Learning the Hard Way

Most of the e-mail I receive is business-related, but I enjoy receiving personal messages from my daughter Melinda. She is 20 years old and entering her junior year in college. The other day, she sent me the following message, which I share with her permission:

Dad,

I went to the store the other day with my friend Tess and bought a toothbrush. I picked up a soft bristle toothbrush, and Tess said, "You should get a medium."

I thought back and I remember specifically that you told me to always buy a soft bristle toothbrush because anything harder is too harsh. Every time I buy a toothbrush I think of you telling me that. However, I asserted my independence from you and my childhood and I bought the medium bristle toothbrush, because I've always kind of wanted to. It was a mini-rebellion.

Well, my gums hurt now and I had to return to my old toothbrush for a little while because my new toothbrush is just too hard.

So thanks for your advice, Dad. But I suppose I still had to learn the hard way.

I love you!

Melinda

When I received that note, I chuckled out loud and then fought back the impulse to say, "I told you so." Instead, I complimented Melinda for thinking for herself, trying new things—and letting me know that I was right at least once in a while!

Father Knows Best

What is it about human nature that makes us think we know better than our heavenly Father? "His commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3). He always has our best interests at heart. Why do we so often have to learn the hard way?

Before God told Adam and Eve what they shouldn't do, he gave them broad permission to enjoy the blessings he had provided. "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden," he said, "but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16, 17). But despite God's warning, they ate the forbidden fruit and experienced the predicted consequences. The "wages of sin" have led to death ever since.

Why did the Israelites disbelieve and disobey after God parted the Red Sea? How could Solomon write wise proverbs about the joy of marriage and the folly of adultery, and then fall into sin with his multiple wives? Why did the stubborn Pharisees refuse to accept Christ even after they witnessed his miracles? Why is our world filled with broken families, international terrorism, corporate corruption, and never-ending warfare? Why are Christians, who know the love of God, often so selfish and divisive?

Call It What It Is

We may not like to talk about guilt, judgment, and accountability, but we must be willing to call sin what it is. There's no way to explain the mess our world is in except to acknowledge the painful consequences of rebellion against God. "There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins," bemoaned the Preacher long ago (Ecclesiastes 7:20). And when a righteous man who never sinned did come to earth, he was nailed to a cross.

The Bible doesn't deny the reality of sin. Nor does it leave us without a solution, and the solution has a name: Jesus Christ. When the promised Sin-Solver was born, an angel of the Lord told Joseph to "give him the name Jesus 'the Lord saves', because he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).

Our sins cannot be disguised, but because of Christ they can be erased. That's an important lesson to keep in mind, even when we have to learn it the hard way.