Flight Paths

Today's post is by tuest writer Joanne Beckley.

When you cannot change your circumstance, whether it is bad health, limited abilities, poverty, prison, even when just stuck at home because of the weather . . . whatever is in your face that you can no longer control, it is an excellent time to work on your heart. Too often we get busy with “busyness” and are not diligent to be aware of what is happening to our hearts.

Someone somewhere coined the above title and I think it very appropriate. "Altitude" refers to height above a reference point, while "attitude" describes a person's mental state or feelings. And then there is “aptitude” that requires honing our abilities. So, it is always good to take time and consider whether your attitude and aptitude are reaching ever higher toward our heavenly Father.

The heart will determine how high you will soar. Surely reaching upward brings a greater reward than seeking a solution from the mud! A long time ago I heard the expression “baptized in pickle juice.” It is an apt illustration of sour, doleful, grumpy, disgruntled, complaining, negative, irritable, discontented – all describe the kind of person who seems to wallow in his misery and, not content, loves to cause others misery as well. Perhaps you have seen this kind of person who claims to be a disciple? One that you would rather not be around? Or. . . could it be yourself?

Solomon declared that as a man "thinks in his heart, so is he." (Prov. 23:7) A man's conduct is determined by the condition of his heart. If his conduct is wrong, it is because his heart is wrong.  Simon the sorcerer sinned for his heart was not right in the sight of God. (Acts 8:18-23) Out of the heart proceed the sins of a man's life. (Matt. 15:19) From the heart comes obedience to the divine pattern of the gospel. (Rom. 6:17,18) Thus, the necessity to keep "your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." (Prov. 4:23)

The world throws any number of things to keep us from growing, and every departure from God has resulted from the development of a wrong attitude toward Him and His word. Yet these things can also remind us that being a servant of the Lord is a challenge to be lived every day. Each challenge should serve to push us toward spiritual maturity in our personal relationship with the Lord.

Read the wise man’s words from God in Eccl.5:1-2: “Walk prudently (wisely) when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few."

 It is the awareness of what one can never know (Deut.29:29; Eccl.3:11), as well as how little one really does know, which ought to humble us. Is this not what happened with Job? He matured in His relationship with God through suffering, after he voiced all he thought he knew about God. Humbly, Job confesses to God, “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak. You said, ‘I will question you, and you shll answer Me.’ I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, bu now my eye sees you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:1-6).

Joanne Beckley

My largest flower bed, a couple of hundred square feet, is about 75% volunteers.  Every year I plant a couple of new things, but by and large the plot reseeds itself with black-eyed Susans, zinnias, marigolds, and Mexican petunias.  Instead of planned formality it becomes a riot of color—orange, red, rust, pink, burgundy, purple, white, and tons of yellow.  About the first of June it is at its best, and has even been featured in the photos of friends and family.

            The black-eyed Susans have a way of coming up just about anywhere—in the field, in the yard, up by the gate, around the bird feeders.  I never know where one will shoot up during any given spring. A shallow ditch runs along the west side of my large riotous flower bed.  This year that ditch was full of black-eyed Susans—even more than in the bed.

            As the spring progressed, that ditch also became full of weeds and grass.  I spent over an hour one morning cleaning it out.  Along with it went some of those pretty, brown-centered, yellow flowers.  I thought about it long and hard, but I knew this:  those weeds would just get more and more entrenched and eventually choke out the flowers anyway.  And even if they didn’t, the flowers would just call attention to the tall grass around them, and all anyone would think would be, “Ugh.”  So I transplanted what I could back into the bed, hoping they would survive the rough treatment of having grass roots pulled out from among their own, and then just chopped out the rest along with all the weeds.  It’s not like I didn’t have a plethora of them anyway.  They are all over the property.

            Which brings me to this:  what we often think of as beauty can be completely overwhelmed by ugliness.  Why can’t our young men see that a beautiful young girl is anything but beautiful when she acts like a trollop and dresses like a harlot?  Why can’t a young woman see that a handsome young man spoils those good looks with the filthy words that come out of his mouth and the intemperate behavior of a drunk, or a lecher, or anything else he allows to control his life?  Why don’t they understand that if they are only attracted by outward beauty, their values are as shallow as a drop of water on a hot griddle, and just as likely to evaporate?  Maybe because we haven’t taught them any better.

