Not me, Samuel! I was met by Samuel running to me at school today saying, “I did something I wasn’t supposed to today!” So what do we do? The thing that bothers me is not that the school shouldn’t be allowing this drink in school, the thing that bothers me is that my 5-year-old son has begged for 2 years for Mt Dew and we always so no. Believe me, it was obvious he had something full of caffeine.
I have decided that what we are going to do is tell Samuel, do it again and you will lose your privileges, discipline, consequences. It’s as simple as that, I’m not going to discipline him for drinking soda, I’m going to discipline him for doing something he has been told not to.
So what is the moral to this story?
As Christians we do this all the time. Matter of fact, we have been told when we do these things that God punishes us or if you’re in a denomination that won’t talk about God ever being angry you can call it discipline or whatever you want to call it. The fact is, we suffer the consequences of our sin every day. Just as Samuel will always be my son and I will always love him no matter what he does, there are consequences to our actions. We really don’t get by with anything.
God tells us thing we need to do to be blessed and likewise he tells us things we are not to do for our own good. When God said there were certain foods that we could eat it was because they wouldn’t cause us problems. When God told us there were foods that we were not to eat it is because those foods are going to be harmful to us. Such as pork, crab, shrimp, horses, etc. I know someone will argue that God said there were no unclean foods, read my post on Acts where Peter saw the sheet lowered with all the animals and you might be able to see that wasn’t at all about food. http://imagebearerblog.com/2013/02/26/week-6-of-reading-the-new-testament-5×5-acts-chapter-10-acts-chapter-14/
My only point is this, we tell Samuel he can’t have Mt Dew because it flat-out isn’t good for him. When God tells us we can’t do things, whether it is food, drunkenness, sex outside the covenant of marriage, overeating, telling lies, you name it…He is telling us as our Creator, our Father what is good for us and what will hurt us.
Why do we fight so hard to tell God that He really doesn’t understand us as well as we understand us?
