“He spent some time in jail,” the young wife explained about her husband. “But I told him if he learned something from that, then jail was an education.”
Another woman said regarding her son, “Oh, you know how they all have to do their jail time.”
Really? People have to go to jail to gain a handle on life? Let’s broaden this a bit. It’s not just about jail.
It’s the notion that we have to do stupid things and learn the hard way in order to figure out how to live.
There are problems with this kind of thinking:
- First, we don’t have enough time to learn everything the hard way. One lifetime doesn’t offer enough opportunities for us to get smart by “learning a lesson” every time we face a choice.
- Second, the consequences of bad choices take up valuable time and energy, derailing us from the better path we could have taken.
- Third, the more we get derailed, the more confused we get, and the less apt we are to make a wise decision in the future.
Human beings don’t function like animals. Psychologist John Rosemond unpacks this in Parenting by the Book.
If we were the same as animals, he explains, behavior modification would work on us. It does not.
That’s because animals don’t have a sin nature.
An animal makes choices based on a negative consequence or a reward. Human beings wrestle with, I know what will happen if I do this, but I’m going to do it anyway.
It’s the dilemma Paul tackles in Romans:
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” — Romans 7:18-19
We have this urge to do the wrong thing, even when we know better. We give in to our own pride and self-sufficiency over obeying God, even when we want to follow him.
But here’s what happens when we disobey: we lose clarity.
When our three boys were ages five and under, a single man in our home church confronted us about the behavior of our oldest. He told us that the couple in whose home we were meeting was unhappy about how Danny was not following their rules.
He went on to suggest some curriculum on parenting, so we could up our game. Needless to say, we were hurt and offended. Hecame to us instead of the couple talking to us directly. He was single and didn’t have kids, yet was telling us how we should raise ours.
We had all kinds of excuses to blow off what he was saying — but somehow, by the grace of God, we listened.
It was painful to admit it, but we could see the need for a change in our parenting. So we looked for help and resources. We changed our methods. We learned to set better boundaries for our kids.
This all turned out for the benefit of our whole family — but things could have looked different.
If we had disregarded what this brother said, I suspect we would be looking back at our child-rearing years with, Where did we go wrong? And I doubt we would be able to figure it out.
As it is, we can look back and see where the turning point was in that season.
Obedience brings clarity.
How has this happened in your life?
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