But They Were Going To Do It Anyway

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/ynm9lc

Being a parent is a difficult job. And yes, it is a job. As infants, our children are totally helpless and depend on us for their very survival. We feed them, comfort them, change them and train them. Being a parent is hard work.

But then our children become more independent. They dress themselves, read for themselves, play with other children and have their own circles of friends. But even though they are influenced by a wider circle of people, the parents’ responsibilities to the child still remain in place.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Many parents are aware of this important truth and they take their responsibilities seriously.

Unfortunately some parents do not properly understand how important it is to stand for what is right. Some will allow their children to become involved in many dangerous things and simply say, “But they were going to do it anyway.” This is not what God expects of parents.

I knew of a family years ago that fell into some bad thinking about their children. Since it seemed that other teenagers were smoking, they assumed that their boys would as well. Since they were going to do it anyway, the parents actually purchased cigarettes for their young teenage boys. Their thinking was that if they were going to do it, at least they could be supervised.

Later they reasoned the same way about drinking. Unbelievably the parents purchased beer and introduced their sons to alcohol. After all, everyone else is going to be doing it. So these parents thought their responsibility was to train their boys how to drink. Unbelievable.

Not surprisingly those boys became entangled in many episodes of trouble including jail and addiction. Perhaps they would have eventually began to smoke and drink, but I can’t help but think that if their parents had been stronger these boys may have avoided a lifetime of trouble. The parents failed to be responsible. They actually helped these troubles to occur.

An episode in the Old Testament also shows the failure of someone who was charged with keeping things going on the right path. In Genesis 39 we find the famous story of the Golden Calf. Moses had been on the mountain with God for some time. And the people became impatient. They went to Aaron, who was in charge while Moses was away, and said to Aaron, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Gen. 39:1.

Now this is a critical decision point for Aaron. He knows what everyone else knows about God. God has been very good to these people. He has helped them to escape the bondage of Pharaoh and has given them the hope of the Promised Land. Aaron and the people witnessed the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. Is there any other god than the real God who has delivered this people?

One would hope that Aaron, being the one in charge, would make a stand for what was right and rebuke the people. Just a reminder of what God had done should have been enough for the people to reconsider their request. But these people were impatient. They had forgotten the glory of God. They had become self-centered, demanding a man-made god to worship. Instead of stopping the people, Aaron actually takes charge of the process for creating the idol for worship.

Moses states in verse 9 that these people were “stiff-necked” or stubborn. Perhaps someone might make the case that they would have eventually found a way to have an idol to worship. That may be true.

But the real disappointment here was with Aaron, the one in charge. He was wrong to allow this to happen. And he was more wrong to help them in their sin. He failed to be responsible when he was placed in a position of responsibility. He failed to correct when the initial plan to sin was unveiled. And he failed by actually helping the sin to occur.

In Our Daily Walk today may we say a prayer right now to ask God to help keep us on the right path. May we never avoid or shirk our responsibilities as parents or as Christians to help others make the right choices and follow God. May we never endorse, encourage or enable sin to occur.

Our thought for the day: “Live so that your son, when people tell him that he reminds them of you, will stick out his chest—not his tongue!”

May God bless you on your daily walk.