Nestled away on the side of a mountain, a pioneer community built a meeting room for Sunday church services. It was a simple structure made out of wood, painted white, with a bell tower, and surrounded by a forest of tall evergreen trees. This meeting room was also used as a school.
When school was in session, usually 20 to 25 students attended. The same teacher taught all the students. Because of the wild animals in the area, a loaded shotgun was kept by the door.
Books were hard to come by. The nearest library was miles away, so sometimes people in the community would drop off books at the school for the students to read. One older boy, who only came to school because he had to, came across one of the books that really interested him. It showed what the different animal tracks looked like. He studied the cougar tracks and saw that they were five to six inches wide and circular in shape. Unlike the tracks of the big gray wolves that lived in the area, cougar tracks did not show toenail prints. (The prints of dogs show toenail marks, but cats have retractable toenails.) The boy studied the details of the tracks so that if he ever saw them in the wild, he would recognize them.
At 3:00, the teacher rang the bell, and the students started walking home. This boy walked a little ways behind the other students. He was still thinking about the animal tracks. When he came to part of the road that had a little soft mud on it, he kneeled down and practiced drawing them. Then he guessed how far apart a cougar would place its steps and drew them with that spacing. After that he smoothed out all the practice tracks he had made. Standing up, he was real pleased with his work. He decided he would leave the tracks there to see if he could fool any of the other students into believing they were made by a cougar.
They did fool everyone! The next day at school, word spread pretty fast that a cougar was lurking near the school. The teacher sent word about the tracks to several fathers of her students. They came and inspected the tracks and decided the students needed to be accompanied to and from school. About then, the boy who drew the tracks got worried that if he were ever found out, he would get into a lot of trouble.
Just before school let out, a group of men gathered outside the meeting room windows. From where the boy sat, he could hear them talking. They were discussing different ways to hunt the cougar. One man, who seemed to know what he was talking about, said the best way to hunt cougars was to get a pack of bloodhounds and set them on the scent trail. He said these dogs could follow a scent trail even if it were a few days old. Set them on the trail, and they would find whatever made it!
The boy got scared when he heard their plan. In his mind, he pictured a pack of bloodhounds following the trail right to the front porch of his house, followed by men with shotguns and rifles! He knew those bloodhounds would never stop until they found him. He couldn’t let that happen!
He got up out of his seat, walked right to his teacher and confessed. The teacher scolded him and then made him confess to the men who were making plans to use bloodhounds.
They were angry with him for not telling them sooner. They were also relieved they wouldn’t have to organize a hunt with bloodhounds.
The boy knew his prank had gone too far and that he was going to be found out. So he confessed. What would happen if people knew that every crooked, mean, selfish or underhanded thing they ever did would be brought out into the open before God? Do you think there would be less sinning and more confessing?
The God who sees all and knows all will bring every person who has ever lived into His presence for a hearing. There will be no such thing as someone getting away with a single sin in His sight! “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:2323But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out. (Numbers 32:23)). Thinking, “I’ll cover them up and no one will ever know,” does not happen in God’s sight!
Don’t run away from God; instead, run to Him! Confess that you have sinned in His sight. He loves you and will forgive you immediately, no matter how many sins you may have committed. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:99If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)).
ML-12/03/2017