I was somewhat of a daredevil as I was growing up. We would do things that I wouldn’t think of doing today. I remember one time when my brother Sam and I were playing cowboy and shooting at each other with BB guns. It really hurt to get stung with a BB, not to mention the danger of shooting our eye out.

As a matter of fact, our parents had given us strict instructions to never shoot anyone with our BB guns because we might shoot their eye out. Fortunately that never happened! There was a definite possibility that could have happened and we would have gone through life blinded in one eye. Our reckless behavior as kids was largely due to a lack of real life experiences.

The thing that can be puzzling is that many people seem to have never learned by their life experiences. They continue to think and act as if they had never experienced anything that was reckless or been taught the truth of things that can destroy their lives. Our actions have consequences and even though we may be fortunate enough to get by a time or two; the consequences of these actions will eventually catch up to us.

As adults, if we were still shooting each other with BB guns, someone would be going through life blinded. This is a real danger and has happened to other people.

Life experiences are the very best way to learn what to do and what not to do. But in order to benefit from them, we must remember what happened. So many people do the same thing over and over again and bear the consequences over and over again.

Do you think there is a way to break this cycle? Are we just doing the best we can or can we do something that could give us an advantage over doing the wrong thing time and again?

These are the everyday issues we address at the Gathering Place every Sunday Morning at 10:30 and Wednesday evening at 7.

Pastor

John Pfeifer