            Many years ago I stood in the receiving line at a wedding and heard a few feet away a woman who claimed to be a Christian saying, “He’s such a good looking young man.  It’s a shame he couldn’t find someone prettier.”  Never mind the young bride in question had a beautiful and loving character, she wasn’t pretty enough on the outside.

            I have heard women getting excited over a new dress or a new pair of shoes and then bored about a conversion.  I have seen men eagerly discussing cars or guns or sports, and turning away in apathy at a spiritual discussion.  I have seen people happy to discuss their misfortunes to anyone who will listen, while ignoring their blessings.  Do you think our children don’t see these examples?

            We teach them what to care most about, and they follow our examples all through their lives.  If I want my child to develop a deep relationship with God, then it’s time I had one myself.

            Tell your children what true beauty is, and then show them.  Make yourself beautiful with your good works, with your kind demeanor, with your loving spirit.  If you don’t, they may never learn what constitutes true beauty until they are mired in a horrible relationship that eventually ruins their lives.  The flowers in the ditch may be beautiful, but is that really where you want them to spend their lives?

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman with no discretion, Prov 11:22.

Dene Ward

"In recent decades the evangelical church . . . has struggled to establish broadly appealing patterns of worship . . . Frequently the tensions revolve around music and whether it should follow traditional or contemporary tastes. Increasingly we see congregations respond to these tensions in one of three ways: (1) they split into two or more churches, so each is free to pursue its preferences; (2) they establish multiple worship services, each gratifying one of these musical tastes; or (3) they adopt the philosophy of the contemporary music and worship industry, simply marginalizing those with traditional hymnic preferences and forcing them to leave or retreat into passive, resigned modes. While these responses have made worship attractive for younger people, their effects on the church's witness are disastrous. Instead of worship uniting God's people, conflicts over worship have divided them."

Daniel Block "For the Glory of God: Recovering a Biblical Theology of Worship".

    If you have been with me for a while, you know that I like birds.  If there is one thing I miss, it's all the feeders we had put out and the many varieties of bird we have seen in the years since.  Here, in Tampa, they do have birds, but our yard is so tiny, there is no place to put feeders without opening an all-you-can-eat Squirrel Buffet.  You simply cannot get far enough away from a tree or a fence but what they can jump over to any feeder you put out.  I toyed with the idea of one of those feeders that sends the interlopers on a tilt-a-whirl ride until the finally go flying, but as I said, the houses and the fences are too close.  All we would hear all day long is thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.  Then there would be the problem of punch-drunk squirrels reeling across the yard.

     Our neighbor has a couple of very tall oak trees.  With a tall stepladder, he has fastened two long strings to branches a good fifteen feet high with a feeder hanging from each.  A squirrel cannot go down the long string, nor can he jump far enough—at least not yet.  Finally, we have a few more birds around us.  We also have Muscovy Ducks in our neighborhood and they have begun flocking to the feeders to eat the fallen seed—a whole "raft" of ducks, which I have discovered is the collective noun for ducks in the water.  If you are not familiar with them, Muscovy Ducks are the Ugly Ducklings of the species—actually the ducklings look much better than the adults.  Those cute little yellow ducklings grow into a wide range of coloring from all black to all white with various mixes of pattern in between, but their distinguishing characteristic is a large, fleshy, red patch around the base of the bill and eyes called a caruncle.  If you see red, you are seeing a Muscovy Duck.

     These ducks are excellent at pest control.  They will eat the bugs out of your lawn and also do a number on flying insects like flies, gnats, and mosquitoes.  We have seen them at work, in fact, as they cross our front lawn to get to the fallout from the neighbor's feeder.  Sometimes a couple of them will even stay in our lawn while the others go on to the neighbor's.  For every bug they eat, that's less pesticide our lawn needs and the more comfortable we are when we sit on the patio.

     They began laying eggs in the spring.  Brooke and Nathan had a couple of clutches between their driveway and the front door—18 eggs in all.  Mama discovered quickly that she needed to move the babies as soon as she could because she was about a foot from a rising garage door and a couple of fat car tires.  All she left behind were empty shells.

     We had our first encounter with the ducklings as they came down the south side of our house one morning while we were sitting on the back porch, the west side, drinking coffee.  Mama did not realize that she had found a dead end street.  The subdivision fence walls our backyard, and the north side of the yard has no outlet thanks to the neighbor's fence.  We sat and waited until finally, here she came with her babies behind her, cautiously peering at us as she came back around the back porch.  She kept turning back every foot or two, realizing she was in a bad situation with no escape.  Keith had to go as far as possible on the porch so it would seem like he was behind her, then bang on the porch wall in order to encourage Mama to keep going.  Meanwhile, I sat as still as possible so I wouldn't scare her.  As she turned on the west side of the porch, she picked up the pace and her ducklings waddled as fast as their short little webbed feet would go.  Soon she was back on the south side headed the correct way to the neighbor's fallen seed.

