The Sin Nature

Today more than ever I believe in the in-grown sin nature. We who have grown up in the church as well as we who are pastors have all heard that: “The sin nature comes to us from birth”. As a young man, this thought is tough to grasp and constantly brought to the forefront of my brain: “the how” questions. How is it possible? How can we tell?
Today as a father of a 10 (almost) month old, I can see clearly that this is in fact a true belief. Not that I necessarily doubted it to be true, I just never really experienced it to be true.

I discovered today, that one doesn’t need to teach the sin nature.

We were all in the living room (Hilary, myself and MJ) hanging out. MJ as is his usual was moving like a lightning bolt all around the room. His attention span on each item he touched was roughly 1.04 seconds. He was going from thing to thing. He proceeded to lick every item he handled just so he could reasonably agree that it was indeed something that wasn’t worth more than 1.04 seconds of his life.

During one of these “licking” escapades, he discovered a piece of paper…a bright orange piece of paper that he thought was worth more than 1.04 seconds of his life. So in his tiny little brain, something that’s worth hanging out with must absolutely love being in one’s mouth! He shoved this paper in his mouth, which while it was going in looked strikingly like a goldfish…but it wasn’t.

I go directly over to where he is and while walking over, I tell him “no MJ, that’s bad to chew on”.

Here’s where I noticed the sin nature. MJ being a very smart little tike knows that the word “no” usually comes before I go fishing into his mouth for the very thing he thought worthy of his time. Usually he has just been indifferent about the process…tonight he attempted escape!!! As I was walking over to him, he thought it wise to run away and try to climb the stairs to get away from me.

This was rather hilarious because he can’t walk yet and although he can scale the stairs quite rapidly he could barely get onto one step before I gripped his little body up and took the neon orange piece of paper out of his tiny mouth.

Sin is so in our being that even at 10 months of age we can be defiant! It made me wonder: How often do I defy God’s instructions? Also, when he is telling me no, like a good daddy it’s most likely because I’m sticking something in my mouth that could kill me.