A Little Paint On My Pants

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 brand new pair of blue jeans!  That’s what I was wearing the day I learned a very important lesson from my dad, a lesson I still think about to this day.  My uncle was painting his house and I wanted to watch.  Mom had just fitted me with a new pair of jeans and I wanted to model them for all the neighborhood kids.  Actually, I didn’t want to take them off because I really liked them and they looked and felt good. 

My dad refused to let me go over and watch them paint my uncle’s house.  I begged and begged him to let me go and every time the answer was no.  I would wait several minutes before asking him again, hoping against hope that he would change his mind.  No matter what I did, no matter how much I asked, and no matter how much I begged and cried, he simply would not let me go.

He said no because he knew I would get paint all over my new pants if I went to my uncle’s while they were painting.  I reassured him I would be very careful, that I would in no way go near the painters, and that I wouldn’t touch any paint.  Finally, after wearing him down, he relented and let me go. However, he made it clear that if I got dirty, I would receive a spanking.  I don’t remember hearing that part very clearly; I was too ecstatic about visiting the house.  I couldn’t wait to watch the painters do their work so I dashed off to watch those modern-day Rembrandts do their stuff. 

You know what happened, don’t you?  Yep!  I wasn’t there five minutes when I noticed I had some paint on my new pants.  Although my uncle lived within sight of our home that was the longest walk I believe I ever took.  I knew what was waiting for me when I got there and I knew I deserved it.  If I had just listened to daddy, I wouldn’t have dirtied my new jeans and I wouldn’t have walked home dreading the consequences.  My dad was true to his word.  As soon as I got home he fulfilled his part of the bargain and applied the hand of knowledge to the seat of experience.  Looking to mom for help was useless. I had done wrong and I knew it, even at three year’s of age!

When it comes to our walk with the Lord, we aren’t very different from a three-year-old, are we?  We want to bargain with God, cutting deals and making promises in order to get our way.  But God, like a good father, knows when to say no and He has His reasons for doing so.  This lesson is repeated over and over again in the Scriptures, especially in the Old Testament.  Let’s take a quick look at a passage from the book of Deuteronomy and get a glimpse of how God sets boundaries for His people.

Deuteronomy 30:16-18 reads, “For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,  I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.”

Somehow I don’t think Moses would be considered as the keynote speaker charged with the responsibility of motivating the audience.  This passage sounds more like scare tactics than a rip roaring “atta-boy” speech!  But let’s take a closer look at this verse.  Moses, and God for that matter, is not interested in making the people feel good. He is not interested in stroking their egos or in patting them on the back.  Moses wants to make sure the people understand they are to love and worship God and Him only. 

After all, it was God who brought them out of Egypt.  It was God who provided safe passage across the Red Sea.  It was God who fed them and cared for them for forty years in the desert even after they deliberately disobeyed Him.  Moses knew that once in the land, the potential for the people to abandon God was great and he wanted them to know what would happen if they chose that path.  The people could never say they didn’t know and that they hadn’t been warned!  They would make their choices with the full knowledge of the consequences.

We find ourselves in the same position today, don’t we?  We concentrate more on feelings than on fact.  We want God to make us feel good. We want Him to bargain with us and give us our way.  Sorry!  God doesn’t do deals and He certainly doesn’t change His rules or His standards just for us. 

When we go out into the world without listening to what God says to us, we always come home with paint on our pants.  We were warned not to go, but we wouldn’t listen; we had to do things our own way.  Now we have to receive the consequences for our actions.  It’s not fun, but we can never say we weren’t warned and that we didn’t know what the results would be.  God has spoken very clearly in His word.  We are to obey Him and keep His commandments.  That means when He says ‘No,” He means no.  When He says “Do this,” He means do this.

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e can take great encouragement from this passage of scripture, though.  My dad didn’t want me to go watch the painters because he knew I would get dirty and perhaps injured.  God knows the world is a dirty place and that it holds many dangers for us. He has provided wonderful instructions for staying clean and free from injury.  Why do we insist on having our own way?  Why do we insist on going where we shouldn’t and doing what we know will bring us harm?  Do you have paint on your pants today?