Children Are Like Arrows

“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.” (Psalm 127:4).

One day, parents are going to need more support than they can manage on their own. Sometimes children can protect their older parents just like arrows can protect a warrior.

Children are like arrows in a number of ways:

• They protect. Children can help protect their older parents later in life. They can strengthen them when they are weary, assist them when they are weak, etc.

• They need to be carefully prepared and shaped. You couldn’t buy arrows at a sporting goods store in the O.T. You must cut them from trees, sharpen them, and shape them. Children are the same. Children need to be nurtured and trained and molded in order to be affective in life. Solomon wrote, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). You don’t shape and direct your kids well and equip them for life by sitting them in front of a TV for 4 hours a day. Children don’t become straight arrows without being shaped.

• They must be well aimed and directed. Children don’t always know the path to take, just like an arrow. You must guide them and point them in the right direction.

• They are to be sent with all power. When children leave the home, they need to be sent out with encouragement, support and the ability to survive. What good is an arrow, if he is equipped with everything he needs to survive in life and then told to go live in the basement until he is 30?