October 16, 2014
Wiping the Slate Clean
Every once in a while my grandkids will come to
visit and, like carrying their backpacks, they come carrying their punishment.
The last time 11 year-old David came over he had lost his TV and video privileges
for a week and he still had two more days to serve on his sentence. The punishment
may have fit the crime, but the grandma in me wanted to pardon David and let
him start over with a clean slate. We cannot know the mind of God, but it gives
me a warm feeling to think that He too wanted to just wipe our slate clean.
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Gail;
-----Context is everything. Char and I were noting the other day that quinine is in some medications. And the strychnine we feed rats to die we feed grandpa to live. He just gets less. When we come to the Lord, our slate is wiped clean. But by that, we can not empty our heads of all errant thoughts, or we wouldn’t have any left. On this side of the eternal line, nothing is perfect. Therefore, everything flawed cannot be discarded, or we would be discarded entirely. But on the other side of that eternal line, every flaw will be discarded. For this temporal life is a different context than is that eternal life. Not an entirely opposite one, though, for stuff of the eternal life is here. But different, for stuff of the eternal death, which is also here, won’t be there.
-----This present smearing together of the two stuffs makes things hard to sort. The grandkids are in a context of correction. They are needing to learn three things: 1) authority is consistent, 2) bad things have consequences, and 3) consequences are consistent. I know that’s a bit more ethereal than “if you track mud across the floor you don’t get to watch TV.” But it is the seed from which that idea plus all other penalties for all other particularities grows. It is basic. God is the same always. Things opposite of Him are destructive. Destruction is forever.
-----We might want to balk at that last idea. I mean, God is forgiving, isn’t He? So, how can destruction be forever if He forgives? Every thought effects another thought. If it is a true thought, it effects other thoughts with truth. If not, then with deceit. Every effected thought registers in the mind as it is effected by other thoughts, even if the thought is later rethought and corrected. The pathways of the former misconnection remain etched in the molecular matrix deep in the hearts of multitudes of neurons. Those connections will never be changed. Only reconnections will be formed with the best “I’d rathers” about the mind’s choice of using them in forming new thoughts. So, even though repentance is made, the old gateways are only locked, not eliminated. Same with the physical effects. Great, great grandma’s antique vase can be glued back together. But it will never, ever be whole because of the glue filled cracks it now has. Beyond forgiveness, consequences remain. That’s just the way this mixed up context is.
-----Mommy and Daddy’s consequences delivered upon the grandchildren cannot be overruled without muting this inner sense of consistency they wish to develop in their children. Punishment must be viewed in its context. But at the same time, that context must be given an addition: forgiveness. And as long as the punishment hangs in effect, the relating of forgiveness to consequences must be taught. In as much as consequences change things, forgiveness is about relating to those changed things also in a godly manner. The way things were can not be desired, for that way was destroyed by the misdeed, that is, reality now and forever has a different way as a result of the deed. Therefore you must relate it to God, who also does not change, by humbly accepting the new context, however tragic was the change making it. Consequently, added to the lesson of consistencies is the lesson of humility grown from the soil and water of repentance and forgiveness, until the grandkids can start corrupting their minds again with more TV.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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