“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?” Mathew 7:16
Wanting to surprise my wife with a clean car, I was detailing around the backseat. When the cleaning cloth hit something gooey stuffed inside the window button…I yelled “WHAAAAAAAAT”? Right there, in that little nickel sized area, was a wad of ABC gum (Already Been Chewed!). As I tried to remove the evidence, I HAD to come to the logical conclusion that at least ONE of my grandchildren is EVIL!!!
Being a father of 4 kids, and now 10.5 grandkids, I didn’t even KNOW there was such a thing as parental PTSD . But there HAD to be because I was experiencing it! I remember the back seats of, not one but TWO vans we had trashed when our kids were young. Climbing ‘back there’ was ALWAYS like entering ‘The Cave of Disgusting Surprise’! Now that my wife’s nice car had been hacked, I felt violated…or something!!
Immediately, after finding the gum, I started a checklist! “Who has been back here and who is the culprit!?” We don’t drive grandkids around that often, and since I had no way of carbon dating the evidence to an exact date, I quickly surmised that it could have been ANY of them. And then, “since ANY of them COULD have done it, they’re ALL GUILTY!” I finally settled with, “Grandchildren are EVIL!”
After coming to the ‘evil grandchildren’ conclusion, I realized I was actually smiling! The memory of those vans took me back to incredibly busy, but wonderful, days with my children. Children bring a whole blessing of their own because, nowadays…we’re just busy! So I cleaned up the gum as best as I could, dropped the desire to discover the perpetrator, and then told Katie. She wasn’t happy but…she smiled too!
Lately, the Lord has been showing me some rather messy, uncomfortable facts. Specifically, that the evidence of actually being a son of God ISN’T that I said a prayer one time when I was young, to ask Jesus into my heart! The EVIDENCE is ACTUALLY… my FRUIT! In other words…what I DO proves EXACTLY WHO’S I AM! And while I have gotten a LOT better and BEING better over the years, I STILL show ENOUGH evidence of EVIL behavior to make me nervous! Which is actually a good thing!
The old saying “Once saved ALWAYS saved” has Biblical merit.” Once I am born again, I CANNOT become UNBORN. But rebirth comes with real and hard physical evidence. If I am a new creature, I will hate and despise the things that God hates, and be COMPLETELY disgusted at myself when I DO them. Loving worldly things is evidence that some folks really AREN’T ‘Born Again!’
After cleaning up the mess, I was convicted that ‘I’ had made a mess of my own. Being reminded, I faced my Father and admitted it, thanking Him for forgiveness and the strength and wisdom to not do it again! Then I smiled! Because I realize that it ISN’T that I’m simply saved…it that I am saved and CHANGED!
Are YOU?
PS THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS. Dickie is SUPPOSED to come home today.
