The Forced Family Walk | Dan Deeble | Summer 2020
Going Deeper Discussion
What’s been a “silver lining” for you in these quarantined times? What do you want to hold onto from this time and carry with you?
Parents, given the 5 Stages Of A Walk, what stage are you in right now? What stage is your favorite? When you get it wrong, what stage do you default to?
Thinking through the 5 Stages, how were you parented? What stage did you receive the most of? What stage did you need more of?
When you think about God, how do you most often view or experience Him:
The Stroller Push God (Nurturer)
The Tether God (Restraint)
The Hike God (Pusher)
The Forced Walk God (Demands Duty)
The Stroll God (Friendship)
5. Do you believe that your Father in heaven longs to take walks with you “...in the garden, in the cool of the day”?
Teaching Notes
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-7
Impress means to repeat or sharpen.
The 5 Stages of a Walk:
1. The Stroller Push is about NURTURE
2. The Tether Walk is about RESTRAINT
3. The Hike is about ADVENTURE
4. The Forced Family Walk is about TIME
5. The Stroll is about FRIENDSHIP
This is how we “sharpen” our children.
Our goal through every stage is always love.
How do we know what walk our kids most need right now?
Our children need to grow on the GRIT SCALE. Tim Elmore, in his book Generation Z Unfiltered, writes that as parents we often:
Risk too little
Rescue too frequently
Rave too quickly
Reward too easily
Who is God?
The Stroller Push God (Nurturer)
The Tether God (Restrainer)
The Hike God (Pusher)
The Forced Walk God (Wants our Time)
The Stroll God (Friend)
God is all of these
But at just the right time,
In just the right way,
And He always does it in love.
“{Our human fathers} disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
Hebrews 12:10-11
"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he walking in the garden in the cool of the day,...”
Genesis 3:8
God wants to walk with you. All you have to say is “Sure. When you going?”