October 3, 2018

While a dark cloud of accusation and reaction fills the media these days, I have looked for something positive that could surface. It occurred to me that we older people need to come alongside teenagers and help them see the impact of their choices – good ones and bad ones – that will play out over their lifetime.

The issue is deeper than what could affect their potential as a public servant, although that is extremely important. Whether anyone ever brings our choices to light, we have to live with them. Our good deed becomes a memory that follows us and most likely prompts us to do more. And some hurtful action against another person will eventually torment us, even if it never becomes public information. We have to live with ourselves – and no one wants to live with a person who harms other people.

The days are over when words or actions spoken or done in secret could be kept secret indefinitely. I do not believe it is possible to have secrets any longer. About the time we think we have protected our information, we learn that someone figured out how to find it.

I smiled when I read Jeremiah 23:24, “Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” While obviously talking about Creator God, this statement also sounds like current technology. The only reason to try to hide from God is to think we can get away with sin and keep it from Him – which is impossible. The day of hiding our choices from humans is becoming more difficult all the time. If we were doing what is right, why would we feel the need to hide?

I am looking for opportunities to use the ugliness of our current national situation in positive ways to help young people understand the power of consequences. Perhaps one of the good things that will come from this is the affirmation of Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”

Pastor Bill Ehmann