Crumble

My kids were not exactly on their best behavior tonight. Well, at least the boys that is. It was pretty apparent to me initially what was going on. I could hear the ruckus coming from the game room upstairs so I made my way up the stairs and peeked over the railing. And when my eyes gazed through the wrought iron it was clear that these guys were tussling on the couch. “YOU’RE NOT JUMPING ON THE COUCH ARE YOU!?!”

Remember the old Bugs Bunny cartoon from 1948 called, “Hot Cross Bunny?” This was the one where bugs was being chased and hid in a closet only to come out spooked because there was a skeleton in the closet. These two boys were certainly caught off guard. But in their moment of entanglement with justice it occurred to me that we had been here before-many times actually. As these two naughty young boys crumbled into that couch I wondered if I would ever get them to abide by the ‘no jumping on the couch’ rule.

And so it is with us. We have those things in our lives that we struggle with. Perhaps it’s a rule God placed in front of us that we continue to break. And when we fall to the temptation we find ourselves crumbling before the Master. The work of the Spirit brings conviction and remorse at a time like that. But we have to be really careful at this moment. It is easy to run and hide. Often times, ditching the Word, skipping church, head-on-bed without prayer-it can all push us away from the Rule Maker.

Don’t let your humanity push you away from God. Crumble indeed but rise again. Pursuing God can be tough. Sometimes we fall but we’ve got to get back up. Remember our “frame” as the psalmist so sang of how the Lord does. We’re made from dust. Cut yourself some slack. Dust yourself off and get back in close with your Maker. My kids may have acted up again but they are trying. It’s just hard sometimes not to jump. But at the end of the day there were still plenty of hugs to be had between father and sons.

“The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.” --- Psalm 103:13-14 (NLT)