After a Women in Ministry meeting this morning, I found my way to my mom and dad’s home, a haven for me, where I lay my burdens down and have some shop talk therapy, for dad and I are both in ministry. Again, I am going to share the wisdom of my father’s life, lived for the Glory of God. This story is longer than usual, but OH! the world needs its message. Thanks dad, and Happy Birthday tomorrow!
THE BOX IN THE BALL
I was saved from an awful life of sin at age 6. Before your opinions and sensitivities get your hackles up, let me tell my story. On a Sunday evening in what we called “the evening evangelistic service” I responded to the invitation and knelt at the altar and gave my heart to Jesus. Seventy-one years later, nothing has changed about that. So, for skeptics who think little children are too young to make a life decision, I beg to differ. It has worked for me!
Now let me speak about the awful life of sin at age 6. My those tender years were spent with a mom who was not about to tolerate anything from her offspring that had the appearance of evil. My life had not been one of wallowing in the depths of debauchery. In fact, if mom saw anything in my behavior that wasn’t compatible with the standards of a small boy in a Christian home, she had ways of getting the message across and with emphasis that I remembered. Even using slang words to brighten up our language was strictly taboo. I can remember on one occasion, my brother and I figured out that there was nothing wrong with saying “darn” because that’s what mom did with a needle, thread and the hole in my socks. Well, we used it at every opportunity for a day or so until mom overheard. “Darn” wasn’t used as slang thereafter.
But… the awful life I was saved from was not so much in my past as in my future. At the risk of sounding a bit self-righteous, I have largely been saved from a life of sinful habits, evil associates and bondage of addictions. While God and I have an honest understanding about the truth of who I have been and who I am, I can praise the Lord and good fetching up and that I have been spared many of the pitfalls and disasters of those who are suffering the consequences of unwise and shameful choices. I believe the decision I made on that Sunday evening over seventy years ago has had everything to do with that. My sins are forgiven and under the Blood of my Savior.
Besides the teaching of good parents, multitudes of wholesome relationships and living in the precincts of a Christian community, God put something in the breast of a small boy that has had a way of working overtime. I learned that it was called a “conscience.” And mine was hard at work before I had any idea of how it could be defined.
At a point in my young life not many years removed from that Sunday evening decision, I committed what at that time to me was a MORTAL SIN. I wanted so bad to go to the Friday night football game just down the street a couple of blocks from where we lived. There was no way we could afford the 50 cent entry. I promised mom if she would let me go, I would just wait outside until half-time and then go in. When I arrived, my friends where having just too much fun playing in the end zone area their own game of football. Paper cups stuffed together for a football and the rowdy activity was an overwhelming temptation. The hole in the fence was just too easy and soon – “Presto” – I was in the game. They needed me to block for the quarterback.
I have absolutely no memory of anything else about that night except what was to follow. First, just like most bad choices, mine was soon to be compounded. Arriving home, I was asked about the game. Well, I quickly concocted a story of how I found a 50 cent piece and got myself into the game. The misery I suffered in my conscience became an overwhelming factor. To say I was troubled and miserable is an understatement. Sometime later, mom had the bad judgment of telling my tale of good fortune to someone else. O my! Now my prevarication has a life of its own and my innocent mom is complicit with my sin. What misery!
Now I need to tell you what I have learned about the “conscience” that has stuck with me. Among other connotations, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “a sensitive regard for what is right, fair or just.” In my explorations and discussions over the years, I have arrived at a definition that works for me. The conscience is “a quiet, subliminal, moral monitor the Holy Spirit uses to guide us in the right.”
The most impressionable (and profound) definition I ever heard, however, was by a Sunday School teacher in a class of young children of which I was a part. Her definition went like this: Making a fist with one hand and placing it in her other hand she described the conscience as being like a “square box in a round ball.” When you do wrong, the box turns and the corners rub the ball and it hurts. It keeps turning until you do what is right and confess. Releasing her fist with her knuckles no longer sharply protruding, she said “if you don’t confess and keep on doing wrong the corners will eventually wear off and your conscience quits working like it should.” Then, she asked, “how will we know to do right instead of wrong?”
The epilogue to this story can be briefly stated in two parts. First, after a period of the box twisting in the ball, I tearfully confessed to mom my double sin of slipping into the game without paying and then lying about it. I finally figured out that any punishment she would mete out would be less than what I was feeling inside. Instead of the deserved punishment, she lovingly hugged me and told me I was forgiven. What a relief! Secondly, nearly seven decades later, the box still turns and the corners are still sharp. The Holy Spirit still speaks, convicts, reproves, inspires…. and I am SO grateful.
At my age, I don’t need any pain of a troubled conscience. These old joints are pain enough. Famed football coach Lou Holtz had what he called the “do right rule.” While it covers a multitude of behavioral mandates, it didn’t take much explaining. Just do right! Oh! the relief of confession when we do wrong and the peace of doing what is right.
Thank you, Lord, for the “box in the ball,” for the Sunday School teacher who made it plain to a little boy and to the Holy Spirit who makes it turn when its needed.
Blessings,
Bryan and Gretchen