     Pay attention, parents.  Those ducklings went wherever Mama led them.  They had no idea if it was a safe place or a dangerous place.  They didn't care whether there were big, bad monsters there or nice people who just liked to watch ducklings.  They didn't even know if there would be food there or not.  All they knew was that where Mama went was where they wanted to be. 

     I watched another Mama and her ducklings yesterday.  When Mama was finished eating, she left.  So did her babies.  She walked across the only straightaway in our neighborhood where some of the neighbors hit 45 on this narrow street lined with parked cars and where human children also play.  Some neighbors don't care about anything but getting from one place to another as quickly as they can.  Keith has been known to go out into the street when the other neighbor's children are playing to wave the speeders down.  But he wasn't home that day as Mama Duck led her babies across the street.  I held my breath until they were all safe across.

     It seems to me that some parents have no idea where they are leading their children.  It seems that some believe they can let them run wild and they will somehow miraculously become kind, generous, polite, self-disciplined adults at some magic age in the future.  They won't.   They will be just as poorly behaved, ill-mannered, and undisciplined as adults.  If you shield them from all the consequences of their misbehavior, they will be shocked when society makes them pay.  Oh, but my husband could tell you stories for hours of the young people who wound up on probation but somehow thought they didn't have to follow the rules and eventually wound up in prison.  Yes, it can be exactly that serious—kids who came from good families in good neighborhoods and who went to private schools and sometimes church, but who were never taught to behave, to respect the rights of others, and the simple fact that you cannot do everything you want to do, not in real life.

     I watched ducklings leave a meal because Mama was finished.  Whatever Mama does, whatever Daddy does, whatever they allow, that is what your children will do.  Remember that.

Take these commands to heart and keep them in mind, tying them as reminders on your arm and as bands on your forehead.  Teach them to your children, talking about them while sitting in your house, walking on the road, or when you are about to lie down or get up.  Also write them upon the doorposts of your house and gates  so that you and your children may live long on the land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors—as long as the sky remains above the earth Deut 11:18-21.

            We do a lot of grandbaby-sitting, not that I am complaining.  With this set of grandparents, that always includes some Bible study time.

            On one of those occasions, Silas and I sat at the table and made a sheepfold full of sheep with construction paper, cotton balls, markers, and glue.  The lesson, of course, was “Jesus is the Good Shepherd,” so we also included a shepherd-Jesus and a wolf-Satan.  On the tabletop we acted out Jesus protecting the sheep from the wolf.

            Not only was I dealing with a four year old, but a four year old boy.  As soon as we disposed of the Devil, Silas exclaimed, “Raise him from the dead so Jesus can kill him again!”  On that afternoon, the Devil died at least a dozen times. Eventually he stayed dead, but if nothing else, Silas will remember that Jesus can protect us from the Devil.  I just hope he also learns when fighting is appropriate and when it isn’t, and that the war a Christian engages in is spiritual in nature.

            Some of us have as little discretion as a four year old.  God has furnished us with a formidable sword, His Word (Eph 4:17; Heb 4:12).  But like Peter, we often wield the wrong sword.  While we know better than to hack people to pieces with a real weapon, we stab our interested neighbors in the hearts with brutal barbs and verbally assault the newborn Christians who haven’t had the time to learn everything we think they should have in ten seconds flat.  We slash the weak because they are easy prey and instead of sowing the seed among the sinners who need it most, we skewer them with sarcasm and roast them over the coals of a threatened Hell, expecting the Lord to pin a medal of valor on our zealous chests.

            Yes, there is a time to swing the sword of the Spirit, especially when the weak and innocent are threatened or when the Lord Himself is affronted, but when we fight just for the sake of fighting, the Devil is winning instead of losing.  “Put up your sword into its place,” Jesus told Peter, “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”

            Be strong and courageous.  Take up the sword and fight.  But don’t wield the wrong sword at the wrong time for the wrong reason.

And the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting them that oppose themselves; if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will. 2 Timothy 2:24-26.

