Yesterday, I was having a conversation with Myles about his classroom management system. When he gets warned he has to pull a “light stick”…green means one warning but a good day, yellow means two warnings…red is big trouble! Myles gets green a lot and sometimes yellow. (He’s a talker…shocker!)
I asked him what do the kids in his class do when they pull their sticks? His reply, “They cry all day.”
“Do you cry when you have to pull your stick?”
He looked at me as though I was crazy as he said, “No, I just pull it and pretend I didn’t.”
My mom and I laughed at his remark but this morning I was thinking about it and it dawned on me he wasn’t ignoring the fact that he got in trouble and had to deal with the consequence of pulling his stick, which included coming home for mom and dad to see it and deal with it…he was moving on with the rest of his day.
He messed up. He accepted it. He dealt with it and he moved forward.
I think we could take a lesson from his attitude. We’re going to make mistakes and mess up and there’s nothing wrong with crying over mess ups and sins in our lives. Godly sorrow leads to repentance…but if we cry about it all day long how are we going to focus on what’s ahead? There are still things that we have to get done. If we continue to boo hoo over missing the mark then how can we hear the Teacher when He gives us our next assignment and He will give us more assignments! Our behavior might be unbecoming, but His blood covers it when we ask forgiveness and MEAN it…then He forgets–tosses it out as though it never happened and He moves on with us. The question is–can we move on?
Mourn it–pull the stick, face the consequences knowing that the Father disciplines those He loves and then suck it up and pay attention for the next lesson of the day. Who knows, maybe tomorrow you’ll get a happy face! Myles rarely gets them, I rarely do too…I think his teacher and mine are just being gracious!
