Tip of My Iceberg

Ward has a passion for creating things on paper. Origami, drawing pictures with a multitude of colors, cutting paper into shapes. Nothing thrills him more than a blank sheet of paper. His imagination soars; he sees things others miss.

When I was a child, I had a teacher in third grade, Mrs Dougherty, who chose a student each week to clean the blackboards and finish up by clapping the erasers outside to rid them of chalk dust. I loved doing that. Cleaning off those boards meant the week was done. All it needed was the new lessons that would continue to grow our brains.

To be honest, there were always names in the upper right hand corner, students who’d misbehaved doing goodness knows what. My name was up there quite a bit, so erasing the board felt freeing.

The term “blank slate” goes back as far as Aristotle’s “De Anima” (On The Soul) which considered the mind of a newborn to be a clean slate primed for learning, where others and circumstances would imprint on a fresh mind. It was referred to as Tabula Rasa, Latin for blank slate. John Locke, an English philosopher during the seventeenth century period of Enlightenment, furthered this thought by saying all knowledge comes from personal experience–we don’t start life with innate knowledge.

I will agree to disagree.

I’m a parent who has raised six children, plus I’ve a bundle of grands whom I’ve had the privilege of impacting with my life, actions, and thoughts. I can absolutely guarantee you this–I never taught my kids or grands how to lie, be mean to one another, steal, or commit other offenses that would focus on questionable behavior.

Is it possible kids picked things up from me? Absolutely. I’ve been known to bend the truth, and I’ve been mean to others, especially with my words. I’ve never actively taught my children erroneous practices that hurt others or are wrong. I’ve made it a point to apologize for the mistakes I’ve made, the hurtful way I spoke or acted. We raised our children to do what is right and good.

We all have an innate capacity to do wrong, and we’re born with it. It’s called sin. I’m not taking about people being all bad, but our standard for living isn’t the perfection God seeks. We all make mistakes. Each of us has a messy life, whether we want to admit it or not.

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Romans 3:23

In the Old Testament times there were hundreds of laws that the Jews had to follow to make themselves right before God. Think about growing up, when parents had their list of do’s and don’ts to follow in your family dynamic, Following rules doesn’t make us better. We will inevitably fail.

But God in His love for all people came up with a plan to free us from the urgency to be good enough, to try to make our lives acceptable to Him or even to others.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Does this mean we won’t ever again make mistakes once we know Jesus? Not at all. We live in a world where evil exists, and each of us is impacted by it.

It does mean that once we know Jesus, our sin isn’t held against us. He alone can create a blank slate, a clean slate, so we’re seen as fully new in Him.

It’s as if He’s erased our names off the corner of the blackboard. Once and for all.