The Path of Least Resistance

 I have long heard the phrase “Electricity takes the path of least resistance” and thought that it was accurate. I looked it up today as I started to write this and was met with many links that stated that it was a myth or at best an oversimplified explanation. So instead I looked up the definition of this phrase in relationship to people.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

the line/path of least resistance

“if you follow the path of least resistance, you avoid making difficult decisions and choose the easiest solution to a problem”

The path of least resistance is often the choice we make in life if we do not live very intentionally. Years ago, I met a man that would change the course of my life and my children’s lives. This man was my husband’s stepfather that raised him from about age 8 to age 16. I am not totally sure of the earlier age but that’s my guess. This man did not make a huge impression on me at the time, other than just knowing he was very nice. I knew he was a handy man by trade. He could build things and supported his family by it. However, as the years passed, I came to realize just how he would impact our family for many years to come. He would do so by the work ethics he instilled in my husband.

Each day he would have my husband work in his woodshop. Like any teenage boy, my guy did not appreciate it then. There were many things that he would rather have been doing, but instead he was required to work. Learning to work at an early age has been a blessing his entire life. There has never been a day that he has not worked and provided for his family. He truly enjoys working now. He enjoys creating things. He enjoys seeing the fruit of his dreams and then his labor come to fulfillment. Another benefit of my husband being forced to work as a young man was that he passed this work ethic on to our children. As we look to our adult sons and their work ethic, they take after their daddy working hard each day. As we view our teen daughters and their work at a farm stand the last few summers, they too are acquiring this understanding of hard work.

Now as we all know that a child left to himself will not usually choose to be a hard worker. Scripture says,

Proverbs 29:15 “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”

Proverbs 12:24 “Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor.”

Children are by nature are lazy. They are given parents to reprove them and train them to change that nature. I would venture to say that is a hard task. One that I often wonder if it is harder today than it was in the past? It seems in years past, the family survival depended on the children working. Each child knew they were important and had a valuable role in sustaining the family. Families had gardens, farm families had animals, even town families often had things the children had to do. My grandmother often talked about her daddy having a truck garden. He would grow vegetables on his small piece of land at the edge of town, then sell them to support his family. He was also a ‘rag man’. He would drive his truck around collecting peoples cast off fabrics and selling them for rags to earn money. Anything to support his wife and 8 children. Grandma shared with me that as one of the older children, she was expected to work in the home doing the laundry and cooking. My grandma learned to work early on in life, and she continued to do so until her death many years later.

I fear for today’s children. They are often not taught to work. They are placed in front of electronic babysitters to keep them busy and out of the parent’s way. Yes, the parent gets more done, but a whole generation is not learning how to work. Day in and day out, the children are taught not how to work but how to be lazy. They are taught about life, morals, and ideals often by people who do not share the parent’s mindset. They learn the ways of the world. They learn how to get ahead in life often by being dishonest. They learn agendas and propaganda of the current culture. Then, as parents we wonder why our children do not share our beliefs? Why do they turn and follow the world? Their teachers did a great job schooling them...and sadly it was not their parents.

I have a friend who once had 10 children under the age of 10. I have watched her as she has grown from a new Christian to a wise, Titus 2 woman. I have long admired her in the way she has parented her children. She seems to have the ultimate amount of patience with them, but in reality, she just wants to instill God’s word into them continually. When her 6 daughters were little, she would line them all up in the kitchen with her to cook. When that became too much at once, she would do them in shifts. She taught those girls to be woman that are confident in the kitchen. Her sons often went to the shop with the daddy to ‘work’. I am sure they spent lots of time making mischief instead of working, but they knew they were needed to ‘help’ daddy. I am so proud of this family and how they have trained their children to be workers AND how they did it together. Are they a perfect family? Of course not! But they know who they want to train their children and their lives reflect that.

My prayer as I am still parenting young children is “Lord, help me not to take the path of least resistance.”