Mrs. Durango has one rather strict rule. Everyone who
lives in our house is expected to live by this rule, those that don't
inevitably pay the consequences.
It's a rather simple rule, all Mrs. Durango asks is that we all take
our shoes off when we come in the house and that we put them away.
This has been a standard rule around the Durango household since day
one.
Now for one reason or another it seems that my 3 sons have a real problem
following this simple rule.
My youngest son usually forgets the entire rule altogether, he is the
one most likely to be tracking the mud across the carpeting or the freshly
cleaned kitchen floor.
But even when he does remember to remove his shoes he ends up leaving
them right in front of the front door, next to his brother's shoes.
You see that's where the other 2 boys fall short of following the rule,
they never put their shoes away, they leave them right in front of the
doorway.
Not only do they drop their shoes there, it seems anything they bring
in the house with them gets dropped there as well . . . baseball gloves,
footballs, skateboards . . . anything and everything!
Well that was exactly what brought Mrs. Durango to the boiling point
last night.
For quite sometime now "Mom" has been threatening to throw anything
left in front of the doorway out onto the front lawn.
Last night as we were leaving the house to go to dinner "Mom" tripped
over the sneakers left at the front door.
Needless to say, Mrs. Durango blew a gasket over it and holding true
to her word, she threw all the shoes, sneakers, baseball gloves and
everything else left in the doorway out onto the front lawn.
The boys were already outside waiting to get into the car when they
saw all their stuff being tossed out onto the front lawn.
Of course they were all apologetic and said that they all had meant
to put the stuff away but they just hadn't gotten around to it yet.
So this morning as I was sitting there sipping my coffee I thought about
all that happened last night.
I thought about how those boys knew what the rule was . . . how they
all know the consequences of NOT following the rule and how they had
been warned about the idea of finding their stuff out on the front lawn.
Then I thought about how the Lord has set down certain rules for us
to follow, we know them, they are all found right there in that book
of guidelines called the Bible.
I thought about how us not following those rules results in us committing
sin . . .
And how we have been told to remove sin from our lives, repent and sin
no more.
Then I wondered how many of us are just like those boys of mine . .
.
How many of us will be apologizing and saying "I meant to do that but
didn't have the time" when we meet Our Lord and he says to us "I never
knew you"!
Just a thought over coffee.