Once before I gave you a set of short statements from a class I had taught that I called “Gleanings.”  It was well-received so I thought you might enjoy this latest set from the year and a half we studied faith—65 pages covering every single passage in the Bible that uses that word.  It has been a while since I learned so much, and I believe we all left it with knowledge that has impacted our daily walks—and isn’t that the purpose of studying God’s Word in the first place?

            First you must understand how this class works--we use the Word of God to determine the truth, NOT what Mama said, what the preacher says, what I’ve always heard, or what I’m comfortable with.  We learn—which means sooner or later we all completely change our minds about something, and ultimately the way we live our lives.  Light bulbs pop on regularly.

            So here is the latest list of “gleanings,” capsule statements that summarized whole lessons.  As usual feel free to use what you like.  Everything here came directly from specific scriptures.

            Faith is inextricably bound with hope.

            Both faith and hope involve full assurance, not just wishing.

            Faith can fluctuate but should be growing so that even today’s down times are higher than those in the past, maybe even higher than yesterday’s up times, and the fluctuation should gradually decrease.

            More faith is required to handle difficult times.

            Faith can completely stop, but it can also be revived.

            Faith is active and visible in a person’s life.

            There are such things as “works of faith.”

            True faith is accompanied by positive character traits like courage, morality, love, and forgiveness.

            Faith is a continuing condition in life, NOT a single instance that occurs early on and that’s that.

            Faith obeys.

            Faith protects.

            Faith is an asset in difficult times, not a burden.

            We live by our faith—spiritual survival, not physical.

            Faith progresses, i.e, it grows and matures.

            Faith fights and overcomes.

            Faith doesn’t expect Heaven in this life.

            Faith does not equal righteousness, but leads to it.

            Faith responds in obedience.

            Faith involves commitment, trust, reliance and acceptance of things we don’t like or understand.

            Our faith is in a Who not a what.

            Faith has less to do with great courageous feats than with an everyday recognition of God and His plan and His promises, and allowing those things to direct every decision, every action, and every word.

            Faith in God is not just about believing that He exists.  True faith is about becoming like Him.

            “O ye of little faith” was always spoken to his closest disciples.  God expects the most from those who claim the greatest faith.

            True faith is a product of humility.

            “Sound” faith in the New Testament is only applied to people who live sound lives.  A sound church, then, has more to do with how its members live from Monday through Saturday than with how it conducts itself on Sunday mornings or how it spends its money.

            Abraham became the father of the faithful only after decades of growing in that faith until finally he surrendered his life and his need for logic in two statements on Mt Moriah:  God is able (Heb 11:19) and God will provide (Gen 22:8).  He trusted God to do what He had promised whether he understood how or not.

Dene Ward

           There was once an English woman who took her driving test test forty times before she finally passed it.  Don't instantly think, "How dumb can you be?" and pat yourself on the back for doing far better than that.  Instead, ask yourself if you have the determination and persistence to do the same.

            How easily do we give up?  How many times do we have to fail before we say, “It isn’t worth it?”  If we’re talking about overcoming a sin, I hope we have the endurance of Mrs. Hargrave.  If we’re talking about praying, I hope we ask again and again.  If we’re talking about having a relationship with God, I hope persistence is our middle name.

            Remember the Syrophenician woman whose little girl was ill with a demon (Matt 15:22ff)?  The first time she approached Jesus he never even acknowledged her.  The second time he insulted her.  Yet still she kept coming and soon her great faith was rewarded.

            Remember the parable of the widow who pestered a judge to death until he finally gave her what she wanted (Luke 18:1ff)?  Just to get her off his back he relented.  Jesus’ point is if it works with an unrighteous man, surely it will work with a Holy Father. 

            Remember Paul’s admonition to the Galatians?  They seemed to be wondering if all their labor was worth it.  Paul reminded them of the law of reaping and sowing.  Sooner or later, he said, you will benefit from the good works you do.  Do not grow weary of doing good for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.  Waiting for God’s timetable may well be the most difficult thing He has asked us to do, and the greatest test of our endurance.  Don’t give up.

            The church at Ephesus may have had many faults, but the Lord does say to them, I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary, Rev 2:3.  Can He say that about us?  Or have we given up, whining about the pressures of temptation, not just bent but completely broken from the trials, deciding that being a disciple of Jesus’ simply isn’t worth the bother?

            What if He had decided you weren’t worth it?  What if he had told God that the cost was too high, that you weren’t worth the trouble, the pain, the anguish of taking on a human form and dying a hideous death after the spiritual torture of taking on every person’s sin throughout all history?  What would you say to him if you knew he had been about to quit?  How hard would you have begged him not to?

