An old movie series call “Walking Tall” is the story of a retired pro-wrestler turned vigilante against corruption in his home town. The idea is that he “walks tall” with pride and is unwilling to bend to the bad guys who corruptly run the town.
While I suppose there is a certain element of truth to his “walking tall” in the physical, or even moral sense, I think that God’s word gives us the real blueprint for men to walk tall…one that will leave a legacy for generations.
Proverbs 20:7 tell us that when a righteous man walks with integrity, his children will blessed after him. In addition, Psalms tells us that the offspring of upright will be blessed.
Over the years, especially as I have 3 young sons, I have thought of these verses often. I’ve tried to wrap my mind around “how” God blesses the children of the upright. To be honest, in my experience in working with Christians for a long time, I’ve seen some very “upright” parents with children who don’t seem very blessed…or have just had messy lives. So, then I begin to wonder what those passages really do mean…is it a guarantee that God will automatically give spiritual blessings to kids who have good parents?
See, I think we need to consider these verses in context with all of scripture and I think it’s a mistake to rest on them as a slam dunk that our kids will turn out great if parents just walk uprightly. That’s just inconsistent with God’s character…a kid that is lazy, won’t get a job, won’t go to church…just isn’t going to be automatically blessed because of his parents. No…when we really look into them, I believe we can determine that those passages are saying that children are blessed to have the example of Godly parents. They are blessed to have a role model, someone to show them the path of right and good. Their blessing is not a guarantee that they will have riches, power, spiritual success, or anything like that…their blessing is that they have great parents…a Dad who walks with integrity. That gives them every opportunity to follow in good footsteps and it gives them a leg up in the world and a fast track to understanding how to walk uprightly…so that God can use them.
So the challenge for us parents, is to work diligently to emulate HOW to walk uprightly, how to walk with the Lord, and how to live with integrity. Our children are watching, and the blessing of being able to follow in the footsteps of godly parents is up to us to show them. We can’t do it alone, we need to rely on God’s grace and power to give us the strength to live up to this highest calling. God help me to give the blessing of an upright example to my 3 precious boys! Amen.