TOD 02.22.08

For the last two and a half years, we have lived in a third floor apartment with two boys under the age of four. Having neighbors below us, you’d actually have to sit down and count which my wife and I did more times in those years: breath or tell our sons to stop running and jumping. It seemed like no matter how many times we tried and no matter what penalties or tactics we employed, it just couldn’t be done. Getting a toddler and a preschooler to stop running and jumping isn’t hard. It’s impossible….almost as if we were trying to outlaw their identity.

The parental deficiency here wasn’t our inability to control them. It was the mistake of putting them in such a frustratingly impossible situation to begin with. Now that we have a house, of course, things are wonderful for them and for us. It’s such a relief. Liberated from an oppressive situation, they’re actually able to obey the rules they should.

Maybe it was something like this that Paul had in mind when he wrote that “it was for freedom that Christ set us free.” (Galatians 5:1)