            Surely you have more grit, more tenacity, and more determination for spiritual things than a 62 year old grandmother had for a driver’s license.  Surely you won’t give up now.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted, Hebrews 12:3.

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward

I recently taught a Bible class that in turn taught me something very important.    

My view of the David and Bathsheba story, the class in question, is that it is a cautionary tale against hubris and that it shows that even forgiven, sins can have many earthly consequences. I always try to keep in mind that these are real people with real motivations and emotions. People who live in a different culture than mine, with a different viewpoint that sometimes makes it hard for me to understand, but people. Thinking along those lines about David, I find it hard to believe this was an isolated incident where his passions got out of control. If seeing a beautiful, naked young woman aroused him, then he had many--many!!--legitimate ways to deal with that. His wives and concubines that we know of number in the high teens. He was also cold blooded enough about the whole incident to make sure that Bathsheba was clean according to the law. It seems that if she wasn't clean, David would have waited for her. So this wasn't one moment of passion, but the culmination of years of legitimately having his way.

He was king, and as such was accorded certain privileges. He wanted security for his people, the earthly nation of God, and he went out and took it at the edge of the sword. He wanted a new capital city, and took it.  I wonder if he wasn't arrogant about being David, King of the Hebrews, scourge of the land of Canaan. Then he saw a woman he wanted, and took her, despite the fact that she was the wife of another. So, the story can be taken as a warning against hubris.

Then chapter 12 (2 Samuel) lists the consequences of David's acts, records David's repentance, and declares God's forgiveness of David's sins. Yet though forgiven, David had to face the multiple consequences the rest of his life. That teaches us that our sins, too, can have major, long lasting consequences, regardless of God's forgiveness. This gives us extra incentive to remain pure before God.  None of us want to face anything like the last 20 years of David's life. So that was my view of the point of the David and Bathsheba story.

Then a woman I respect said she agreed with most of what I thought, especially about the consequences of sin, but denied that it was the major point of the story. She sees the major point as being the wonderful grace of God and his extraordinary forgiveness. To her it is a story showing that, no matter how far one falls from God, he will accept you back if you show "a broken and contrite heart." (Psalm 51). David made some major mistakes, and was far from God at the end of chapter 11, but with the strong rebuke of Nathan he came to himself and returned to Jehovah, acknowledging his sin and repenting. God forgave him, he remained king, and spent most of the rest of his life preparing for the temple and the national worship of Jehovah. This paints the picture of God's redeeming grace. 

My father made the point in my class that you can see from David's writing in the 51st Psalm the surprising depth of his spiritual understanding. Almost every sin had a specific sacrifice that had to be performed for the forgiveness of that sin under the old Law, but adultery was punished by death. So was murder. There was no sacrifice for the forgiveness of these sins. God had forgiven David. So there had to be more to forgiveness than just animal sacrifices. This incident forced David to understand something spiritually that many of us still fail at today. There is nothing we can do to win forgiveness. It is the gift of God. What he requires is the "broken and contrite heart." I don't know that this is the major point of this incident to Dad, but it is something he saw that I didn't. Sometimes our biggest failures cause us to grow in the biggest ways.

It is interesting to me that three people looked at the same incident recorded in scripture and learned three different lessons from it. All of the lessons are valid and supported by the scriptures. We each came at the same material from different starting points of personal experience, personal Bible knowledge and different points of spiritual growth. While we may good-naturedly argue about which is the "main" point, I doubt that there would be much disagreement between us that all of these points are valid and can help others to grow. 

Wow, someone can read the same passage I did and come to a different conclusion than I did and it not be wrong? I wonder what other issues of greater import this might be true of.  Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to condemn my brethren.  Maybe I should try to view them through love instead of the narrow lens of immediate judgment.

Lucas Ward

The boys have taught me well, not only strategies and terms, but who to root for in football, basketball, and baseball.  The Gators, the Rays, the USF Bulls, the Miami Dolphins, the Buccaneers, sometimes the Jags if they aren’t thoroughly embarrassing themselves, and any SEC team that is not playing Florida at the moment. 

            But if any of those teams are playing, I do not enjoy what most people call “a good game.”  Why would anyone enjoy something that causes heart-burn, heart palpitations, and heart-ache?  I cringe until the score becomes outrageously unbeatable, and then sit back and enjoy the rest.  That’s my kind of game.

