Our kids sure can try our patience, can't they? When your kids disobey you, how many chances should you give them? How many times should you forgive them?

If you’ve ever had a disobedient child, you know how God feels. When your child is defiant, do you start counting down how many chances they have left? Are you like, “Okay, you have 489 chances left. 488. 487.” And then a couple of years later, or for some of your kids, a couple of hours later, you tell them, “Okay, this is your last chance! You’ve used up 489 chances, so this is it! After this, I’m cutting you off!” Do you say that?

Maybe. You probably don’t count down from 490, but at some point, you may have to cut them off. I mean, that’s what an intervention is, isn’t it?

In the most extreme interventions, out of love for the person, if a person is so addicted to drugs, alcohol, or something else, everyone who cares for that person comes together to let them know that they have to choose either drugs or them. To the person struggling with addiction, this seems like wrath. It seems like hate. But it’s truly done out of love so that they would repent and change. But if they don’t choose life, then they’ve chosen to be cut off.

As C.S. Lewis wrote: “The doors of hell are locked on the inside.”

So you don’t attend church today because you were forced to attend as a child? Such is the common complaint that I hear when the subject of church comes up with the unchurched. I understand. You were made to go. The only drug problem that your parents had was that they “drug” you to church. You didn’t particularly enjoy it, except for the Easter candy, the Christmas program, or maybe catching the eye of that pretty girl.

But the long, boring sermons were punishing. The Sunday School teacher thought you had a rotten attitude, and publicly called you out. You didn’t like wearing dressy clothes. And when the preacher talked, it seemed that he was looking right at you. You couldn’t stand singing in children’s choir and the list goes on.

So now, you refuse to attend. Furthermore, you resent the fact that your parents made you attend and have stalwartly determined NOT to require your children to attend church on the basis of allowing them to “make their own decisions.”

I understand. After all, that the church has been viewed as being too religious, judgmental, packed with hypocrites, and besides all that, they seem to want your hard-earned money.

While it may be true that the church, in general, has needed an overhaul in some ways, I would like to challenge you to consider another angle.

My parents not only made me attend EVERY church service (minimum of 3 days a week plus revival services), including extra youth service and prayer meetings, but they also made me carry my Bible. I brought an offering to Sunday School that came out of my allowance and had to memorize Bible verses. If we misbehaved in a church service, it might be that we were called out from the pulpit, or a “(h)usher” would attend our side. Rain or shine, we were in church!

NEWSER reports that a “20 year-old Swiss man, who said he wasn’t brave enough to tell his father he was tired of his old Ferrari, paid three people to torch the $245,000 car.” He reportedly did this in the hope that his millionaire father would buy him a new one.

What makes this story even juicier is that this was just one of 15 cars the son had been gifted with, not to mention $30 million in property and a $10,000 a month allowance. And even though the young man was caught red-handed, thanks to surveillance cameras and intercepted phone calls, he was only sentenced to 22 months probation and a $32,000 fine.