NAILS IN MY BOARD

I heard a story long ago, and perhaps you have too. I don’t remember some of the particulars, but what I do remember will probably suffice for my intended purpose.

Goes like this: A young boy was having problems being a good boy, as young boys sometimes do. His dad was having a hard time helping him to learn to be good, as dads sometimes do.

One day the dad had the young boy sit down with him as he laid out a plan to help the young boy see how often he was disobedient or did other thoughtless wrong things. He Gave him a nice clean 6’ long 2”x12” board and a box of 1 ½”nails. He told him that every time he did something wrong he was to drive one of the nails all the way into the board. When he did a good thing he would be allowed to pull 1 nail out of the board.
The son agreed and thus began the sequence of driving and pulling nails. At first the nails were being driven at a fierce rate while the pulling was somewhat sporadic. However, as the young boy saw his board filling up with nails rapidly, he began to make extra effort to do good things so he could pull more nails out. He would go to his dad triumphantly when he had a good day and show him the board. His dad would congratulate him and encourage him to keep up the good work.

This kept on over a few years when finally one day the son now older and the father-son relationship on the sound footing of Jesus; the son went to his dad and declared that he had removed the final nail. They both hugged and rejoiced at his growth. (it’ about here that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir begins singing THIS IS HOW IT FEELS TO BE FREE.) Then they walked out, dads hand on sons shoulder to look at the board.

They both stood there for a long while… nothing said. When the son finally turned to his dad, there were tears in his eyes. I told you he’d grown older. There were tears in his dads eyes too, for you see the board was nearly destroyed by the claw hammer digging and prying to remove the old nails… and all those holes….

They hugged as his dad explained that… yes with Jesus and repentance your sins are forgiven. And yes you can feel free and forgiven. But your sins leave scars. You are not the only one damaged by your indulgences. That board will never be brought back to its original cleanness and newness. The board represents the effects of your sins on your parents, friends, and Jesus. Forgiveness and eternal life are gods gift to you… repentance and restitution are your gifts to God ands those you’ve sinned against.

People, don’t think it odd if you feel forgiven and free from your sins, but those you have sinned are having a little harder time rejoicing with you. You need to start sanding down that ole board, putting some putty in the holes, and trying to make some sort of restitution to the ones you’ve hurt. Sure, it may be hard, but that’ll when you know how it feels to be free.

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. --D.A. Carson

It is perilously easy to have amazing sympathy with God's truth and remain in sin.-- Oswald Chambers