The Problem With Training

Back in High School I played baseball and soccer. I wanted to be good, so I decided to train. Beyond what my team did. The problem with training for sports is that it takes work. And if you drove past my school early on a Saturday morning, when other kids were sleeping, you’d see me out kicking a soccer ball into the kick wall over and over. After school when other kids were playing their Atari 5200’s, I was having someone throw me curve ball after curve ball. And all of that worked, but it wasn’t fun.

Two years ago we got a dog. We decided to train him. Yeah right. The problem with training a dog is that it takes mental energy and stamina. It’s much easier to just give in and let the dog do whatever the crap it wants, including crapping where it wants!

In today’s reading (Proverbs 22) we’re told to “Train a child in the way he should go” and to discipline our kids. So every morning we do a Bible study with our kids. There’s hardly a day when I don’t find a teachable moment and have a (short but) important talk about what it means to follow Jesus with one or both of my kids. We give tons of of “No’s” when the kids are begging for “Yes.”

The problem is all that takes work, it’s not always fun, there’s loads of mental energy and stamina required. It’s easier to let the kids do whatever the crap they want, including crapping… well, never mind. But I think my kids are too important to be yet another thing I screw up. Yours too, right?