Don't Touch the Stove

Dear Readers,

I think I told you in a previous blog that I write topics, and then I come back to them when I have the full story. I probably wrote this topic a couple of weeks ago with the intent to talk about myself, and I still might. But let me share how this started. When my son was about three years old, we had a flattop electric stove. The only way to know it was hot was to see the illuminated red button at the top, which was beyond his eye level, so the standing rule in our house was, “Don’t touch the stove.” You guessed it. He touched the stove, but he didn’t tell us this immediately. First his dad and I saw him hopping around like he was hurt, but we couldn’t see any visible injuries. Then we noticed that my son was sucking his finger, which he had never down before. By the time we could examine his finger, a large bubble had developed, and only God knows what lay beneath the surface. This would be the beginning of things we told him not to do that he would do anyway. Sometimes I blamed the influence of his friends, and at other times I blamed our divorce. Surely there was something that could explain this level of stubborn willfulness to do what he wanted to do. Then God reminded me of myself. I usually hear Him in a still, small voice saying things like, “Don’t go there with that person. Don’t connect yourself with her and cut ties with him. Stop repeating the same pattern of sin.” Yep, that’s what God told me, and I did it anyway. I even did like my son did, which was to try to hide what I did from God. I realized recently that the anniversary of my salvation is coming up next year. I thought about how God reached me on the conference floor and revealed Himself like never before in my life. And then I thought about the times since then that I ignored what He was leading me to do and how I sometimes did my own thing. As I watch my son still have “touching the stove” moments, I can rest in what God did for me. Stopped me in my dead wrong tracks and brought me back towards where I was always supposed to be. We all have those “touch the stove” moments, and oftentimes we do try to hide those moments from God. Some of us eventually run from God because we are ashamed and feel like we have gone too far. Not so! God is compassionate, forgiving, merciful, and filled with lovingkindness. In all of our foolishness, He stands like the father in the story of the prodigal son waiting at the door for us to return. Whether you are praying for the loved one to return or you are the one waiting to return, trust in the mercy and forgiveness of God.