Don't Run With Scissors

“Don’t run with those scissors in your hand!”, a mom cautiously tells her 4 year old. “But why?” the little girl asks, and just as the words left her little mouth she trips and slices her hand open. Immediately the tears began to pour from those little brown eyes and a shriek of terror bursts forth. Lesson learned....the hard way, but nonetheless she has discovered the purpose for the rule of no running with scissors.It seemed like a fun idea before, now....not so much.
Now at this point the mother had a choice to make, 1) she could scold the child because she had clearly told her not to do this or 2) she could rush to the side of the now crying child and comfort her in her pain. Now only the most heartless of mothers would really scold a bleeding child because they has warned them of the outcome of their actions once before. There is a different level of compassion the mother has for her child. The only reason she told her not to run with the scissors was for her own good. When the mother sees her child hurt and crying it hurts her heart too, so if there was any way to steer the child in the direction of avoiding pain she would do everything in her power to do so.
I see this very common scene as an exact parallel as to how God cares for his children so so much, and that is the reason he sets guidelines and barriers to keep us out of harm’s way. Often we look at these rules as nothing more than a killjoy, keeping us from having the time of our lives. This is simply not the case. That whole ten commandments thing is neither a suggestion or simply a way of keeping Christians the most boring people on the planet. Those are set in place to keep us from cutting ourselves on the sharpness of sin.
The little girl in the story could not understand why her mother told her not to run with the scissors until she was faced with the consequence of her actions. So many times I find myself at that same point with Daddy-God. He told me to beware of putting myself in compromising situations, but I for one reason or another needed to test the waters for myself. I ran with the scissors, and found the consequences to be less than comfortable. I run to his arms yet again, broken-hearted, bleeding, in pain, needing comfort. He never denies me these, and never offers a response of “ I told you so..”, He simply reaches down as the loving father he is and offers comfort and peace.
After the mother gets done bandaging the wound on her little girl’s hand she asks her the question, “now, do you know why I told you not to run with scissors?”. The little girl responds between her sniffles, “yes....” Now, the mother was not doing this in a manor that says “I told you so..” but rather, she is making sure her little girl learned her lesson so that she will not get hurt in the same way again.
Often when we walk through the hurts and pains in life, that we get ourselves into, God does not deliver us from the aftermath of our poor decisions. He uses the hurts as a teaching point to see if we have successfully learned our lesson to avoid such blunders in the future. We need not view these teaching points as his wrath, but rather see them as His true love for us in trying to steer us in the right direction. God cares for his children, and hates to see them in pain. But if its a simple lesson that must be learned He is more than willing to guide us through learning the tough lessons in life.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to learn the lessons I needed to in order to steer clear the next time. It was not fun, but I am stronger because of it now!