I remember my parents catching me drawing on the walls when I was small. One day, my parents caught me red-handed. I was about five years old at the time this happened. I loved coloring and took it on myself to produce a masterpiece in our apartment hallway. Holding a red crayon at shoulder height, I pressed it on the wall and walked along the length of our hallway. It resulted in a perfect red line. Just as I finished that line, I noticed Mom and Dad giving me the “what did you do” stare. It was not a happy ending but I didn’t have any regrets. I was an upcoming Picasso in my mind at home. 🤣
Frames for the drawings on the walls
I’ve seen a trend in decorating these days. Families will actually mount a frame around the drawings that their kids have scrawled on their homes’ walls. If this had been a trend when I was a child, there would not have been enough frames. I had too many drawings. I loved drawing on the walls.
While my art was, in my opinion, of art gallery quality, my parents had another opinion on the matter. There were consequences to my actions. Remember, this was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so the “board of education” was still in operation. In the end, I realized it was best for me to end my career as an in-home artist.
Don’t draw on my wall
Someone hurting us or offending us feels like they are drawing on the walls of our lives. And we are quick to point it out and demand that they clean up after themselves. We will easily paint over our own drawings to hide or excuse our faults. And we’ll do this more often than paint over the faults of others.
Why are we so quick to throw stones at those who have drawn on our walls?
Problems when throwing stones
The problem with throwing stones of judgment at those who have drawn on our walls is significant. Our hypocrisy in hiding our own faults and judging others for their faults restricts God from working in our lives.
Does this mean that we don’t confront sin or have standards? Not at all. However, when we face those who have drawn on ours or others walls, we should first examine our end goal. What is our purpose in dealing with that person? Is it to shame them into conformity, or is it to love them back into the family? God’s design from the beginning was to build a family. How have we gotten so far from His initial intention?
Forgiving, not stoning
Jesus has a habit of doing things other than throwing stones at people. When faced with a woman caught in sin, her accusers intended to use God’s standard against sin as justification. They wanted to stone her. Jesus, wise in His response, said, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first” (see John 8:7). One by one, her accusers dropped their stones in resignation as their own sins convicted them.
The woman’s act was sinful; that was not in dispute. The judgmental attitude of those wanting to stone her—those whose walls had been drawn on—was what Jesus challenged. Why do we find it so important to cast stones? We have all been guilty of missing the mark at one time or another.
Jesus won this challenge of His authority by forgiving, not stoning.
He throws no stones
If we really want to win our families, friends, and the world for Jesus, we should remember something important. The One Who had the right to throw stones didn’t. He forgave the woman in the story above and told her to move on and “sin no more.”
We would all do well to remember that our Father never throws stones. He rolls them, or takes them, away.
Remember Lazarus? He commanded the stone to be “taken away” (see John 11:39).
Remember Jesus’ resurrection? The stone was also “taken away” (see John 20:1).
Those stones are, in one sense, hindrances, judgments, and sins that keep people from connecting with God. When we throw stones at those we find fault in, we close our hearts. We shut out the possibility of God working in both us and them. When we cast judgment for one reason or another, we roll stones in front of our own relationships with God. It is a tangled web that we weave when we step into the shoes of both judges and juries.
Let’s not throw stones. Rather, let’s roll them and take them away with soft hearts of forgiveness. Instead of throwing stones, let’s draw signs with our crayons that will direct people to Him who throws no stones.
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