The roller glided effortlessly across the floor. Each successive stroke added beautiful color to the pale gray floor. Marveling over the transformation happening before his very eyes left the painter unaware of his surroundings. A sudden revelation transfigured the painter's face which had been beaming, but now looked perplexed and twisted by the reality facing him. Though he had painted brilliantly, he stood trapped in a corner without a viable exit. No, this is not a confession. However, many have committed this cardinal error of painting. Never paint yourself in a corner!
At this time, I will proceed with a confession. I was struck with a startling epiphany recently. By God's word, His Holy Spirit, and subsequent observation, I confronted a cardinal error of parenting. For some time now, I have been parenting myself in a corner. How do you do that? I'm glad you asked.
The best way to understand this cardinal error is through the eyes of experience, in this case my experience. A major battleground has emerged in our home. The lines have been drawn by both sides. The frustration and exasperation has peaked like the majestic Grand Tetons in Wyoming. What is this battleground? It is the periodically cyclonic and oft tornadic bedroom shared by our girls. The room can accelerate from clean to a state of emergency in minutes. If you have children, then can I get a witness?
Here my brilliant parenting skills grab gobs of attention in the display window of wisdom, er, I mean "wisdom." I concocted a wise and soundproof strategy for seeing the job through to completion. "Girls, you have x amount of time to clean your room. If you do not successfully complete this task by x amount of time, then you will receive y punishment." Now that is sound thinking if I do say so myself! There is no way they will want to flirt with the aforementioned disaster, so that room should just about clean itself. You can insert laughter and eye-rolling here, if you like.
After leaving the room, rubbing my hands together as if to congratulate my brilliance, I dared assume the work would be done without a hitch or a glitch. But within minutes, shrill sounds pierced through the fog of "wisdom" hanging in the house, penetrating my ear lobes, banging off my ear drums and bouncing around incessantly in my head. What could possibly have gone wrong? I was crystal clear. The allotted time is more than reasonable. The proposed punishment serves as supreme motivation for getting the job done right. I don't understand.
SCRATCHING THE SURFACE
We have many head-scratching moments as parents. As the initial time elapsed and the job remained wildly undone, I faced a choice. Should I uphold my word, or give them another chance? Then, a true light bulb moment occurred. I could double down and give them another reasonable amount of time, while proposing an additional punishment that would surely motivate them. Not only had I parented myself in a corner, I had just parented myself deeper into the corner. Once again, my brilliance was foiled. The time elapsed and the work remained grossly undone. Now, I had to uphold my word and render the punishment.
Some of you right now are scratching your heads at my wonderful parenting skills on display. You came up with your own workable solutions to the problem. You may have spoken them aloud to the computer as you were reading this, in the hope that I might hear you. Some of you may have agreed that the solution seemed wise and doable. And some of you recalled your own parenting corners that you have put yourself in through the years.
Have you ever parented yourself in a corner? The classic phrase that stands out among those who have done so is this, "or else." Do this or else! Finish that or else! I've learned that occasionally I really did not want to enact y punishment, but because I had taken this "or else" stance I had little choice. If I failed to uphold my word, then I would be seen as a flip-flopper in the girls' eyes. My word would morph into more of a suggestion, rather than something to be obeyed. Do you identify with me in this, just a little?
The wheels in my brain smoked and squeaked from repeatedly turning over the perceived lunacy that I had witnessed. Why couldn't the motivation of y punishment motivate my precious girls? Then, like a flash, I was struck with one question. When has it ever consistently motivated me? That's when I knew something had to change.
EUREKA MOMENT
Through God's word, I have been reminded of two fundamental parenting truths. Like my heavenly Father I must delight in unchanging love(see Micah 7:18-20). Paul admonished the Ephesian church to be imitators of God. As a child of God, I should embody this as I discipline my children. The prophet Micah extols God as the unmatchable God who pardons iniquity, and treads those iniquities under foot. He assures us that God casts sins into the depths of the sea. The pressure at the bottom of the deepest ocean is akin to one person trying to support the weight of 50 jumbo jets. Such tremendous weight would crush a man. The weight of our sin crushes us absolutely. Yet, God crushes sin by the weight of His holiness. As an imitator of God, I am to express unchanging love to my beautiful girls.
Practically, here's how that looks. When addressing the dire need to clean up their room before we have to evacuate the house and call a trained Hazmat team, I must set them down and explain to them that I love them unconditionally whether the room gets cleaned or not. Now, if the room does not get clean I will be hurt because I specifically asked them to do something. I will not approve of their disobedience, but my love will be constant. My desire is for them to respond to me in love and obedience, not just at the thought of avoiding punishment. They are not scoring points with dad. Together, we are expressing God's love to one another. My love should be patient, while their love should be responsive. Corners and raised voices be gone!
The second truth that struck me applies to all of life and not just parenting, but I find it particularly poignant here. Jesus instructed his disciples that to love him involves keeping his word(John 14:23). While this may seem to focus on my children, it really focuses squarely on me. God reminds me as a father to not exasperate my children. I dare say the "dirty room" debacle involved some fine examples of exasperation, as my frustration level with disobedience skyrocketed into the stratosphere. Perhaps that was my blood pressure, instead. Regardless, I was the one wallowing in disobedience. I made a manageable situation virtually unmanageable. The way of Christ had been thwarted. Would I really desire my girls to mimic my demeanor? The "or else" strategy must be discarded. I choose to adopt a grow in grace mentality from now on.
In reference to my girls, they must understand the importance of what we are seeking to instill in them. Disobedience will not be handled lightly, but it will be handled differently. No more corners for this parent, until God shows me another corner I have so finely parented myself into unwittingly. My girls will become beneficiaries of grace, more so than they have been accustomed to as we all adopt a grow in grace mentality. I pray they come to acknowledge and understand they can please God by loving and serving their parents. I pray that my wife and I please God by lovingly serving them. That's parenting that allows for a graceful exit from any situation. May the Lord increase us in His wisdom, so that we may imitate Him, so that the life of Christ will flow through our families, that we may walk by the Spirit of God in this jungle of parenthood. James 1:5 instructs in this way, "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him." Let us ask in faith without doubting.
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