The Scrawl
THE SCRAWL
Read Romans 14:7-12.
“Mom, look at this!” called Brad from his bedroom. He had moved his furniture around. And when he moved the dresser, he saw ugly crayon marks on the wall behind it.
“Tricia must have done it!” Brad said as his mother walked in. “It looks terrible!”
Mom smiled. “Those marks were made long before your little sister was born.”
“Then who did it?” asked Brad.
“You did!” Mom answered. “You were about two years old when you came into the kitchen and tugged my skirt. I followed you in here, and this is what I found. I tried to wash the marks off, but they wouldn’t budge. So I moved the dresser in front of them.”
“Did I get a time-out?” asked Brad.
“Of course!” replied Mom. “I had warned you several times about staying out of the drawer where the crayons were kept. Yet you happily showed me what you had done.”
Brad looked at the scrawl and laughed. “Some artwork!” he said. “It’s funny how things seem different when you get older.”
“I wonder how many other things in life are like that,” said his mother. “Probably quite a few. When I was a girl, I did a lot of things just to make myself seem older or more important. Now I wish I could go back and undo those foolish things, but I can’t. You still have your life ahead of you, Brad. Be careful not to do things you’ll be ashamed of later.”
HOW ABOUT YOU?
Do you live for today, doing whatever seems like the most fun at the moment? If you live in sin, you’ll regret it someday—at the Judgment, if not before. Obey God’s Word and serve Him. Then you’ll look back on your life with gladness, not with shame!
TO MEMORIZE:
And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.
Romans 6:21
SIN BRINGS SHAME.
From the book
