To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

 

A messenger came and told David, "The hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom."

 

When you take a good, close look at Absalom, you see something very closely resembling a spoiled brat.  He was a gorgeous young man.  And he was talented, charismatic, intelligent, a leader – everything we’d all like our children to be.  But he was a spoiled brat.  David literally let him get away with murder!  Absalom killed his half brother Amnon.  David did nothing.  Absalom burned Joab’s fields.  David did nothing.  Absalom did whatever he wanted.  David did nothing.  And his inaction lost David another son and almost cost him his kingdom. 

 

Absalom had always done anything and everything he wanted.  No matter how bad his actions were, he was never punished.  Perhaps Absalom’s rebellion was a demonstration of his lack of respect for his father.  Perhaps his early cries for attention and rules and boundaries that were never satisfied were what set him on the road to destruction. 

 

Our middle schools and high schools and colleges are filled with young people who, like Absalom, have cried out for attention and rules and boundaries.  But we were told to give them freedom, to allow them to make up their own young minds.  Too many rules confuse children.  Too much restriction squelches their creativity.  Right and wrong and truth are all subjective.  What’s wrong for one person may be right for another.  Whether an action is wrong depends upon the circumstances.  What’s truth for one person may not be truth for another.  Let kids be free to experiment, no matter how potentially costly.  Let them do what they want.  It’s so much easier to give a child his way than to punish him.  Besides, If you punish him, he might not like you.  And so, with the help of Dr. Spock, who has been followed by a whole bevy of so-called experts on adolescent behavior (a group that makes Dr. Spock look downright conservative) – we have raised a generation of Absaloms. 

 

Loving a child doesn’t mean letting the child get away with murder.  Loving a child means dealing with that child in exactly the same way that God deals with you – with solid boundaries, with wise restrictions, with rebuke and punishment when he does wrong – each tempered with patience, with kindness and with unconditional love.

 

Train a child in the way he should go,
       and when he is old he will not turn from it.  Proverbs 22:6 NIV

 

He who spares the rod hates his son,
       but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.  Proverbs 13:24 NIV