April 12, 2010
Temptation
We were having a movie night at my son’s house and it was the grandkids bedtime before the movie was over. A half hour later my daughter-in-law got up from the couch to get a drink of water and caught 4 year-old Lydia in the hallway sneaking a peek at the movie. Confronted by her mom she sprinted to her room and confessed through tears, “Mama, I tried not to be tempted.” Such childlike innocence was lost when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s interesting to think that God might have responded differently if, rather than blaming God, the serpent and one another, the couple would have simply confessed, ‘I tried not to be tempted’.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----If the snake would not have been in the Garden, would Eve or Adam have eaten the forbidden fruit? We pray, “...lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The snake was a complication in Adam and Eve’s world, and we are a complication in our children’s world. It would be less tempting for a four year old to get up and sneak a peek at the movie if the movie were off and everyone else were in bed as well. But somehow the discretion of the adult world diminishes needs that remain strong in the child’s world. I have always chuckled at the warnings flashed on the TV screen before racy presentations, “This program contains adult themes which may be inappropriate for children. Viewer discretion is advised.” What often follows is a bunch of trash that only entertains the truly immature viewer, the viewer who can find nothing entertaining in a program confining itself to the boundaries of adult discretion. Should the warning not read, “This program contains immature themes which are inappropriate for children and adults. Viewer indiscretion is expected.”
-----But what complicates the world for children is that adults don’t need the additional rest children do. And many programs can not properly tell a story without portraying the degradation in which it occurs. Evil exists all around us. It is intertwined with our business world, our entertainment, our politics. It is almost everywhere we go. So, like we have to carefully wash everything we eat, we also have to wash every situation in which we become engaged. That is the Lord leading us not into temptation, and it is Him guarding us from evil. Eventually the child learns to wash his situations, too. Eventually he becomes Mom and Dad, beginning the cycle again with another four year old.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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