At The Well: Obeying Even When It Doesn't Make Sense

This week, Robert had to learn a very hard lesson while being at one of his jobs. Stephen and I have a set of guidelines when our children are away from the house. We have taught them that it is their responsibility to adhere to those guidelines even when we are out of their sight and they are out of ours.

Many of our children's friends are those that come from broken homes or divorced homes and many are left to fend for themselves most of the day. They walk all over town, going here and there. Robert has asked us on many occasions if he could do like them and walk all over town going places. Our initial answer is and will always be NO, no matter how old or young they are.

This week, while working, Robert was aproached by one of the older boys and was set up as the guinea pig to ask if they could walk to the store and get something to eat and drink. He was presented with a temptation and lost all knowledge of our guidelines.

When he got home, we had a heart to heart talk with him. He was saddened that he had fallen so easily, but knows now that walking somewhere is not acceptable right now.

That is the beauty of learning from our mistakes. We mess up, we ask for forgiveness, and God restores us. We move away from that mistake knowing that next time it presents itself, we will in turn move away from that.

To Robert at the time, he did not understand the concept. He didn't think he was hurting anyone, and in reality he was not. However, we have to learn to obey even when the rules don't make sense. It is called trust and the younger we learn that, the better off we will be when we are older.

He is glad that he went through this because it taught him a very valuable lesson about obeying your parents. I am glad that we have the kind of relationship with him that we do. He is not afraid to talk to us about things that are on his heart which makes it easier to discipline and correct with a good response.