            And though it certainly isn’t a game, that’s the way I like my contests with the Devil too.  It ought to be that lopsided a score.  We have a Savior who has already taken care of the hard part.  We are already so far ahead, even before we start, that a comeback by the opponent should be unthinkable.  We have an example how to overcome.  We have help overcoming.  We have a promise that we CAN overcome if we just try.  We have every possible advantage, including coaches and trainers and all-star teammates, and a playbook that is infallible. 

            We have the motivation too.  As we said, this isn’t a game.  There is no next season, and defeat is an unthinkable consequence that should spur us on to adrenalin-boosted, nearly superhuman feats.  And the trophy is far better than anything offered us in this life.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.  Now they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one, 1 Cor 9:25.  That crown is called a “crown of life” in several passages—an eternal life with our Creator. 

            Do not make your game a close one.  Don’t sit back and let the Adversary make a comeback.  Don’t fumble the ball, or commit an error, or make a turnover out of carelessness and apathy.  Victory is not handed to you on a platter.  You still have to want to win, and fight like that every minute.  My kind of game may not appeal to you when you watch your favorite teams play, but it should be the only kind you want when your soul is at stake. 

            We are “more than conquerors” with the help of God (Rom 8:37).  His game plan involves a rout, running up the score, and rubbing the enemy’s nose in defeat.  And it can go exactly that way with just a little effort on your part.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"...But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:53-55, 57

Dene Ward

Did you see the video going around of the mother goose leading her babies up a set of two stone steps somewhere in an urban center?  (She might have been a duck, but I am not a poultry expert and it suits my purposes here to call her a goose.)  Those steps were twice as high as those goslings.  At first the mother waddled on, but soon she realized she was alone so she returned to the steps and watched as each baby leapt to the top of the next step over and over and over—and usually fell back.  It took no less than five or six tries per step for each one, and some many more.  The last little fellow almost had it but then fell onto his back, exhausted.  Did he give up?  No, he got up and kept on trying, and finally, several minutes after all the others had made it, he got to the top of the second step and ran to his mother, who then turned and led her tiny gaggle across the plaza.

            That mother had it easier than you and I do.  She had no hands and arms to be tempted to reach out and help.  All she could do was patiently wait, honking her encouragement.  Too many times we use those hands and arms when we shouldn’t, thinking we are doing the right thing, and our children grow up emotionally frail in the process, with a warped sense of their place in the world—usually the center, they think.

            What would have happened if you had never let go of those little hands as your toddler tried his first steps?  What would have happened if, when he tried to climb, you always came along, picked him up and put him where he was trying to go?  What would happen now if every time something wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it, you came along and made it that way?  Sooner or later he must find out that the world does not run to his schedule not his set of likes and dislikes, and the earlier he learns that the less painful it will be for all of you.

            In his work, Keith has come across many young people who finally found out that their parents could not get them out of trouble as they were hauled off to prison in manacles.  Once, a nineteen-year-old probationer thought he could bypass some of the rules of his sentence, namely his officer checking to see if he was home where he belonged, because “I have a mean dog.”

            “Lock him up,” Keith said.  “That’s your responsibility because I will be doing my job, which is your punishment for your crime.  If you don’t, I have authority to stop the dog any way it takes.”

            “Bbbbbbut you can’t hurt my dog,” he blubbered.

            “YOU will be hurting your dog,” his officer told him, and finally got through.  He did the crime because he thought he could get away with it—mama and daddy had always gotten him out of trouble before.  Now he had to pay the consequences.  I wonder if his parents ever did make him do something he did not want to do as a child. 

            God gave those goslings a goose, a mother who would stand there and patiently wait while her children tried and learned and grew stronger even with their failures.  He gave a goose who would honk her encouragement when they fell flat on their backs, urging them with “love” to get up and try again.

            Some parents don’t have the sense God gave a goose when they raise their children.  What do you think will happen if you fix every problem and adjust every situation to their liking?  As adults they will be persistently dissatisfied and miserable, or constantly in trouble and probably devoid of true friends who are tired of always having to do things their way.  Certainly love them, but “learn” to love them in the hard things (Titus 2:4).  Teach them, discipline them, tell them they can do it and cheer them on.  Add a more “tactile” form of exhortation when necessary.  Give them words of encouragement, of admonishment, of rebuke, of love.  That is why God gave them parents instead of a goose.

Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching…My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. Proverbs 4:1-2,20-21

Dene Ward