The other morning, I was hanging out with my chickens – freshening their waters, topping off their food, and chatting with them about the day ahead – and didn’t even notice that a mulberry had slipped into the back of my slip-on shoe. Maybe one of the chickens did it as a practical joke. Regardless, I was completely oblivious to the juice that was seeping through my sock and staining my skin with every shift and every step.
Isn’t that so much of life? Something is there, but it goes unnoticed. It’s putting a mark on you, but you don’t even realize it… you don’t feel it and may not even see it!
We’ve been talking about this with our kids quite a bit lately. They’ve been homeschooled for the last six years – two of them have never known anything else – and they’re all showing a growing interest in seeing what the public schools have to offer. I keep having to remind myself that God loves my kids more than I do and will protect them better than I can.
It amazes me what kind of children people are raising that roam the halls of our public schools. Maybe you’ve seen the videos of parents laughing about how cute it is that their toddler is throwing around cuss words. Or maybe the ones where the parent finds it adorable that their child is obviously lying about something. Those aren’t admirable and are a direct reflection of the lack of morals held by the parents. That may sound harsh, but it’s true.
Kids are going to mimic what they see and hear. They’re going to be a window for others to see into their home life. If parents resolve disagreements with screaming and name-calling, their children will grow to be just as dysfunctional. If a child (or any person for that matter) is always on edge because they don’t know if their parents are having a good day or not, it will show up in how they interact with everyone around them.
I know that not all kids in the public school system them are bullies, they don’t all have foul mouths, and they aren’t all trying to get my kids to do something that is against their Christian values. But they can – and will – leave a mark on my kids if their paths cross. Just like the mulberry in my shoe (I’m convinced it was placed there by a stealthy chicken), things of this world will leave a mark if we’re not paying attention.
There’s a story in the Bible that you might have heard about – Lot’s wife (Genesis 19:1-26). It’s a story that terrified me as a kid. I was convinced that whenever I disobeyed God, there was a decent chance I was going to be turned into a pillar of salt just like Lot’s wife. But obedience was never the full picture.
The towns that Lot and his family were fleeing, Sodom and Gomorrah, were filled with wickedness. Everything that was in opposition to God and His ways, well, these towns had it. And without realizing it, the wickedness of those two towns had left their marks on Lot’s wife. She may have believed God to be the One, true God, but something had made its mark on her heart.
Lot’s wife didn’t just look back at her former home, but she looked back with longing in her heart. Maybe it was a lifestyle. Maybe it was a social status or a circle of friends. Whatever it may have been, she couldn’t seem to disconnect herself from it. It had more than left a mark on her – the wickedness had claimed her.
I wasn’t addicted to alcohol after my first drink… it was a slow fade. I didn’t start cussing the day I started hanging out with people who cussed… it was a gradual process. I tasted, I tested, and I chose a course that would have lasting effects on my life.
The mark on my foot made by the mulberry is gone, but I know that it didn’t go away on its own. While I took time to wash the stain from my heel, Lot’s wife embraced the mark that living in Sodom and Gomorrah had made on her. It’s so very important that we pay attention to what is trying to mark us.
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 MSG
I love how this translation puts it: …fix your attention on God… you’ll be changed from the inside out… It’s not self-effort, self-discipline, willpower, or anything in your power to do. It’s all about fixing our attention on God. I may ruffle some feathers here, but it’s not even about following the Ten Commandments. It’s all about fixing your attention on God.
If Lot’s wife had focused on God – trusting that He had good things for her and her family – she wouldn’t have looked with longing in her heart for the life she was instructed to leave behind… her longing would be for God. If your attention is fixed on God, He’s not going to lead you to breaking one (or all) of the Ten Commandments.
When our kids go to school – getting exposed on a daily basis to things that are not of God – it will be no surprise when they find a mulberry in their shoe from time to time. They may not see it coming (sneaky little chicken) and it may take some time before they realize it’s there, but it’s what they do when they find it. Do they leave it there to continue staining their foot? Or do they look to God?
This isn’t just about kids walking the halls of our public school system. This is a lesson for anyone who is breathing. Let’s not become so well-adjusted to this world that we start to look like it and long for it more than we look like and long for God and His goodness. He has only good plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11) and we can trust Him.