Skipping the Rock

A few weeks ago, I came up with a list of about 10 things to live life by.  I was at a loss for some guidelines I wanted to set for myself, so what better way than the proverbial Top 10 list. Right?  Yesterday I posted about doing our best, preparing for the worst, and trusting that God will come through for us in ALL aspects of our lives.  Well, I figured I would continue for the next 9 days and post the rest.  (These will not be posted in any order of importance)

".....He straightened up and said, 'The sinless one among you, go first: throw the stone." John 8:7 MSG

The other day, my wife and I took our sons on our first so called "Family Vacation." It was short and sweet, but a whole heckuva lot of fun for us and the boys, minus the allergies and one missed event that I will admit was my fault.  On day 2, we stopped by the river in Smoky Mountain National Park and took the boys down to the river's edge to just check out the water.  While there, we saw many smooth river rocks that we started skipping across the rushing waters.  Being near a bridge, my oldest though it would be funny to "skip" rocks off the metal bridge spars because is sounded cool. But, the cars going over the bridge wouldn't like that (thank you God there were none driving by when he threw the rocks). But I noticed something about the ones he threw at the bridge:  in a wadded handful like a shotgun blast, some of those rocks would come bouncing back.  If not careful, they were going to hit him.

Here is my point:  Jesus taught us, in a very vivid way, not to throw river rocks at bridges in the Smoky Mountain National Park. Why? Because they just might come back and hit us.  In this passage from John, the Pharisees have brought a women caught in the act of sleeping with someone else's husband.  They want to trap him in saying something against the law of Moses which allows for stoning of someone caught in adultery. But he turns the table on them and makes them look within themselves at their own sin.

Here, God is not specifically saying there will be backlash from our condemnation, but that we must not throw that rock unless we can call ourselves sinless when we do.  Otherwise, we better be ready for the ricochet.  If we want to judge someone for their sins, we must be ready to be judged for ours.  Its that simple. Its easy to point out other's sins; it's much harder to point out our own.

If you throw the rocks at the bridge, be ready when some of them come back.  It WILL hurt.

Freak