As a young child, before the days of the game console, I remember my dad taking us to the arcade: Play Palace in Montgomery, AL. I distinctly remember Whac-a-mole. I rarely played, but it always caught my attention because it was the most animated—or at least the player was! Apparently these gems can still be owned:
If you’re like me and most parents I know, this is a perfect description of parenting. Some mole out-of-line? Whack it down with scolding, a guilt trip, or—for the really savvy parent—a Bible verse! See if that one pops back up anytime soon. (It always does.) It doesn’t take long for us to learn we’re in over our heads, and just like the game, it keeps on speeding up until the player ultimately looses.
This is a perfect foil for discipleship, especially for the parent. One’s typical approach is reactive: wait for something to go wrong and then deal with it. Certainly, this is how I started. Perhaps it’s rooted in the secular notion that people are basically good until circumstances knock them askew. It’s a reactive discipleship model and one that isn’t likely to succeed.
By God’s grace, some time ago, I and my wife were brought to the end of ourselves in parenting. All of the moles were poking their heads up and we were done. We came to realize that unless God intervened, we weren’t going to make it. We resurrected daily family Bible time and memorizing Scripture as a family. It was then we realized that unless we changed the machine, we weren’t going to win. We ripped off the panel from the arcade game and started tinkering with the electronics & mechanics—the heart of the matter. We’ve been at it for 3 years, and we’ve seen God’s grace bring progress, but there’s so much more to go. Our hearts are more complicated than that game!
A profitable paradigm comes from Scripture:
You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit.
As parents and sometimes as counselors to others, we focus on the fruit rather than dealing with the root of the issue from which those fruit grow. It’s what we see, so we react to it—the bad attitudes, anger, discontent, complaining, or illicit phone use. Jesus informs us that unless we deal with the tree itself, we’ll never succeed. Paul Tripp, in his book, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, cleverly calls it “fruit stapling.”
Pastor Todd Murray of GIBC in Jupiter, FL, provides an excellent graphic that I’ve pulled from his outline on the message, “Fight the Good Fight – A Practical Battle Plan for Waging War on Sin.”
A heart set on it’s own ways will always lead to fruit that none of us want in the end. Typically it’s both my child and I who are operating from a heart of pride: I don’t want the sinful fruit of my child getting in the way of my selfish desires and so I react—parent—in an equally dishonoring way. If I’m doing well, I may avoid such sin on my part, but I may still instruct my child to only avoid the bad fruit. But if I’m not helping that child to see what gives rise to that fruit, I’m not enabling them to overcome.
What I particularly appreciate about Pastor Murray’s graphic is the soil. It is lies about God’s character and doubts about His Word that feed my pride. If I’m going to gain a humble submission to God’s Word and live in obedience to it, I need to dig deep enough to find where I’m doubting or misunderstanding the true character of God. This presumes I’ve entrusted myself to the work of Christ to save me from the dominance and consequence of sin! So for myself and my children, I must operate from this basis.
From the very beginning, the temptation to disobedience has been a slanderous accusation against character and a bid to cause us to doubt God’s Word. Satan’s first words were, “Is it really true that God said, ….” (See Genesis 3). The defense is to ascribe greater worth to God’s written Word and in faith to submit to its demands on our lives. This we bring first to ourselves and second to our children. Then, as we change the soil from unbelief and disbelief to faithful trust in the veracity of God’s Word the Bible, we can begin to gain ground over sin and the miserable fruit it bears in our lives.
Instead of waiting for the fruit to show, spend time proactively addressing issues of the heart—especially when things are going well!
Put down the Whac-a-mole hammer and get digging!
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