"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gentleness, self-control;
against such things there is no law."
Galatians 5:22-23
A Sad Scene I was recently exercising at the gym when a father and his young son walked in. The father’s tone immediately caught my attention, and it was obvious the son didn’t want to be there. I overheard the father say, “I’m going to teach you how to workout like a man”. From my observation the father hadn’t “worked out like a man” in several decades. Within a few minutes the son was exhausted and had tears in his eyes. This went on for about 20-25 minutes and the father lost interest because of the texts he was receiving. I left a few minutes later and noticed the son sitting in the truck while the father stood outside the truck, talking on his cell phone, and smoking a cigarette. A Timeless Principle Many times in MD5 we have discussed the principle of more is caught than taught. Our children will respond more to our self-discipline than what we tell them. It’s our responsibility as a father to model disciplines and character traits that we want our children to follow. We have a much better chance to influence our children’s hearts, by giving them a lot of love and showing them a lot of self-discipline. We have the ultimate model of self-discipline in Jesus Christ. Jesus had a velvet touch and a granite resolve. And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me. And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, Little boy blue and the man in the moon. Cat’s in the Cradle Harry Chapin
Roger Smithson MD5 Facilitator