If you’re from a religious background, it’s likely that sometime during your fledgling parenting career you learned this verse, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). It sounds so simple, right? Coaches train athletes. Sergeants train soldiers. And parents? They train sons and daughters.

However, if you look closely at this verse, there is a little Hebrew gem that’s embedded in Proverbs 22:6. As it turns out, this verse is not so much about what we do as parents but what our Father does when he claims our children as his own.