Lying

I'm sure Cooper would be embarrassed if he knew I was posting this, but that's what happens when God gave him me as a mom. He got caught lying this morning. A minor thing he lied about, but of course that wasn't the issue. So when he got home we had a sit down which ended in tears, which means it was a success, although I was pretty close to tears too. And his discipline was to write a one page essay on lying which had to include two Bible verses on the subject, pretty ingenious if I do say so myself. I helped him by showing him "lie" and other forms of the word in the concordance in my Bible. And this is what he read to Jason and me an hour later, with his own spelling.

Dear Mom and Dad, I know what I have done was bad. Colossians 3:9 says, "Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices." I think that means that you don't lie to each other and if you practice not doing it then you won't do it as much and it will be like you have taken off your old self and put on your new self.
Isaiah 11:6 says, "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together." At first I had no clue what this ment. But when I thought about it I thought that maybe since all the animal pairs were oppisite, like one would be a calm animal and the other would be a frightening animal to us maybe it ment that if you don't lie, you will get along better with other people.

At this point, after first looking at each other with a questioning look, Jason and I could not hold in the laughter. We really tried, I promise. We realized that "lie" has more than one meaning and we assumed Coop would have realized that, but no. He did somehow get something out of it though. So we praised him for the first part, and went to eat dinner, and then I looked up a verse for him. I told him to read Proverbs 6:16-19, but just to include verse 17 in his essay. And here is the rest for your reading pleasure.

Proverbs 6:17 says, "Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood." I think that means if you have haughty eyes and a lying tongue you will shed innocent blood. So if you do that your entire life you won't go to heaven.
And last but not least I hope you will forgive me and I will try not to do it again. I am sorry. Your son, Cooper

I asked him what the verse before that one said. He didn't remember. "There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him..." We had to have a talk about that not only did the lying hurt my heart, but it hurt God's heart. God hates lying. I think he got it. So the last step was to go to his room and pray and ask God to forgive him. He said he felt better afterwards. So I'm not sure that it all worked out in the way I imagined. He didn't fall to his knees in repentance and beg forgiveness for crushing me, or beg God to forgive his sinful heart. But I think he got the point. There were true remorseful tears at one point, so I think it resonated somewhere in that sweet boy. I know he's not a believer yet, so I can't expect him to act like one. Hopefully he learned a lesson about the truth, and God's love for him. In retrospect I can think of so many wise, spirit-filled things I should have said. But that's why I need to be prayed up before these things hit, so I'll be prepared, and I wasn't. A lesson for me too!