stepping through the traps

This unusual demonstration was my closing illustration in a message entitled "Turning your Heart toward Your Children." I wanted to make a visual point that children need their dads to guide them through the challenging terrain of adolescence and life. On each of the traps I had fastened labels representing the "traps" of adolescence, words like peer pressure, alcohol, drugs, sexual immorality, rebellion, and pornography.

The boy took two tentative steps and was about to take a third-directly toward the bear trap-when his father, Tom, screamed into the microphone, "Trent, stop! Don't take another step. I'll be right there!" His order echoed though cavernous Mile High Stadium, The air seemed to suck out of the arena as an eerie silence replaced the normal fidgeting and low-grade hum of the throng. No one moved. Except Tom.

Trent sure didn't move. He waited obediently as his father circled the trap field and stepped in between his son and the bear trap. Tom whispered instructions to Trent. Then he turned his back to the boy. The young man eagerly placed his hands on his father's shoulders.

Slowly, taking small and deliberate steps, Tim maneuvered through the trap field, his son nearly glued to his back. Trent's hands gripped Tom's shoulders, his shuffling feet often clipping his dad's heels. Tom stayed as far from the traps as possible, not taking the slightest risk that Trent might bump a trap with his bare toes.

One man's tentative clapping broke the silence in the stadium. Soon others joined in. A chorus of voices yelled encouragement to the father and son. Only a few yards, a few traps remained. When the two reached me and the blindfold was pulled off, Tom and Trent hugged each other. Applause and cheering started at one end of the field and swelled to a thunderous, standing ovation, rolling like a tidal wave across the stadium.

Above the roar I shouted over the sound system. "Men, that's what God has called us to as fathers-to guide our children through adolescence, the most dangerous period of our children's lives!"

-- from the book Parenting Today's Adolescent by Dennis Rainey