Discipline and Holy Fear

Parenting is an enormous responsibility and challenge.

On a friend’s Facebook page, she has expressed the frightening experience of having her child hide from her at bath time.  The little boy determined to go outside and hide rather than to join with his little sister for their bath.

Mommy is indeed acting rationally concerning her fear in this regard.  Such disobedience in a child is a frightening thing.  Without a child’s unwavering obedience, no parent is able to provide protection for one’s child.  Obedience is absolutely necessary in the parent and child relationship.  This obedience must be instilled in the child through careful discipline or discipling.  This requires the parent to act very sternly and powerfully, actions that are emotionally difficult to govern with consistency.   But parents are not the child’s peer, nor even buddy.  Parents are the overlords of their children, appointed so by the Father of all, for the good of all.

In the case of my friend, I fear that she may have done as many mommies do.  She very likely has played hide and seek with her young child.  This is a very dangerous game for a parent to play, a game that teaches the child not to obey the voice of the parent when the parent calls.  As fun and innocent as this game and many others may seem, they are not proper for parents in which to engage with their children.  Parenting is an all encompassing responsibility, one which requires the parent to assume the overlord authority at all times, even in play times.

My father understood this, and was often criticized for his wise fatherly actions.  He was not without fault, but he did understand the role of fatherhood and overall was a very good and effective as well as loving father.

I am the firstborn, so my parents were learning much with my arrival under their care.  Two experiences are very powerfully ingrained in my memory.

One is when I was very young, I determined that I would visit Grandpa and Grandma Siems, who lived a quarter mile through the woods.  So off I went, without a thought of my mother’s frantic response.  I climbed onto my little tricycle with its 12 inch drive wheel and 4 inch rear wheels and began to make my way through the sugar sand and palmettos and briars and rattlesnakes to my grandparents’ house.  I do not remember how many hours this took me.

When Mom finally arrived she was frantic.  I do not know whether they called her or even how long I was gone.  Mom was both frantic and furious, as I remember.  But I had not yet been disciplined in the way of informing my mom and asking permission for such ventures.  I remember Grandma coming to my defense till Mom calmed down.  For I had not been deliberately disobedient.  I simply had not yet been properly discipled.  This was a learning experience for us all, and I am sure that I received intense instruction after this, though I don’t really remember that part.

What I do know for certain is that the 4th Commandment, “Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth.” is deep seated in my personhood.  I also know that this was not driven into me, but was born in me so that it fills me as it flows from the first three commandments.  True fear, love, and trust in God is the beginning of all right understanding for life.  True honor of parents cannot be taught apart from this.  The mechanics of the Fourth Commandment can be effected without fear, love, and trust in God, but not the natural flow of true and genuine honor of parents.

The other experience that I remember, not so much from my own remembrance, but because it was told to me several times, is the time that I encountered a nine foot diamond back rattlesnake as a toddler.  This huge viper was slithering after a covey of quail in the front yard when I saw it and began toddling toward it saying “Pretty snake.  Pretty snake.”

Grandpa and Grandma Heumann, Aunt Esther, and Mom were all yelling “No Paul.  Stop!  Come back!”  When Dad heard the commotion, he came running, and flying out the front door he yelled, “Paul!  HOT!”  Upon hearing this I immediately turned and came back to the safety of my loving overlords.

Some time previously, Dad had astonished the rest of the family by teaching me to fear the electric stove.  He placed his hand on the burner, turned the knob to warm and waited for it to become uncomfortable, took my little hand and placed it on the burner crying, “HOT!”  The others thought this to be terrible, but he wanted his little boy to be safe.  He wanted his little boy to stay away from anything that was declared to be HOT.

I share this to demonstrate that true love does not always bear the outward appearance that people expect.  True love sometimes appears hard and harsh and intolerant.  True parenting requires wisdom in knowing what true love demands.

The best way for parents to learn this is to observe the one who Himself is Love, the Father of all.  He has provided for us a written accounting of His interaction with His children.  He has given us this so that we may know Him as our loving Father, and so that we may learn from Him the form that true love takes.

We have the complication of our sinfulness that interferes with this understanding and blurs our perspective.  Thus we always must hold our actions to the accounting of the Commandments, by which we see where we fall short and need to have our ways amended.  But even the Commandments fall short in that they only show us what should be, as they show us how God is as the one who is truly holy and righteous.  The Commandments cannot be taken as stand alone directives.  They must be understood in the light of the Gospel, which shows how God gives the Commandments for our instruction, but also shows that He is the one who fulfills all righteousness for us.  He does not demand that we make ourselves righteous through striving to obey the Commandments.  Rather, He makes us righteous as He joins us to the merits of Jesus, who has fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf.  He applies this to us through Baptism and the Holy Supper.  There we encounter His righteousness and are made to be partakers of Him and His righteousness.

This is what parents need to realize about the responsibilities that God has given to them.  They are to do similarly to their loving Father.  They are to live the sanctified life of their baptism so that their children receive this as their own.  As the parents fear, love, and trust in God and live lives that flow from this, so their children do also.  They learn God’s love through the loving actions and lordship of their parents.


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