Broken Umbrellas

Last summer we bought our daughter an umbrella.  And not just any umbrella, a fancy, personalized, lacy, pink umbrella. She loved it.  She loved it so much she wanted to play with it everywhere.  The problem is, she would slam in into and through places an open umbrella simply should not go.  We told her repeatedly that if she continued to treat it that way she would break it.  She didn’t believe us.

Until she broke it.

Last week it was rainy, and we gave her a new umbrella.  I was marveled by the way she took extra care of her new one.  It may be that she’s a year older, or it may be that she has learned from her own mistake.

I think a lot of us live our lives the same way.  We know the consequences for bad choices could happen to us, but we don’t believe that they will.  As a result, we continue to make those bad choices.  Then, when things do go wrong, we usually don’t know what to do.  That’s why God gave us his Word, to help us to make the right choices the first time.  That’s also why God gave us His Son, to forgive all of our broken umbrellas.