Love in the Limits

When I use my oven to bake anything, per unwritten code, I grab hot pads from my kitchen drawer and I carefully grasp whatever pan I've put in the oven and slide it out. I double and triple check my hands to make sure there's not even an accidental brush against the oven rack below or above the hot pan, or even against the oven door. There are a thousand synapses firing in my brain as I carefully work to avoid scalds, burns, and blisters... and even though the effort to place anything in or remove anything from my oven takes me literally three seconds, I am always super careful.

Why? Because one single time when I was probably eleven or twelve, I placed something in the hot oven without being so meticulously careful about what my hands were doing, and the tops of my knuckles barely brushed against the oven rack above the pan. Hot pain shot across my skin, and I carried huge blisters on the back of my hand for a few days.

The funny thing is, even though I've streamlined my movements and the placing and removing of pans from my oven doesn't look overdone, my kids have picked up the same respect for the hot oven without having necessarily being burned themselves. They're still in the streamlining process -- they still approach the oven with halts and hesitations as they check their hands, but the only reason that they check their hands in the first place... is by watching me.

I never told them, beyond "Be careful, it's hot," to watch their hands. They picked that up because of the example I'd set for them.

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Paul is writing about precedents. He dives back into Israelite history, back when they were -- as a nation -- God's people. Once Jesus died on the cross, the Old Covenant was abolished, and salvation was for all people, Jews and Gentiles. So as Paul addresses the Corinthian church here (notably, most of them Gentiles), he relives Jewish history for a minute. 

"For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock is Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert" (1 Corinthians 10:1-5).

In other words, God's people had it all. The Lord blessed them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to lead them through the desert, to lead them away from their land of slavery. He gave them manna, he gave them water from a rock, He took care of them in every single particular detail. 

And they betrayed Him. Most of them turned their backs on Him and disobeyed Him, and "their bodies were scattered over the desert." Most of them never entered the Promised Land (with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, who obeyed and trusted God).

Paul reminds the church: "Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did" (1 Corinthians 10:6). This is where Paul points to the oven scars on the backs of their hands and says: See? Don't touch, it's hot.

"Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, 'The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.' We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did -- and in one day twenty-three thousands of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did -- and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did -- and were killed by the destroying angel" (1 Corinthians 10:7-10).

Love sets limits, my mom used to tell me, and I've passed that bit of wisdom to my children. So when I tell them: No, even though they often don't think it's fair, or just, or right, that I'm just being mean, that I just don't understand how much they want what they want...

It's because I love them enough to stand up against the direction I see them going and tell them no for their own protection.

When my oldest daughter was two years old, she was playing in the kitchen. She knew the stove was hot and a "no-no." I had taken a pan off the stove and turned around to put it on a trivet on the kitchen table. My husband held her as he waited, but she was quick.

She reached down and laid her hand on the stove top -- I don't know if its smooth, shiny surface attracted her or what -- but I turned around at the same time as this happened. There was that awful silent second before the pain hit and the response came... and then the cries came loudly and tragically.

She sobbed and sobbed as we ran cold water over it. Her poor little hand was red and blistered for a while after that, but here's the thing: Almost twelve years have passed since that incident, and she has never burned herself on the stove again. She knew the limits I set were made in love, and she respected them after that.

Paul says: "These things happened to [the Israelites] as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it" (1 Corinthians 10:11-13).

And sometimes that "way out" is a firm: No! from Mom, right? Or a time out in the bedroom. Or getting grounded from screen time, or getting desserts taken away. Other times, the "way out" is simply knowing the right thing to do, sticking by our guns, and doing them, whether we have public approval or not.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13), Satan sure made the temptations look good, almost like he custom-orchestrated each one just for Jesus' especial benefit. It would have been so easy to give in, you know? It's just Jesus and Satan in the desert. Nobody else was around (we can assume that both Matthew and Luke, who wrote these accounts, were told about this by Jesus Himself or by the Holy Spirit). There was no one to see Jesus "mess up." 

But what I think we so often forget is that the physical, natural world is not all that there is. In fact, it's a very small part of what there is. The spiritual world is just as real as the natural world, and had Jesus... "messed up," there would, quite literally, have been hell to pay. 

Look at how Jesus stood up to temptation: He did it through Scripture. Each time, He responded with a verse: "It is written: "Man shall not live on bread alone'" (Deuteronomy 8:3), and "It is written: "Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only" (Deuteronomy 6:13), and lastly: "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test'" (Deuteronomy 6:16).

When Paul says: "He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it," the way out is standing firm on the Word of God. Paul reminds the church: If you think you're standing, be careful that you don't fall. Because if you stand on anything other than the eternal Word of God, on the Holy Spirit -- you will fall. 

You will get burned. God Himself sets limits for us to keep us away from the fire and the consequences of foolish decisions. The Word of God is full of limits placed out of love, and while we sometimes try to buck those limits -- they're there to keep our poor hands from blistering when we touch the wrong thing.

But that's so confining!

No, "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1). We have the freedom to stay inside the limits God placed for us. Outside those limits is death and pain.

Inside those limits is freedom and life. As a parent, I understand this so much better than I did before I had kids. I would do anything to keep my children from hurting, and it is so tempting to let them have their way when they want something so badly. Because I want my children to be happy.

But in my longer-range-than-they-have viewpoint, I often see a little farther down the road than they do. If I as a parent can do that for my children, how much more does God see the bigger picture for us, His children? "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?" (Matthew 7:11).

Trust that those limits are there for a reason. No matter how shiny the stovetop looks... when Mom says no, she means no. She loves you. 

He loves us, so, so much. So much so that a cross couldn't hold Him on it and a grave couldn't keep Him in it. Hallelujah!