I remember my parents catching me drawing on the walls when I was small. My parents caught me red-handed. I was about five years old and held a crayon at shoulder level while walking along the length of our hallway, drawing a perfect line. Something about drawing on walls fascinated me. I was a virtual Picasso in my mind at home. 🤣
Frames for the drawings on the walls
I’ve seen a trend in decorating these days where families will actually mount a frame around the drawings that their kids have scrawled on their homes’ walls. Had this been a trend when I was a child, well, there wouldn’t have been enough frames for all of my 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. So, I figured out quite quickly that ending my career as an in-home artist was the best thing for me to do.
Don’t draw on my wall
It’s sad how quick we are to point out when someone has drawn on our walls. When someone has hurt us or offended us in some way. We are far more likely to paint over our own drawings, to hide or excuse our faults, than we are to forgive 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 wrong us or who don’t conform to our standards is that, in so doing, we restrict the power of God from flowing from us to others.
Does this mean that we don’t confront sin or have standards? Not at all. However, when we face those who have drawn on walls, we would do well to first examine what our end goal is 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 confronted with a woman in sin, those bringing her tried to use God’s standard against sin as a reason 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 is it so important to cast stones when we have all been guilty at one time or another of missing the mark?
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 would do well to remember that 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. The problem with throwing stones at those we find fault in is that we close our hearts to the possibility of God working in them. In so doing, 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. In place of throwing stones, why not draw signs with our crayons and direct people to Someone who throws no stones?
