Emotional pain makes us do silly things.

I see this quite often with teenagers. They are in that awkward stage when they still want to be doted on by mom and dad (or whoever is playing that role) but also kind of not. And mom and dad have realized that junior is developing body odor and isn’t their cute little baby anymore. And so what you end up with is a teenager who knows his parents love him but only kind of. In the really bad cases of this I see teenagers do really dumb things just to see if they still have mom and dad’s eyes.

They’d deny it until they died, but what is the teenagers are trying to say is, “If you really love me you’ll stop me”. They are doing things they know they shouldn’t do, and going places they know the shouldn’t go, hoping that somebody will stop them. What’s really sad is when nobody cares enough to stops them. But many times teens are just being emotional and silly and playing a foolish game. Their only grounds for believing such nonsense are the raging hormones that feel like truth.

But adults can be just as silly. We go through difficult experiences. Dreams die. Plans break. Our spirits droop. We start to question God’s love for us.

I preached on Hebrews 4 yesterday. When we came to the part in the text where the author says, “Therefore let us fear…” I borrowed an illustration from John Piper and made it my own. I talked about how my little girl is terrified of cars even when they are a long distance away. We’ve trained her to fear cars and not play in the street. But she doesn’t fear when she is in the safety of our home. When we find ourselves in the street of unbelief we should rightly fear. And such fear propels us back into the safety of the house. I quoted Piper: “Fear only rises where faith starts to weaken. And it only rises long enough to get us back into the peaceful fearlessness of faith.”

But there are times when we become like the teenager whose confusing emotions makes him do silly things. We get angry with God and so we start playing in the street of unbelief to see if he really loves us. We run away from the disciplines that would strengthen our confidence in his love and we start playing with dangerous things. Foolishness.

We still believe a little bit of gospel but twist it to fit our jaded thoughts. We tell ourselves, “I can play in the street of unbelief and if the father loves me he’ll rescue me.” Slowly we start neglecting the body of Christ. We get further and further into the street. And when we find ourselves in a really dark spot we get mad and blame God because he didn’t rescue us from the places he told us not to go.

Have you ever wondered why the prodigal’s father didn’t go to the pigsty to rescue his son? I wonder if the prodigal ever questioned the father’s love for him. If he really loved me he’d be here in this pigsty trying to rescue me! But we know from that story that we shouldn’t doubt the father’s love for his prodigal son. His eyes were always looking on the horizon with arms ready to embrace.

I tell my daughter every day how much I love her. I’ve provided for my daughter a backyard to play in, a front yard to play in, a room with toys and dolls and stuff to play dress up with, it’d be foolish for her to play in the street just to see if daddy loves her.

I can play in the street because the father loves me is silly.

I don’t play in the street because the father loves me is gospel.

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