Bad Fathering from a Good Source

I'm sure that after I post this I will have visits from child welfare experts. You see, I did a bit of bad fathering Saturday...I got my kids to work. The strange thing is, they enjoyed it. They kept asking if they could go work a little bit more. And the only hint of an argument arose because one was getting to work more than the others were.
By now you are probably thinking that this is just another story and that the "work" really wasn't work. So here's what happened on Saturday. It was a normal Saturday morning. The kids were being lazy watching cartoons or Hannah Montana (not ESPN as I've tried to train them to watch). And for some reason that I honestly cannot remember, I thought about the big pile of rocks behind the house. So I called for a huddle on the back porch. I told the kids that I would pay them a nickel for every bucket of rocks they hauled off. I found four smaller buckets and after each large bucket of rocks they hauled off they placed one rock into their small bucket so that we could have an accounting of the work that they did.
For most of the rest of the morning, they took turns filling a bucket and hauling it off. During that time they laughed and played and worked really hard. I was impressed. In fact, I was so impressed that I wanted to reward them for their behavior and their attitude toward working that day.
That afternoon (before happy hour at Sonic had ended) I asked if they were through working. When they assured me that they were through working for the day, I had them put up the shovels and count their rocks. I paid out the money that they earned. Then I told them how proud I was of the way they had worked and as a result I was going to give them more than they earned. Then I took them to Sonic and bought them their favorite drink.
As we were about to pull out of Sonic I told them the spiritual lesson that I had learned from God during my short time on this earth: when I am joyfully obedient to do the things he has asked me to do, He rewards me with more than I have earned. It is because of the love that God has shown to me that I know how to love my children. So my fathering may be bad, but some of the lessons I've learned come from a really good source.
Life as I know it is best when we cheerfully follow God's commands.