Duty Swallowed Up in Love

The other day I was talking with one of my kids about some work that needed to be done. She didn’t want to do it. She had many reasons why she couldn’t do it. Finally, she said, “Well, I guess I should do it.” She was less than enthused with her own answer, and so was I. I gave her a hug and kiss and said, “I’d rather you did it because you wanted to be a part of what we’re doing than because you should.”

Our conversation got me to thinking about duty and love. Duty is about what we ought and should do, while love is about what we want to do with our whole heart. Here’s what the dictionary says about duty and obligation.

Duty – something that one is expected or required to do by obligation. The binding or obligatory force of something that is right. An action or task required by a person’s position.

Obligation – that which renders a person liable to coercion and punishment for neglecting duty.

In my thoughts about duty and love, I began thinking about them in relationship to home education. How often I’ve heard parents expecting their children to be obligated to finishing some measure of academic assignment for “schoolwork.” They foster the attitude, “If you get this done, you can get on with what you really want to do.”

I know I used to expect and obligate my children to their “school work.” I needed to coerce them to do it (sometimes I felt I needed to coerce myself to coerce them to do it). I even threatened punishment if they didn’t do it. I know many moms who feel guilty when they don’t make their children do a certain amount of “school.” I made it seem to my children like learning was a duty and an obligation.

Duty is a good thing. There are many things in life that we ought to do, and that we should do, but love is greater than duty. Love is much broader and swallows up duty, wrapping it in with heart-level fondness, affection, and desire toward others as well as toward the process of learning. Love is not the opposite of duty; it includes and is much bigger than duty.

If you’ve been attempting to educate your children according to Lifestyle of Learning™ principles, you may have decreased the amount of time you are expecting and obligating your children to “schoolish” assignments, and renamed it table-time, but continuing to cause it to be merely dutiful for your children and for you. Our children need time at the table to increase in the depth and quality of their learning and skill work, but we also want them to whole-heartedly and willingly embrace this learning process with personal affection and desire. We want them to want to learn out of love for others and love for the Lord as they become who He’s made them to be.

How can we move our children from schoolish duty and obligation to whole-hearted willingness, affection and desire for their table-time disciplines?

Perhaps we will need to examine our own hearts in the matter of duty and love so we will know how to lead our children to the same attitudes, intentions and motivations. Are your own duties being swallowed up and overcome with love for your family and for the Lord?

Being merely dutiful allows a person to see themselves as good and fulfilling expectation. A merely dutiful person can easily believe they are good and righteous because they are doing what they ought to do. Love, on the other hand, causes us to do what we ought to do (duty) with fondness, affection, and desire toward those we are doing it with or for. Duty can easily be self-focused even when it is being performed for another. Love is never self-focused but reaches toward others with heart-level desire and affection.

Are you changing your unloving behavior out of duty only? Are you forcing yourself to refrain from doing what you’ve come to know is unloving? Are you serving your family out of duty only – going through the motions of being a good parent so you can fulfill expectation and see yourself as a good parent? It is your duty to refrain from unloving relational behavior. It is your duty to be a good parent, but the Lord want us to go beyond duty and into love.

If we want our children to embrace their academic growth and learning with whole-hearted affection and desire, we must become someone who embraces our own duties – the things we ought and should do – with whole-hearted affection and desire specifically for each family member, and for the way the Lord is leading us as He speaks through our conscience.

Romans 13:8 “… owe no man anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor [who practices loving others] has fulfilled the Law [relating to one’s fellowmen, meeting all its requirements].”

If we become loving, we will also fulfill our duties. If we teach our children to be loving, we can see them move beyond duty and obligation to love, and to a love of learning.

~ Barbie Poling

P.S. I chose these pictures because they show a little measure of how much affection and desire for each other, and just plain fun goes into the doing of our duties such as washing pots and making dinner. I also chose them because they make me laugh!