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Discipline
191
and that, if His law had always been obeyed, we would never have
known suffering. It is no less true that, in this world, as the result of
sin, suffering, trouble, and burdens come to every life. We should
teach children and youth to meet bravely these troubles and burdens.
We should give them sympathy but never foster self-pity. What they
need is that which stimulates and strengthens rather than weakens.
[185]
This world is not a parade ground, it is a battlefield. All are
called to endure hardness, as good soldiers. Let young people be
taught that the true test of character is found in the willingness to
bear burdens, to take the hard place, to do the work that needs to be
done, though it bring no earthly recognition or reward.
The true way of dealing with trial is not by seeking to escape
it but by transforming it. This applies to all discipline, the earlier
as well as the later. The neglect of the child’s earliest training,
and the consequent strengthening of wrong tendencies, makes the
succeeding education more difficult, and too often causes discipline
to be a painful process. Painful it must be to the lower nature,
crossing, as it does, the natural desires and inclinations, but the pain
may be lost sight of in a higher joy.
Let children and youth be taught that every mistake, every fault,
every difficulty, conquered, becomes a stepping-stone to better and
higher things. Through such experiences all who have ever made
life worth living have achieved success.
“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”
“We rise by things that are under our feet;
By what we have mastered of good and gain;
By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.”
We “do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but
the things which are not seen are eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:18
. The
exchange we make in the denial of selfish desires and inclinations