A young pre-kindergarten man I know had a traumatic experience in school last weekend.  A piece of playground gravel found its way into the classroom probably via some youngsters shoe, and settled near this boy's seat. Like any adventurous young man would do, this small stone quickly became "his" and no doubt the options starting swirling through his mind.  A projectile? A noise maker? Whatever options his mental wheel of fortune contained that quick and ever-active wheel spun and spun until it landed on the seemingly perfect solution at this point in time.  The destiny of this rock was to be shoved up inside his nose.

Whatever allure this initially had was quickly gone when he realized he could not get it back out.  He told his teacher, and his teacher could not retrieve the stone.  His mother happens to be a teacher at the same school, so they went to find her but she also could not remove the stone from deep inside the boy's nostril.  They then proceeded to see the school nurse.  This young man was beginning to show signs of worry (and I'm sure the mother was too!) His first fear was that the nurse would have to give him a shot.  Luckily there was no shot involved.  The nurse could see the stone, they tried to coach him to blowing it out, and attempted to fish it out as well, but still to no avail.

Finally they took him to see his pediatrician.  The only solution was going to be sticking a rod up into his nose with one of those retracting claws to get a grip on the stone and pull it out.  The child had to be held still because once they went fishing he was not allowed to move.  The skilled hand of the doctor guided the contraption to the stone, secured it, and with no lack of discomfort pulled the stone free from its resting place. After the painful event and many tears the little man got up and declared that never again would he put rocks inside his nose!

Later the same day he saw another child pick up one of these same gravel bits that had found its way inside the school room. He stood up in class and with great force expelled his well-learned warning "DO NOT PUT THAT ROCK IN YOUR NOSE!"

He learned a lesson that day in what most of us would call "the hard way."  Most of the time, learning a lesson "the hard way" is the most impacting of all.  He had a new appreciation for having seen a situation go very wrong, and was naturally compelled to spare others of this torturous fate.  The other child had the opportunity to learn "the easy way."  If this warning was heeded (and I don't know if it was, but I assume I would have found out the rest of that story if it involved a subsequent trip to the pediatrician) then that other child may have escaped much pain and shame because of the experience of another.

What life lessons have we learned, whether the hard way or the easy way, that we see others stumble over every day.  What impact has God's Word made on our hearts convicting us of right and wrong.  What degree of love have we experienced compelling us to fight our spiritual battles looking for that home in Heaven. Evidently there are few lessons that impact us to the degree of this young man and his stone, because seldom do we stand up and share those warnings with the world around us.

Do we believe that sin still exists in this world?  Sounds like a dumb question at face value, but society around us has toned down and renamed everything that God condemns to the point that none of it seems all that bad anymore.  It's really just a bunch of options, and for one reason or another we keep "opting out" but have been trained to say it's alright for someone else to do.  If we truly believe that sin exists, and that all will stand in judgment one day as sinners (Rom. 3:23; Heb. 9:27) ... some covered by the blood of Christ but most not (Matt. 7:14)... then we should be standing up like that young man in his classroom and at the top of our lungs shouting from our rooftops begging people to avoid the snares of Satan and willing to show them how the blood of Christ can solve our sin problem before it's too late.

May we each reach the point of caring for those around us enough that while we see them playing with rocks we are compelled to warn them before they shove them up their proverbial noses.