Once there was brother and sister, and they were on a vacation with their parents, driving across the country. One evening, after a long day’s drive, the family checked into a motel, and both the kids were very excited about the prospect of swimming in the motel pool.
“You can get into your suits,” their dad said. “And you can sit by the pool until I get back. Your mother is still unpacking, so I don’t want you to get in the water until I get back. Should just be a few minutes.” The pool was right outside their motel room, and he was going to gas up the car so they could get an early start the next morning.
The two kids sat on one of the pool chairs for a few moments. Finally, the older sister said, “My feet are hot. I don’t think dad would mind if we sat on the edge and stuck our feet in.” Her brother agreed with this—far too quickly, I think.
And so they sat on the edge of the pool for about five minutes, with their feet in the water. “What’s taking dad so long?” the sister wondered aloud. There was a line at the gas pumps, but she couldn’t be expected to know that.
After a few minutes more, her brother starting kicking and the water splashed all over their legs. “Our legs are wet anyways,” she said after a moment. “Why don’t we just stand in the shallow end? We won’t be swimming. Dad said not to swim until he got back. Swimming only happens in the deep end.”
Now I think you might be able to guess what happened—perhaps because something very much like this has even happened to you. This unfortunate girl and boy never did go into the deep end—for that would have been disobedience—but when their father pulled up in the now-gassed-up car, right across from them, they were both in the shallow end, up to their two disobedient chins. The very tops of their heads were still dry at this point, but neither of them thought it would be helpful at this moment to point this out.
The reason was because as soon as they saw their father get out of the car, looking directly at them both, all their previous reasoning disappeared from their minds completely. They couldn’t even remember what their reasons, so compelling earlier, had even been.
“Come with me, kids,” their father said.