No Try...Just Do

A couple weeks ago I received a challenge to raise my child in godliness...from a most unexpected source.

Our microwave had been acting up, and I do mean in a most un-microwavy fashion. Arching and sparking are not what we know to be "normal" behaviors for such an appliance, so we put in a call to the warranty repair man. An appointment was made for a Wednesday, so I was ready when the doorbell rang.

An older red-headed gentleman was at my door and had come to diagnose our microwave's symptoms. He took one glance at the contraption and almost immediately knew what was wrong. As he began his repair work, he saw past me and waved a good morning to Olivia, eating her berries in the next room. Making small talk, he asked if we wanted more children. He then told me that just the day before he heard a statistic in a sermon stating that every second that passes, two people pass away. He stood up from his leaning into the microwave, paused dramatically, snapped his fingers and said "Two people...*snap*...two people...*snap*...". It was sobering.

He continued working on the microwave and said "With a statistic like that, we sure do need more babies coming into the world!" To that I added, "Yes, we sure do. We would like more, and are trying to raise this one in a godly way." Upon hearing these words, he again stood up from his work, but this time he looked at me with great seriousness. There was a strictness in the tone of his voice as he told me: "No. You don't try. You do. That's all there is to it."

A bit startled at his command, I thought about what he'd said and agreed that he was right. I realized that my use of the word "try" was wrong. We're not commanded to "try" to raise our children, but to "train". It's not something we simply aim toward and hope the arrow reaches the mark, but an action we live, day in and day out.

Proverbs refers to children as "olive shoots", and just like my trellising garden plants need to be consistently woven around something sturdy, so it is with my child. My own little Olive is in constant and dire need of being directed. She won't benefit from my guidance anymore than my peas will obey by only commanding them to vine around a post. She and my peas need hands-on guidance and tender training. None of this is accomplished by trying, but by doing. I can make efforts to accomplish something all day long, but nothing will get done unless I just do it. To borrow from Yoda, "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

Whether it's with my parenting, homemaking, or spiritual life as a believer, this principle of doing carries great weight. Meals will never get made unless I "do" and make them. Bad attitudes (be them my daughter's or my own!) won't improve unless they are addressed. My soul won't be nourished with nothing, so I must drink in the Word, and study the truths of scripture. As much as we live by faith, we live out the reality of it by "doing".

Now, to settle the burning question in all of your minds, yes, in the end, our microwave was fixed, but more importantly, so was my thinking. God is good in His own doing to correct His kids through various and sometimes mysterious means. It just so happened that on a windy Wednesday, His truths were delivered into my home by a red-headed microwave repairman.