No, I'm not speaking of the Bible character. I'm speaking of that cute little guy holding the lollipop in the banner up above. One of the toughest things about being a dad is being persistent in disciplining your children in a consistent manner without compromise. Last night, before dinner time, my precious little Gideon refused to pick up some toys when daddy asked him to. I won't go into all the details, but we basically had a battle of wills that ended with a little boy missing his dinner and going to bed with very sore buttocks. During this whole "ordeal", I was tempted several times to just let him go, knowing that he would calm down if I allowed him to just do what he wanted to do. That terrible shrieking and crying was about to get on my last nerve. Yet, I knew that if I did not carry it completely through, that it would be a most unloving thing for me to allow my son to do. The ordeal probably lasted about 30 minutes although it felt like hours. My friends, I don't know about you, but when this shrieking and incessant screaming goes on for more than about 2 minutes, I feel like I'm losing my mind. The other temptation I deal with in these situations is to act out of anger. So, here are some suggestions I'm going to come up with on how to prevent this:
1) Before beginning any discipline, pray and ask the Lord for wisdom on how to handle
the situation.
2) Remind yourself of the ways in which the Lord disciplines you! He is kind and
slow to anger.
3) Predetermine that you will not back down no matter how bad things are going to get
and how long proper behavior will be achieved.
4) Examine your heart. Why are you disciplining? Is it because the child is annonying
you or is it because the child is participating in sinful behavior (this is a big
one for me).
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