Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

• Matthew 18:1-6

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

• 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

• Proverbs 13:24

Start children off on the way they should go,
    and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

• Proverbs 22:6

“‘Each of you must respect your mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.

• Leviticus 19:3

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

• Deuteronomy 5:16

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

• Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs learned about Black Friday with its greed, impatience, anger, and even violence.  We had done some travelling on that holiday weekend, but we were at our destination Saturday night.  Snow was falling and Babs was enjoying making snow angels, and somehow, the result was exceptionally angelic.  But during breakfast, she spent a lot of time in the breakfast area.

After we went to Sunday school and the worship service, we got a couple of takeout salads and went to our hotel room to eat.

After we munched on the salads for a while, Babs said, “I did some babysitting this morning during my time in the breakfast area.”

I was shocked.  Babs had observed; she had started conversations.  But this was new.  “And, Babs, what do you know about children?  You are ‘other living.’  In other words, something other than human.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Harold Dykstra, I know a lot about children.  I have observed them.  I have observed the parents.  And I know what it says about children in the first verses of Matthew 18.  I know that if we lead a child in the wrong direction, that would be very bad for us.  And you know me, I have a child-like heart.  It was easy.  I smiled into their eyes, and they were well behaved.”

I asked, “What about the parents?”

Babs explained, “The father had gone to the front desk to check out.  They had gone south to visit ailing grandparents, and they were on their way back home.  But while the father was gone, the mother suddenly got some digestive issues.  They had four children and another on the way.  She was looking rather pale and worried.  I could tell she was getting sick, but she could not leave the children, so I volunteered.  I asked the children if they needed anything.  The oldest was a boy and he said he could get what he needed.  The next was a girl who wanted some pancakes.  I am so glad you fixed the pancake maker when we got down there early.  It was running constantly.  I held the youngest in my arms and I made pancakes for the middle two.  I kept an eye on the oldest, but he sat there, eating a bowl of cereal, watching the weather on the television.  What could go wrong?”

I huffed, “If that was me, the youngest would instantly get explosive diarrhea and the mom absent-mindedly took the diaper bag with her to the bathroom.  The next oldest would start exploring the fireplace and climbing up inside the chimney.  The next would go into the kitchen and turn over all the food containers, and the oldest would run for the swimming pool even though he did not know how to swim.  I don’t know.  But that would be me.”

Babs giggled, ‘I just made eye contact with each one.  I smiled and they smiled back.  And I said for them to stay right there at the table until I came back with pancakes.  They nodded.  I went to the kitchen, but I stood where I could keep an eye on them.”

I asked, “But remember three days ago when that little boy poured honey on half the chairs in the breakfast area before the father even knew what was going on?  Did you not think that might happen?”

Babs huffed, “Harold, the mother was sick and there was no one left there to help!  What other alternative did I have?”

I nodded, “Babs, you did a good thing.  I was just thinking about the possibilities of things going wrong.”

“Well, maybe us ‘other living’ types have strengths that you do not know about?”  Babs scrunched her nose and then giggled.  “But what does the Bible say about parenting?”

I chuckled, “You already mentioned Matthew 18.  That does not give us the ‘how-to’, but it gives the parents their responsibilities.  The children, according to Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 must honor their parents, but Leviticus uses the word ‘respect’.  That should show the parents that they should act in a respectful manner toward their children.  Matthew 18 shows that Jesus preached the value of the child.  We, as humans, must be child-like in our faith.  Those little children this morning looked at you and something that they saw in you told them that you respected them.  They learned trust in a child-like fashion.  That is how each of us should look toward God.  But we should never act childishly.  We should, in our obedience toward God look at God as the One with whom we can trust.  We are weak.  He is strong.  That may be a line from the hymn Just a Closer Walk with Thee, but 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says that when I am weak, I am strong because God’s power can then come through me.  And when we look toward God with child-like faith.  We look toward someone bigger than us who can fight our battles, like a child running to hide behind his parent’s coat tails.”

Babs giggled, “What those children saw in my eyes was love, a little bit of me thinking on their level.  If it was you, they might have seen fear.  So maybe God was babysitting the children, and I was just there.”

“Maybe so, Babs, maybe so.”

Babs then scrunched her nose again, “But what happens when the child does not listen?”

I smiled, “That is where discipline comes in.  Proverbs 13:24 talks of sparing the rod and spoiling the child.  The rod can be used to strike, but it can also be used to guide.  My wife would work with our children when they were toddlers.  Whenever they did something wrong, she might swat their hand, but then she would hold one of their favorite toys and shake it.  She would urge the child to go back into the play area and play with the right things, not get into trouble.  We moved things that might harm them or that we thought of as precious to a higher shelf, but we kept the kitchen cabinets untouched.  These days, they put child guards, but we had a few Mr. Yuck stickers and we told the children that the stuff in there would make you sick.  And the children did not want to be sick.  They never touched those cabinets that had cleaners and bug spray and such.  So, if you can redirect their attention, then that is one form of using the rod.”

