Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 KJV

In my city there are many sites where crows are seen feeding on whatever the passing motorists leave for them, usually French fries, but sometimes their favorite: peanuts. Give a crow a peanut and he is your friend at first bite, even willing to approach to you closer with time, kindness and of course peanuts.

As I have become accustomed to keeping an eye out for our neighborhood "murder" (family) of crows, I happened to see a crow up on the ridge of a Casey's Store one day, being dive bombed by several black birds. As he snapped his beak with every close encounter with a blackbird, it suddenly occurred to me that it was a juvenile and he was not snapping his beak at all, he thought he was going to be fed and reacted to them with a mouth open for food! Just like Elijah at the brook Chorath, this young crow thought that these mini-ravens were going to bring him his dinner just like dear old mother crow did every time he cried to be fed.

In the small line of trees that fronted the property, sure enough there was Mother Crow, looking for all the world to be just thinking: "You blackbirds listen to him for a while, I'm taking a break from Junior."

That is the way it is with parents and kids today as well. We share what we know with our children as long as they are wanting to know it, then comes the time when outside distractions will start to take the place of parental advise and answers. We see some of those distractions to be good influences in their lives and sometimes they are not so good, and like old Mother Crow, sometimes all you can do is take a break and simply view your children from a distance and pray you have readied them for a world quite a bit less civil that the one you came up in.

Crows come and go with the seasons while we tend more to stay in one spot, both physically and spiritually. If we are well-rounded believers, we will normally have like-minded children and if we are not, they are not. It all depends on how we raised our children and upon how our parents raised us.

Kind of like old Mother Crow, you will know when to step in and teach those kids yourself and when to set back to carefully and hopefully watch and allow others do it.

Rik Charbonneaux is a retired NE Iowan who loves all of God's Word and all of His creatures.