Wednesday, June 10 — Do Not Forsake Your Mother's Teaching
There's a voice many of us still hear in our heads — a mother's, a grandmother's — saying the thing she said a thousand times until it became part of how we walk.
Proverbs 6:20-22 — KJV 20 My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 21 Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. 22 When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
Proverbs 6:20-22 — WEB 20 My son, keep your father's commandment, and don't forsake your mother's teaching. 21 Bind them continually on your heart. Tie them around your neck. 22 When you walk, it will lead you. When you sleep, it will watch over you. When you awake, it will talk with you.
Proverbs is wisdom literature — a father (and, notably here, a mother) passing hard-won understanding to a child who's about to step into the world's pressures. What I love about this little passage is that it gives the mother's teaching equal weight with the father's. In a culture that often counted only the father's word, the proverb insists: don't forsake your mother's teaching. Her instruction isn't lesser. It's a lamp.
And look at what wisdom does once you've internalized it. It travels with you. When you walk, it leads you — out in the world, in the decisions of the day. When you sleep, it watches over you — even your rest is shaped by what's settled deep inside. When you awake, it talks with you — it's the first voice in your morning. That's not memorization for a test. That's teaching that's become character. The image of binding it on your heart and around your neck means: make it part of you, where you can't take it off.
This points us straight toward Sunday. We're going to meet Hannah, whose greatest act of faith wasn't only her prayer — it was raising a son she would give back to God, pouring into Samuel the kind of teaching that would steady him for a lifetime of listening to God's voice. The prophet Samuel didn't appear out of nowhere. Behind him stood a mother's teaching, bound on his heart.
So today is a day to honor the teachers who shaped us — and to take the assignment seriously if we're the ones doing the shaping. Maybe it's your child at the kitchen table. Maybe it's a niece, a student, a younger coworker, a kid in the neighborhood who watches how you handle yourself. The lessons we pass on rarely feel momentous in the moment. We say them while making dinner, on the drive to school, folding laundry. But that's exactly how they get bound — repeated until they lead, keep, and talk. If a faithful word once led you, thank God for it. And then go be that voice for someone else.
Thought for the Day: A mother's teaching follows you long after you leave her table.
Reflection Question: Whose teaching still leads you — and who is learning from the way you live?
Prayer: Lord, thank You for the mothers, grandmothers, and faithful teachers whose words still walk with us. Help us not to forsake what they planted. And where we are now the teachers, give us patience and wisdom to pass on truth that will lead, keep, and speak long after we're gone. Amen.
This week we walk toward Sunday's lesson: Hannah, A Godly Mother.