A Quick Bike Ride - More Seeds of Hope

Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good.

When I was 14, my family took a trip to Europe. On the day we were to leave, all five kids and our parents were doing our final packing. The youngest two in our family, Tom and Steve, were five and seven years old and dressed in matching striped shirts and shorts.

Little Tom had his own suitcase and was carrying it all around the house and getting in the way of everyone else. So, my Dad told him to go for a quick bike ride and use up some of his energy.

Tom rode his red sting ray bike over to the new park which was two blocks from our house. An Olympic-sized swimming pool was being built. My little brother rode up to the temporary fence around the construction site, got off his bike, and noticed a hole in the fence. Even though he had been told to stay out, he wiggled his way through the fence, and climbed down a ladder into the pool, which at this point was only a hole in the ground. It had been raining throughout the week and so the whole site was covered in mud and deep puddles of water.

My five-year-old brother was careful to walk on the large boards which the workers used to keep out of the mud.

But…he slipped and one of his feet ended up in the mud. When he pulled his foot out, one of his new shoes was missing. Now Tom was an exceptionally smart five-year-old, and he knew he couldn’t go home without that shoe. He laid down on the board and reached his hand into the mud to fetch his shoe.

It was then that he slipped off the board and toppled into the mud. He never did find that shoe. When he arrived home, pedaling his bike as fast as he could, the whole family was waiting for him in the driveway.

My father was so upset he couldn’t talk. My mother shouted, “What have you done?”

“I lost my shoe,” Tom said. “I was checking out the new pool, and I slipped into the mud.”

My parents did a knowing glance at each other. They seemed to be alarmed. Then my mom went and washed Tom off with the garden hose, got him clean clothes, and we made it to the airport without further trouble.

We can feel uncomfortable when we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah today, “Wash yourself clean, put away your misdeeds from before my eyes, cease doing evil, learn to do good.”

For a moment, I invite you to think of it in terms of what happened to Tom. He clearly needed to be washed, and just as clearly, he had been told to stay out of the construction area and he hadn’t listened. He had broken the rules. So, he was in trouble.

And you can be darn sure my parents wanted him to cease this behavior.

But there is something else more important here. It came in the knowing glance that my parents exchanged when they found out what their five-year-old son had done. You see, they realized he could have easily died in that pool which was a quagmire of mud. He might have slipped off that board and never climbed back on.

When you do something you know you shouldn’t do, you may worry that God sees you and is mad at you, angry with you, disappointed in you.

What most of us don’t remember is that God always loves us, like my parents loved their youngest child who was covered in mud. The mud makes almost no difference to them compared to losing their child.

Remember, God wants us to be safe, healthy, and to stay out of the mud. Loving parents can’t help but want what’s best for their children.

So don’t worry about your new shoe stuck in the mud. Save your life and climb the ladder out of the pool.

Now let’s take 30 seconds to water the seed…

What is a time you were upset with someone you love for doing something unsafe?