JUST learning to walk! The baby kittens are getting old enough to play and run about and are having fine fun with the ball of yarn that has dropped out of the drawer.
And the baby boy is taking his first atop. How proud he looks as he tries for the first time, with his mamma’s help, to walk. But if his mamma should let go of him, what would happen? Very likely he would fall. He needs her help.
So it is with the young Christian. When we believe on the Lord our spiritual life begins. We are babes in Christ. Then we learn to walk in a way pleasing to God. And without His help we must surely fall.
A dear little girl was once walking down the street with her papa. She wanted to walk alone although he had told her she would fall if he did not take her hand.
He let her try it and soon she did fall. Then she wanted to hold just one of her papa’s fingers. But that was not enough and she fell again. Then she let him grasp her hand and then she was safe. She could not fall while his strong hand was holding her up.
So we must put all our confidence in God, and not trust our own strength.
There is something else we ought to know about the first step. It is the hardest one. The second is a little easier to take, and the third is still easier. After while it is so easy to take steps that we take them unconsciously. We do not stop to think how we do it.
So it is with the first step of sin. If we do something we know to be wrong, our conscience hurts us. But if we do that same thing a second time our conscience does not hurt us quite so much, and the third time still less.
Finally our conscience does not hurt us at all, and we find we have formed a habit of regular wrong doing.
Be very careful, dear children, never to take the first wrong step. If you don’t take the first you can’t take the second. But if you do take the first, Satan will help you all he can to take a great many more.
It is also true that if you take a step in doing good you will find it easier to take another. If you speak kind words and do kind acts to please the Lord you will find great joy and pleasure in it. You will want to continue taking such steps.
It is not always easy to do a thing you know is right. But it will become easier as you do it oftener.
ML 03/13/1904