Blog 4006 – 11.13.2026
So Right, But Yet So Wrong
Today’s picture quote is a classic example of tricks that our eyes and minds play upon us that can often leave us feeling so very sure of ourselves when actually we are so very wrong. There is a proverb that says in so many words, “Lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge your higher source and he/she will direct your path.”
One of my favorite of Jesus’ parables is the Prodigal Son. It represents graphically two different parenting styles and shows the results. Another proverb says, “Rear up a child in the way he (or she) should go and when they are old they will not depart from it.” If you think that means that if you teach a child right from wrong they will always choose the right you could not be more wrong. The verse is simply saying that the teaching will stay with them. I believe that children, as parents, have free will and that it is in exercising that free will that we best learn from our mistakes the best way to go.
The dad in the prodigal son parable loves his younger son best and chooses the parenting style with him that says, “All the promises of the father are, ‘Yes, Yes.’” When the “spoiled” young man (it is my opinion that it is our job to spoil our children not withstanding the proverb that I think is wrong “Spare the rod and spoil the child”) came to his father and asked for his inheritance early so he could spend it right away, the dad knew the only way most of us learn is from experience so he gave his son what he asked for. Be careful what you asked for.
You know the story, easy come easy go, plenty of friends when you’ve got money, and none when it’s gone. But in the end, reduced to feeding pigs for a living and sharing their food, the young man “comes to himself” and remembers who and whose he is and returns to his father and begs to be taken back as just a hired servant. His father restores him as son and has a big party to celebrate his younger son’s return.
The dad in the story used a different parenting technique with his older boy, one commonly called “tough love” or the “my way or the highway approach.” I saw on social media where some daughter was honoring her veteran father on Veterans Day and thanked him for being hard on her. I found that sentiment a bit perplexing. Mostly what we learn from being treated hard is how to be hard and demanding of ourselves and others. The older brother bears that theory out in the story. He is not happy about his younger brother’s coming home party.
Rest assured the older son thinks he is right to not forgive his brother, but he is so wrong as echoed in our higher powers words, “If you do not forgive those who trespass against you, neither will I forgive you.
If it comes down to a choice between being right or being forgiven, between being right or being happy, I choose happy.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
