We All Fall Down

As children it is easy to figure out what is right and wrong, because our parents tell us. Of course we did not listen, and end up suffering the consequences. You end up in time out or losing the toy you stole from your younger sibling. You see the consequence of your actions fairly quickly, and we hopefully learn what is right and wrong as we go through the consequence.


But all this changes as we get older, because we learn how to manipulate the system. As we became teenagers we started to lie better not to get caught, or we did not say anything at all. We also learn to just keep some of our thoughts to ourselves, especially ones that are not particularly productive. When we are finally caught, we will try to make it a much less sin then what it was. Or we will try the, “at least I did not kill anyone,” statement, to try to down play the sin.

Later as we get older there is no consequence for some sins we commit, because no one will know about them. You can commit them in private and not tell a soul. Plus, we are not punished by our parents for not following their rules. We have societal laws and rules for the work place, but for the most part there is no one watching like when we lived at home. Or is there?

We tend to forget that there is an almighty, omniscient God who sees and hears everything. Nothing is kept from His site. When we think we are hiding and no one is looking, we have to remember that there is more then just earthly accountability; there is an eternal accounatability as well.

This leads to another question. Do you think things happen to us here when we sin in private and no one else knows? Does discipline happen that we may not even realize? When we sin in private does it affect our public life? I think the answer to all those is yes much of the time, but we have to have the eyes to see it. It is a form of discipline for sinning. Just like when we had our favorite toy taken away for behaving badly, there could be the same type of discipline as adults for sinning in private. I say private, because we tend to see the effects of public sin and the consequences of that sin. But when we sin in private and think no one is watching or is hurt by it, we tend not to pay attention to see if there was a ripple effect.

The challenge is to pay attention and see if God is trying to get our attention when we sin in private and do nothing about it. I think there is an effect and not always in the way we think. Some times the discipline will be tough to see lining up with the private sin, but I bet it is there. There tends to be temporal actions for sin, even though through Christ we are eternally forgiven.

Then again maybe there is nothing and as long as you keep it quiet and private no harm done. The challenge is to pay attention and see if there is. The worst thing that can happen is you will pay more attention to potential sin in your life and look for God working in other areas of your life.