Babs asked, “But what happens when that does not work?”

I exhaled, ‘Some say that spanking is wrong on any level, and many of those parents might need to be spanked themselves.  Timeout works with some children, but physical punishment gets results with others.  Whenever I punished Morrie or Villie, I sat down with them to explain what their punishment would be, why they deserved it, why the rule that they broke was in place, all before the punishment began.  I accomplished two things.  I was calm when the punishment was administered.  And they knew that there was a reason for the punishment.  They should never have thought that they were spanked because I had a bad day at the office.  Again, setting boundaries is imperative, and that is a form of the rod not being a punishment but a guide.”

Babs asked, “Does it always work?  You know, in the long run?”

I groaned, “You seem to know my two children, in some ways better than me, I think.  Morrie has a variety of issues.  He blames me for half his troubles, and he blames other people for the other half.  You know, his wife, his boss, the butcher who he is convinced presses a thumb on the scale.  But 99.9 percent of Morrie’s problems are Morrie.  He follows the rules of man to a point.  When he thinks he can cheat, he will.  Villie, my sweet Wilhelmina, is a pastor’s wife and she is a dynamo in their little church.  She is like an earth angel, being there to help others and show God’s love.  I think that is the difference in my two children.  Morrie does not know God’s love, and Villie pours God’s love out to those around her.  Many people look at Proverbs 22:6 as a guarantee.  You raise a child in church, and they will remain in church.  But being in church does not save you.  A relationship with God does that.  But both of my children go to church, Morrie not as often, and both live an outwardly moral life.  I think Morrie cheats on his wife, but behind closed doors.  Thus, neither child departed from how they were taught.  They just picked different elements of whom my wife and I were.  But Proverbs are, for the most part, wisdom statements and not a guarantee.”

Babs frowned, with glistening eyes, “Yes, Morrie does cheat on his wife.  He is careful not to get caught, but he is adulterous.  We can still pray for him.  But how does Deuteronomy 21 fit in?”

I snickered, “About a child who refuses to straighten up his life and the parents have the people stone the child to death?”  She nodded. “Well, let’s hope it never comes to that, but that was Old Testament justice.  But then, that is how sternly God looks upon those that rebel against their parents.  It is like those that are rebellious against God.  God gave us to our parents, and some parents are not worthy of respect, not worthy to be parents.  But we are to honor them.  And when the child does not honor his parents, his civil leaders, his church leaders, then that child does not honor the God that allows those leaders to be in their position.  I do not know how often that little bit of Deuteronomy 21 was ever invoked.  I have seen so many mothers and fathers pick their drunken child up out of the gutter.  They weep, and they clean him or her up.  And then they take the child back home, just to have the child slip out the back door and do it again.  I think the love they have keeps them from calling in the elders to have the child stoned.  Like I said.  The child should respect their parents, but the parents should be respectable.  Loving when there is no love in return…  That is some deep love.”

Babs smiled, “Harold, I just love the way you show different sides of the picture.  In the end, it all comes down to love.”

I started looking through the bags that the salads had come in.  “Babs, there were two salad dressing packets for each salad.  I only used one.  Where is the other one?!”

Babs said sheepishly, “I thought we got three packets each, and I finished my salad while you were talking.  I’m sorry.”  I growled.  Babs continued, “It all comes down to love.  Right?!”

She sighed a big sigh of relief when I started laughing.  I ate the last of my salad dry.

Then Babs added, “And, Harold, I saw the family holding hands and saying the blessing before they started their breakfast.  The father of the boy with all the honey packets didn’t do that.”

I snickered, “My ever-observant, beautiful Babs.  You know, you are growing on me.”

Babs looked shocked!  “I’m gaining weight?  Was it the extra salad dressing packet that did it?!  I might need new clothes. …”

Now, we started a new discussion about what “growing on me” meant.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

Once my wife saw a child running away from her parents in the Los Angeles airport.  She corralled the child and guided the child back to the mother.  It was only then that she realized that the mother was Jane Fonda.  My wife’s reception was rather icy.  This was during the Vietnam War, and my wife was in her Air Force uniform at the time.

My mother crammed Proverbs 22:6 down my throat when I was a young father, and my children each became respectable citizens.  Making a decision to turn one’s life over to Christ is a personal choice that can only be made by that individual and only when the Holy Spirit has moved that person to that point.  Even then, it is that person’s choice.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.