Learn Quickly

In life, this is a repetitive theme. Learn quickly. Realize a wrong turn and correct your direction before you get too far down the road.  After a bible study this morning on the subject, it started my brain thinking.  I would think back to when we were kids and our parents had to teach us this same thing. I also thought back to when my son was young and I was the teacher.

We live on a farm so child proofing is out of the question.  In order to keep him safe, instead of removing the obstacles, he would have to learn what and where was safe and what he should avoid.  He turned two in the spring and we were ready for a lot of outside time.  I brought him outside and pointed out the electric fence that separates the yard from the rest of the farm.

“Do not touch this. This is an electric fence. It will shock you and hurt you. You will cry if you do.” 

At that instant I knew his wheels were turning in there.  Why can’t I touch it? It doesn’t look “electric”. Maybe it won’t shock me like she says…    It only took a day or two for that child to reach out and grab it. To his benefit, our fences weren’t as strong as they should be and I knew that if he did end up getting into it, the shock would be minimal. And it did shock. He cried. I was relieved. I thought well that takes care of that. Now he knows and will avoid this fence in the future.  The problem with parenting is our lack of ability to think like a child.  What I didn’t anticipate was his thought that well, the fence over here is bad, maybe the one over there won’t shock me.  Here we go again.  I saw the arm reach out before I even had a chance to get the words out of my mouth.  He was shocked, he cried. This would happen just one more time until his brain decided that all wire attached to poles surrounding field is off limits.  Learn quickly.

As we grow up, our parents hand over the reins and we have to learn on our own which fences are electric and which aren’t.  It’s a lot harder when you don’t have someone coming right out and telling you what’s safe and what isn’t and giving instant correction when we reach for the wrong thing. Even though I have an Owner’s Manual in ESV version to tell me, I still need to practice learning quickly.