Fake Obedience

I have recently written on what I like to call 'fake obedience' and started my writing with the following childhood story:

"I was the second of nine children born in my family, and growing up my father wanted us children, to know the Lord.

He did everything he could to make us have a relationship with the Lord. He made church attendance a priority; at home he challenged us to pray; he explained Scripture to us.

His desire to help us mature led him to be a strict father. Living under his roof, meant living a life of restrictions. Things we enjoyed, such as sports and television, were forbidden or allowed only in moderation.

My father was especially harsh with his three oldest boys, my two brothers and I, knowing that we would set an example for the rest to follow. In order to ensure excellent behavior, he monitored most of the activities in which we participated.

If we wanted to go to a friend’s house, we needed to give him details of what would be happening there. If we wanted to play at a park, he needed to know where we would be playing, who would be there, and when we were coming back. We were not to watch movies, play video games, or listen to questionable music.

I had a brother who was one year older and one that was one year younger than I. The three of us did much of everything together. The one thing we enjoyed doing together most was playing sports.

Because of his traditional Christians views, my father was not crazy about sports. He saw sports as worldly and not something that a Christian should engage in.

Knowing that our father disliked sports we were not eager to ask for permission to play at the park. So that no one had to carry all of the responsibility of asking, we would take turns, requesting play sessions at the park.

Understanding that we needed to burn off energy, my father allowed us to go to the park, a ten minute ride from our house.
Before leaving, my father clarified the terms of our contract. One of the clauses would include the time we were to be back home. We were usually given a couple hours to play.

The park was a different world to us. Everything in life became secondary to our play. There was so much enthusiasm in kicking a soccer ball or playing catch. Our fun became so central that time was no longer of the essence. Our allotted playing time would come and go as we continued, hard at work, in our play.

And sometimes, we did not forget about the time, we chose to ignore it. The longing for play was stronger than any restriction placed on us. We were willing to have fun then and deal with the consequences later. Not giving much thought to our defiance, we would merrily continue chasing down fly balls or shooting jump shots.

Once we finally stopped from our play, the sobering reality, of our disobedient behavior, quickly settled in. We knew it would not be easy to explain our disobedience to our father.

The bike ride home was long and agonizing. As we pulled around the corner, house coming into view, we hoped dad’s car was not in the driveway. If he was not home, the heart of our mother would be softened with ease. She was quick to forgive our disobedience.

If dad’s car was home, we were doomed. Actually, there was one glimmer of hope. We needed to sneak into the house, without being seen, and give the impression that we had gotten home on time. While dad was busy with work, we might be able to get away with our insubordination.

Of course, we had not been obedient, we had just faked obedience. By sneaking into the house without being seen, we were sometimes able to trick our dad into thinking that we had been home on time.

In tricking him, we could avoid the punishment that was rightfully ours. The fact that we were able to trick my father did not mean that God was deceived. He was still able to see that we had not been obedient. We had covered disobedience with a façade of obedience. We had been deceptive in order to give a false impression of obedience."