. Amen.