Fighting the Dragon
by Mark Drzycimski
Apr 11, 2006
Once there were two young brothers playing together on the living room floor. Well, they were not really playing together, but they were playing at the same time, and without very much conflict. Their parents were both there, sitting and reading.
There were toys all over the floor, but one in particular was under the coffee table, and had gone unnoticed for quite some time. The younger brother, who was shorter, spotted it and thought it was high time he picked it up. And so he did.
Instantly, his older brother was there, and had seized the other end of the toy, and loud cries arose from both of them. Fortunately, the father had glanced up a moment before this, and had seen the entire transaction.
“Let go, John,” he said, and John did, very reluctantly. “Come here for a moment.” John did that too, his lower lip sticking out in a remarkable way.
His father took John up on his lap, and said, “I want to explain something to you—I wanted to explain to you how the devil tries to run the world.”
This surprised his son, who was expecting something along the lines of, “Now share with your brother.”
“The devil tries to make us want things simply because other people have them. And when we try to get them, they always fight back, don’t they? This is how the dragon tricks us into fighting each other, instead of fighting him.”
“The dragon?”
“Yes. You know how in all the stories we read to you that dragons are always tricky? You can never believe them? This is because they are like that first dragon who tricked Adam and Eve into taking something that was not theirs to take.”
“Who did they take it from?”
“From the Lord, who was their neighbor. It was His tree. He had very kindly shared everything else that was His, but at that moment, the only thing they wanted was the thing that was still in His hands. And that is why they wanted it.”
John nodded, and so his father then said. “So what does it mean when you grab a toy like that from your brother?”
“It means that I am not fighting the dragon like I am supposed to.”
“That’s right. Now get back down on the floor and fight the dragon. Not your brother.”
Source: Doug Wilson
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Category: Diversions
Righteous Anger
by Mark DrzycimskiAug 01, 2005
An interesting article, Be Ye Angry, and Sin Not, was posted over the weekend at Mere Comments that touches on the enigmatic emotion of anger. While the article doesn’t take the time to verbally separate anger from wrath, the author does mention that the distinction needs to be made. For myself, anger has for so long been lumped with retribution and the meting out of justice that it’s an alien thought to consider anger divorced from those ends. Especially as a parent, where doling out punishment for wrongs has many of the same pitfalls.
CommentsCategory: Fathering
Southern Baptists and Public Schools
by Mark DrzycimskiJun 20, 2005
Note: From an article at Mere Comments.
Some in the evangelical community speak quite censoriously of parents who send their children to public schools as idolaters sacrificing their children to Molech. The issues are more complicated than that, and Christian charity demands better. But the point is well taken that parents, not the state, have the responsibility to educate children. At the Judgment Seat of Christ, Jesus isn’t holding a Department of Education bureaucrat responsible for the formation of Johnny’s mind and heart. Parents cannot outsource this responsibility to Big Brother.On the other extreme, some will oppose an “exit strategy” because they believe Christian children are “salt and light” in the schools. I will buy this argument when we commission 7-year old boys and girls to convert a Mormon enclave to Christianity.
Full Article: Southern Baptists and Public Schools
CommentsCategory: Education