“It’s His Fault!” (My People part 2)
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV)
If…Then
More than 70 years ago, a beautiful young lady left the Washington DC area where her parents and sisters lived. She traveled almost 700 miles to the sticks of Michigan and enrolled in a small school in a place called Berrien Springs. There in Emanuel Missionary College (now called Andrews University) she eventually met a handsome young man named Ralph. And a few years later, I came along.
But what if Mom hadn’t gone to MI?
That little two letter word, “if”, always implies something.
My favorite class in academy was geometry. OK, so I’m strange. But I loved the predictableness of geometry. “IF” two sides of a triangle are equal, then the opposite angles are equal. IF certain conditions were met, THEN you could know exactly what the outcome would be.
God said “IF my people…THEN I will heal their land.” (Also translated “earth” or “world” more than 700 times). Our land, our country, our world, desperately need healing right now. So it would be good for us to pay careful attention to the conditions given between the “IF” and the “THEN” in this text.
*****
His Fault
There was a crash, splintering glass, and a thud as a rock shattered the storm door window and landed on the floor.
The mother’s eyes quickly took in the scene and knew exactly what had happened. There stood her oldest boy on the sidewalk with a rock in each hand while the youngest cowered on the top step in front of the broken storm door.
“It’s his fault the window broke, Mommy!” the oldest son blurted out belligerently, “He ducked when I threw the rock at him.”
We aren’t very good at humbling ourselves, are we? We always want to blame someone else instead of admitting we are wrong. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the snake. But God says the first step in the If THEN statement is to humble ourselves and admit we are wrong.
*****
Book In My Pants
It was nap time. But my brother, Lowell, and I didn’t feel like taking a nap that day. So we slid quietly out of our bunk beds and tiptoed across the old wooden floor. Stealthily we slipped down the stairs and peaked into the kitchen.
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Mommy was busy and didn’t seem to have heard a thing. So we scampered out the door onto the porch and then out the screen door to freedom.
The grass felt good on our bare feet. But we were only half way across the yard when we heard the screen door open and Mommy called out “Boys! What are you doing?”
Uh Oh. We’d been caught!
“Boys,” Mommy’s voice was firm, “come here.”
Instead, we raced to the edge of the lawn and quickly started climbing a tree. We hadn’t gotten far when we heard Mommy below us. This time her voice was VERY firm, “You boys come down right now!”
We laughed — nervous defiant little laughs — and climbed up higher. Then, we watched in horror as Mommy took off her shoes and began to climb up after us — dress, stockings, apron, and all.
Unfortunately, we had both chosen to climb the same spindly little tree. Now it was swaying dangerously under the weight of three of us. Mommy reached Lowell, took hold of his bare foot and started down. He had no choice but to follow and I went down too.
Mommy marched us into the house and plopped us down on the couch. Then she told us how sad she was that we had chosen to disobey her. Soon she took Lowell into the other room and told me it would be my turn in a few minutes.
I knew (from past experience) exactly what was going to happen. First Mommy talked to Lowell. Then I heard thwack, thwack, thwack. Next I could hear Lowell sniffling and Mommy talking lovingly to him. But I was only half hearing those things. My turn was coming next and I was desperately trying to find some way to avoid it. I couldn’t run and hide. Mommy had already shown that she could even climb trees if necessary.
And then I saw a book on the end table. Ah! A book. Somewhere I had heard a story about a boy putting a book in his pants and I thought that might be my solution. So, when Mommy came back, I was sitting on the couch and trying to keep a straight face. This was going to be good.
She took me into the other room, talked to me, and then told me to bend over. I did, having no thought about what a book might look like in the pants of a six year old boy who had just bent over.
I am sure Mommy saw it, but she didn’t say a thing. She raised her wide belt (the one she usually used for spankings because it made a lot of noise but didn’t do too much hurting). And I tried not to grin. This was going to be really good. Just wait till I could go out and tell Lowell about my wonderful new discovery.
But when Mommy brought the belt down on my funny shaped anatomy, it made a sound like I had never heard before. It wasn’t the soft whap of a belt connecting with a padded behind. It was a loud harsh WHACK — like a belt hitting…a book or something.
I looked around in utter surprise and there was Mommy trying hard not to laugh. “Homer,” she said with as stern a face as she could muster, “do you have something in your pants?”
I nodded.
“Then take them off!” Mommy ordered.
I’ll spare you the rest of the details, but I’m sure you can guess that I never tried putting a book in my pants again.
*****
God doesn’t want to force us into admitting we are wrong. He says wistfully, “IF my people, who are called by my name, would humble themselves. IF they would only admit they are wrong, THEN I could begin the process of bringing healing to them and to their world.
