When Good Living Doesn’t Bring a Good Response
Robert Dawson
1 Peter 3:13-17
I saw a video-clip last week of someone training their dogs with a clicker. It is “marker-based positive reinforcement training.” You can also do it using verbal cues. The moment your dog performs the desired behavior, whether it is sit, stay, heel, down or load-up, you click and give a reward, a treat. The dog learns the positive behavior by associating the command, behavior, and the click/reward. It conditions them. Do right. Click. Reward.
As the trainer, if you click but don’t reward immediately, if there is a delay between them, the dog disassociates the click, reward, from the desired behavior. The dog becomes less inclined, less eager, to repeat the desired behavior his owner is trying to teach. They lose focus and interest because the right behavior did not produce the right reward at the right time.
I saw that and thought, to my own shame, that I often approach my relationship with God like a dog to its master. I even approach life that way. Do good. Click. Reward. Do what’s right and things go right. Be obedient. Be blessed. (It’s a nice little equation. Problem is, it’s not like the formula for a right triangle a2+b2=c2. It does not always work.).
When it doesn’t…
I get confused. I lose focus. I can even become bitter.
I am less inclined to do right when doing right doesn’t receive the desired response from God and others that I hoped for.
Worse, if I do the right thing and get an adverse response, a shock, a pain, some discomfort, rather than a reward, I am even less inclined to do what is right, to follow and live for God in this fallen world.
That’s a dog’s response. Even though the Word of God says there is reward for doing good, when that reward is delayed or my obedience is met with opposition, as much as I love and admire man’s best friend, my response should not be that of a dog.
Peter does not want his readers, then or now, who he has encour ...
Robert Dawson
1 Peter 3:13-17
I saw a video-clip last week of someone training their dogs with a clicker. It is “marker-based positive reinforcement training.” You can also do it using verbal cues. The moment your dog performs the desired behavior, whether it is sit, stay, heel, down or load-up, you click and give a reward, a treat. The dog learns the positive behavior by associating the command, behavior, and the click/reward. It conditions them. Do right. Click. Reward.
As the trainer, if you click but don’t reward immediately, if there is a delay between them, the dog disassociates the click, reward, from the desired behavior. The dog becomes less inclined, less eager, to repeat the desired behavior his owner is trying to teach. They lose focus and interest because the right behavior did not produce the right reward at the right time.
I saw that and thought, to my own shame, that I often approach my relationship with God like a dog to its master. I even approach life that way. Do good. Click. Reward. Do what’s right and things go right. Be obedient. Be blessed. (It’s a nice little equation. Problem is, it’s not like the formula for a right triangle a2+b2=c2. It does not always work.).
When it doesn’t…
I get confused. I lose focus. I can even become bitter.
I am less inclined to do right when doing right doesn’t receive the desired response from God and others that I hoped for.
Worse, if I do the right thing and get an adverse response, a shock, a pain, some discomfort, rather than a reward, I am even less inclined to do what is right, to follow and live for God in this fallen world.
That’s a dog’s response. Even though the Word of God says there is reward for doing good, when that reward is delayed or my obedience is met with opposition, as much as I love and admire man’s best friend, my response should not be that of a dog.
Peter does not want his readers, then or now, who he has encour ...
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