They Plopped the Baby

Obedience Training

Theology in the Trenches

by Kathleen Kjolhaug

 

It came to pass one day that this teacher of reading received notice that she was needed elsewhere in the building.  With great urgency she, meaning I, was mandated to teach another’s class.  My role is flexible within the school, and so I flexed.

By noon my new pupils and I were gathered round the rug as the chosen read aloud was from “Little House in the Big Woods” by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Astute listeners sat at attention not missing a beat as the next chapter was read.  The vocabulary expanded their minds, the words formed pictures, and they were caught up in a time long ago…thoroughly enjoying each scene unfolding.

In this chapter Pa had taken a little one, who had disobeyed, to the woodshed so to speak.  A switch was brought out to teach the little lad a lesson.  As the character in the story had left early to get the cows and thought there was room for dawdling along the way, he did just that.  It turned dark sooner than later, and the problem was that the he couldn’t locate the cows.  He spent precious time in the dark woods searching for them.  When he had not found a one, he headed back home only to find them already waiting at the gate.

However, the boy had disobeyed and needed to be reprimanded accordingly.  And, like a proof in math that explains why you do what you do, pa began the explanation as to why his son was about to get “the switch.” 

“It’s for your own good,” he stated.

The inference was that the child was too inexperienced to see the dangers, too young to understand financial investments or the intricacies involved in providing for the family, and too little to see the dangers that lie in wait that could bring harm.  The son needed to obey because the father required it…for the little guy’s own protection, “for his own good.”

The lad did not intentionally go looking for trouble, but trouble was a heartbeat away for all concerned.  And as difficult as it was, a reminder needed to be given.  The switch was brought out and as the eyes of my little audience before me got bigger and bigger, I had to take pause in order to explain what a “switch” was.  Silence abounded as I tried to liken it to something familiar and sure enough, plenty a hand went up when I mentioned “love taps” or in my day and age and apparently theirs, “spankings.”  They could understand it on their terms and many a head bobbed in recognition.

Truth-be-told, I hadn’t thought that a “proof” needed to be used in order to understand obedience and wondered of I hadn’t possibly missed a teachable moment among those I’d raised.  Certainly obedience and respect was taught in our home, but I’m not sure I got the message across as clearly as it was told in the chapter book upon the rug.  However, His word doesn’t miss the mark and gives living proof…or reasons why we need to obey.  Flat out…it’s so harm will not intentionally be invited into our lives.  And, with promises like the one below, who wouldn’t want a little “obedience training.”  After all, “it’s for our own good.”

Proverbs 9:9-11 states it clearly.  “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser:  teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.  For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased.”  Amen.