Parents, it’s good to know what’s “not okay.” When I was an intern at a church in Texas, I enjoyed some really great mentors. One of them had a huge youth camp at a college in the middle of beautiful Texas prairie country, not in the mountains, not on the lake, not at the beach… So as one who had always gone to the beach for student camp, I wondered how Jerome got so many kids to come. I didn’t wonder long. The speaker was great (it just happened to be Louie Giglio), the small group Bible Studies were impactful and well thought out, the last night of camp was super and it was structured to be a memorable capstone to the week, and THE GAMES! The team games that he came up with were so creative, fun and each had a teachable aspect to them. The kids couldn’t wait to play the games. Kids were grouped together for the week and competed against other teams. There was one game, one year, that sounded like great fun. It had no rules, only a beginning and an end and one objective... to get a medicine ball in the opposing team’s tractor tire, while preventing the other team from putting the ball in your tire. It was on a huge field, there were no boundary lines and there were no other rules. Everything was okay to do in this game and there was nothing that was out of bounds or “not okay.” The game was fun for about one minute, until it degenerated into a destructive survival of the fittest scenario where the kids’ competitive spirit and desire to win overwhelmed their respect and value for each other. Those teams who were slower or smaller or not quite as creative, were just annihilated and the strongest of the teams just sat on the tire, dropping the medicine ball into the tire repeatedly until the game was over. It was not pretty! Kids got hurt, kids ran off the field with the ball and never returned, some just gave up. Everyone was complaining how awful this game was. It was painful to watch. After the first day, many kids had scabs and bruises, and some walked with a limp. Friendships were strained, others were broken. The second day, kids refused to play it, they begged for some rules or tried to make up their own rules, some just sat down and cried while others strutted around chanting that they were the champions. Jerome was brilliant, he had just shown us what it would be like in a world without love. Love values people by setting boundaries and respecting them.
In the Old Testament, God loves and values us by giving us a set of behavioral boundaries called the Ten Commandments which tell us what’s “not okay.” In the New Testament, Jesus gives us a new command that would not only uphold these boundaries, but would also supersede them with the positive relational command to love God and His Children.
When we share a planet, a country, or a quarantined household, we have to have some “it’s not okay”s, some boundaries to protect each other. We also need to remember that all the other commands are all summed up and superseded by Jesus' command to love. The apostle Paul reminds us of the things it’s “not okay” for love to do and also the things that love does in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a and he says, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (CSBBible)
Hang in there people! God is with us! I’m praying for you all.
