The boy who fell

Here's an interesting observation I made as I walked out of small group this evening:
Lady has a few children with her. Older boy about 6 years is up ahead on the sidewalk. Another boy,  either the same age or a year younger runs up, obviously against advice, to catch up with first boy. I watched him ran and I feel like a poor historian because I'm not sure if he somehow fell because his shoe got caught in the step of the sidewalk by him failing to realize he needed to lift his foot up or he just tripped. Either way, it was a big fall. I was taken aback for a second. There was silence but as I asked are you OK, second boy starts to wail.

Another thing I need to point out is that when second boy fell, part of his body hit first boy who was walking calmly on the sidewalk causing him to also fall. So they both fell. However, when I asked are you OK, it was second boy who starts to wail loudly. First boy doesn't cry.

But that's not the interesting observation. The actual observation is that when they fell, it was the mother/woman who had to come pick him up and console him. She came up quickly as she was slightly posterior to me. First boy who got up by himself was just standing there. Was second boy wailing loudly because of the severity of the fall or the embarrassment of a stranger (me) making a sound at the fall and asking if they were OK?

Well, what's the point of blogging about a fall? It's not really about the fall. Here's what happens to us: Parent tells a child not to run, he does, he falls and then who has to pick him up and nurse those wounds? The parent. The very person he disobeyed in the beginning. Same thing with the Christian and God. We disobey, we get caught in the consequences of our foolishness and who do we cry out to for help rescuing us? God. The very person whom we disobeyed.

Here's the other interesting thing: second boy's actions caused first boy, who was walking as he should, to also fall and possibly get some scrapes as well. Sometimes in our act of disobedience, our actions hurt others. We don't just hurt ourselves. Of course the poor kid is too young to see that as he wails like he's the only who fell. I actually felt first boy should be the one wailing because second boy partially fell on him.

The bottom line, there are two aspects to disobedience - We can get hurt and hurt others in the process AND The irony is that we expect to be "picked up" from our mess and usually it's the very person whom we've disobeyed who gets us out. Not because we merit it but because we're loved unconditionally.