Don't Run Away

I was sitting on my front porch this past weekend, reading, when I noticed a little girl walking down the street. I live in a neighborhood full of families, so it wasn’t quite that unusual, until I noticed that she had a little duffle bag slung over her shoulder. As she was walking, she was mumbling to herself in between muffled sobs. I set my book down and walked towards her. She gave me a little wave before wiping away some tears. I knelt on the rough pavement, my knees aching but my mind running a mile a minute, trying to think the best way to talk to her.

This precious girl who was about four years old told me she was going to David’s house, which apparently was way across the busy road behind our houses. She was, of course, running away from home (which is a few houses down from mine). When I asked her why, she told me she had gotten spankings. I asked her if she disobeyed her parents in order to get the spankings and she said, “Yes. I was climbing on the cabinets” and affirmed they had told her not to. I tried to explain to her how I got spanked all the time when I was a little girl because I disobeyed my parents, but it was really because they loved me and didn’t want me to get hurt. Her mom had been standing in the yard watching her the whole time and letting me talk to her. She soon headed over, though, and both of us began to talk about how her baby sister would miss her and she would get hungry and so on. At one point, this precious child randomly hugged me, which I thought was really sweet. She had a dog, so I asked her to take me to go see her dog, so we went back into her yard, and from there she climbed up in her mother’s arms.

Discipline always seems to strike us the wrong way, even to the point of retaliation. Of course, it is never fun, but in our minds it almost doesn’t seem right or fair that we are being punished, although deep down our hearts are rebellious, and we know we did something wrong. We all have that innate moral sense of right and wrong, and often when we mess up it is a deliberate action, and we hate that we were caught.

Looking back, I can definitely see my parents’ love through spankings. When I back-talked and was spanked, it was so that I would learn respect for my authority – which has been important in every stage of life. When I was bossy to my siblings, I was spanked as well, and learned (in time; this took a little longer) how to treat others around me.

From a grown-up’s perspective, running away due to a couple of spankings sounds pretty silly and overdramatic, but at four or five years old the punishment and the “meanness” of the parents is all that they can see. Perhaps God sees things the way our parents saw them, and as sinful human beings we have the perspective of a preschooler. In reaping the consequences of our actions, we often don’t see things as fair and wish God would just let us off the hook. If He always did that, though, we would never learn our lesson and begin to change!

Proverbs 3:11-12 (later quoted in Hebrews 12) says, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent the his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

I think one of the most important parts of this story is the little girl’s destination. I later found out from the mother that the girl wanted to go to her abusive dad’s house. The mother couldn’t explain to this child that both legal reasons and safety reasons prevented her from going to see her dad. That broke my heart, first of all, that this poor girl had a father who was like that. It is a good illustration as well, though – what we think is best and would be escape from the temporary pain would, in the end, do us more harm than good. This little girl didn’t understand, but her mother did, and even though it made her daughter unhappy she kept her foot down and did not waver from her decision.

The Lord’s love is evident not only in the good times, but in the difficult ones. His discipline and control in our lives proves his concern for our well-being. Our response is to follow the wisdom found in Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” Running away from discipline won’t solve the problem; facing consequences and learning from our mistakes and our weaknesses is what will make the difference in our character and in our walk with God.