Blue-Eyed Boy Busted

Standing in the library at Lawson Elementary, I started thinking about books. Surprising I started thinking about books while standing in a library, I know, but I did. Glancing around, I wondered if there might be any children's books on a particular topic I'm researching. So, I bounded over to the card catalog computers to see what I could find. While searching, there were two boys in a scuffle next to me. That was not unusual, there are always kids who are more than ready to release the geyser of energy they have bottled up inside them during school hours. I paid no attention until a brown-haired, blue-eyed boy addressed me with "He's gonna tell on me!", referring to the other boy walking off muttering "He called me a..."

"I didn't to anything wrong!" blue-eyes insisted.

"Really?" I asked.

"He said he's gonna tell on me, but I didn't to anything wrong!" he responded.

"Did you do something wrong?" I asked, surprised he would be opposed to being exposed if there was truly nothing to expose.

As children have the tendency to repeat exactly the same thing they just said "He said he's gonna tell on me! But I didn't to anything wrong!" he repeated.

"Well, if you didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't be afraid, right?"

"Right." he insecurely replied.

"But if you did do something wrong, you know there is punishment. Everyone who does something wrong is punished, you know." I said soberly.

"But he closed down my window (on the computer) and I'll have to ask for permission to get it back open again!" he protested. Ah! Perhaps he had a little reaction to such an unjust act?

"He may have," I replied. "but we are each responsible for what we do ourselves. If we do something wrong we are punished. It doesn't matter what someone else does!"

"Right." blue-eyes responded, realizing that, perhaps, I was not an advocate for "fairness"!

As I turned back to my card catalog, I was amazed to think about how that truth has played out in my own life. Recently, I had been unjustly treated {gasp! could it be? someone mistreated sweet little ol' me?}. My reaction to such treatment seemed reasonable or "only fair", one might say. But in God's eyes would that matter? No. He sees me for who I am. His child, saved by grace, filled with His Spirit. I do not have to respond in the "normal" human way- I have all the power that raised Christ from the dead to respond with His amazing unreasonable love! Love that...

is patient,

is kind,

does not envy,

does not boast,

does not seek it's own gain,

does not delight in sin,

but delights in the truth.

Though I didn't have the chance to explain this life-changing power to that little blue-eyed boy today, I pray that he comes to know that the Judge is also the Redeemer. The Holy One is also the One who sanctifies.