Daily Devotional

It’s official – we have a toddler. My daughter Lottie is fifteen months old, and she is walking/talking up a storm. Every day is a new word or a new discovery. It’s a joy to see her personality start to blossom – her innate curiosity, her people-loving extraversion, her likes and dislikes, loves and fears. HOWEVER, parenting a toddler is no cakewalk. Lottie is fundamentally selfish, absorbed in her own needs and wants: insisting on TV at every opportunity and throwing a fit when we say no… yelling “No!” or “Mine!” if we try to take an object from her… coming up with EVERY possible excuse to avoid bedtime. She’s cute, but a sinner.

Proverbs 22:15 says that “folly is bound up in the heart of a child.” Even in my fifteen-month-old, I can see that folly—her “sin nature”—rearing its ugly head. The Bible teaches that all of us, from birth, are sinners by nature (Ps. 51:5, Eph. 2:3), with a heart that is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9, KJV). Sin, selfishness, rebellion against God, is inherent to every member of fallen humanity. I joke that spending an afternoon with a group of toddlers is usually enough to convince someone of this fact.

Yet many hold to the idea that deep down, most people are basically good. A quick Google search indicates that in recent polls, about three-quarters of Americans agree with this statement. According to this philosophy, people lose touch with their “inner goodness” because of factors in their environment, ranging from personal tragedy to social pressure. A textbook example of this comes from Mary Shelley’s novel 1818 Frankenstein, in which Frankenstein’s monster, initially curious and unselfish, is brutally rejected by society for his hideous appearance. Driven to hatred and rage, the monster turns on its creator and ends up murdering six people in cold blood. The Frankenstein myth perpetuates today in various forms. Consider Hollywood’s obsession with villainous backstories: childhood antagonists (Maleficent, the Wicked Witch, even the Joker) are really decent people ruined by bad circumstances. Disney’s Frozen says the quiet part out loud in the song “Fixer Upper:” “People make bad choices when they’re mad or scared or stressed, / But throw a little love their way, and you’ll bring out their best.” In other words, environmental factors (which cause anger, fear, or stress) are responsible for our misbehavior, not any inherent sin nature.

Toddlers pull the rug out from under this view. I don’t really think I can blame my daughter’s temper tantrums on some corruption of her inherent goodness due to environmental factors. She regularly makes bad choices when she’s NOT mad or scared or stressed. Lottie does these things not because she is basically good, but because she is a sinner.
So what? One, pray for Lottie and children everywhere, that the Lord would be working in their little hearts to draw them to Himself. Two, pray for me, my wife, and parents everywhere as we wrestle with the joyfully agonizing task of raising sinners. Three, maybe we need to a reminder of our own inherent sinfulness. Do we blame our “bad choices,” our sin patterns, on our environment or factors outside our control, instead of facing the reality of our own sinful hearts (James 1:16-17)? May we pray like David for God to “create in us a clean heart” (Ps. 51:10) and continue His work of regenerating us by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

"English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers."