Off Balance

"Hey, look at that, Killian!" Nathan pointed out the car window to a big crane. "Mom, can we stop and watch?""Okay." Mom pulled over and watched with Nathan and his friend Killian as the crane lifted a golden statue to the top of the courthouse. Killian pointed to the statue. "Why is she blindfolded?""And what's in her hand?" asked Nathan."That's a statue of Lady Justice," said Mom. "She's blindfolded to show that justice shouldn't be influenced by who people are or how much money they have. She's holding a balance scale, which represents fairness. Both sides of the scale have to hold equal amounts. If a wrong is committed, the penalty has to balance the crime.""Balance the crime?" asked Nathan. "What does that mean?""The crime is on one side of the scale, and if the right penalty is on the other, they balance," Mom explained. "Say someone steals a pair of shoes from a store. To balance that, they'd have to pay for them, or give them back, and probably pay a fine for doing wrong.""Oh, I get it!" said Nathan."Is that how it works with God too?" asked Killian. "My sister says He's keeping track of all the bad things I do, and I'll have to pay someday. If I do lots of good things, will it balance out?"Mom shook her head. "People often think that's how it works, but all our good deeds can never be enough to balance the wrong things we do. The Bible says that what we do wrong is sin--and sin puts a lot of weight in the bad side of the scale.""Yeah. It's like our sins are a pile of stones," said Nathan. "And our good deeds are like feathers. We can't put enough feathers on the scale to balance the stones.""So how can we make it even?" asked Killian."We can't," said Mom. "But Jesus can. He paid the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross, and if we trust in Him, He puts His goodness on the scale for us."Nathan grinned. "His goodness does more than balance the scale. It knocks our sins right off, so it's like we never sinned at all, right, Mom?""Yep!" said Mom with a smile."Wow," said Killian. "Then that's what I want!" -Kathy Gustafson