“Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters” (Gen. 5:2222And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: (Genesis 5:22)). Apparently it was that little infant that caused Enoch to walk with God.
When the care of raising children begins in a family, we start on a new course of lessons. The baby is fretful and will not sleep. Mother has had the little one all day, and it is the father’s turn. He must walk the floor late at night with the precious baby in his arms, when he fain would be asleep in his warm and cozy bed. Happy the parents who at such a time can learn to walk with God, as they walk the floor with a crying, restless infant. They will find those dreaded night-watches turned into heavenly communion, with their best and dearest Friend. The silent house, when everybody else is asleep, will be found to be just the place where your Lord and you can walk together undisturbed.
And if the baby comes down to the brink of that cold, dark river, and that little life, that has grown dearer to you than your own, seems about to slip away, you learn one of the deepest lessons that this life can teach, to say in very truth, “Thy will be done.” May we each find, as Enoch found, that our little darlings lead us, or drive us, to walk with God, and in this wondrous companionship may we find strength and comfort for the parents’ path.
G. C. Willis