Restitution VS Grace

Something I am trying teach my children about is restitution. That is, if you are using something that does not belong to you, and you break, damage, or lose it, you take responsibility for what has happened and make it good to the person who lent it to you.

Another thing I want to teach them is about Grace. That is, the favour that God shows to us in light of the fact that we are willing sinners, and do not deserve heaven, and the fact that Jesus made restitution for our sins on the Cross, and we are now free to choose Him or not. Of course the consequences for not choosing Him are somewhat more dire than the consequences of say, damaging you dad's laptop.

So today, as a special treat, I connected my laptop to our plasma TV screen so my son could play Lego Drome Racers on the BIG SCREEN. He was suffering a considerable onslaught (undeserved) from his younger sister, and coming out of the bedroom where I had been sleeping (I work an overnight shift)until awakened by her screaming at him, I de-fused the situation by offering this to him. So after hooking it up and making sure everything was working, I went back to bed. About 30 minutes later there is an almighty crash from the family room. My son had tried to move the wireless keyboard/mouse transmitter closer to him, and has pulled the laptop off of the stand and broken the AC adapter cord where it goes into the computer. The computer is working, and I didn't think to look at the battery light. About 45 minutes later the whole thing dies. I realise that, with 2 hours left before I have to be at work, where in order to stay sane I need my laptop, I have no ac power and the battery is dead. So I made a few calls, and went to a computer shop to see if the plug could be soldered. It might have been able to be, but I would be left with a dodgy plug, that might break again, much more easily this time. Did you know that a new AC Adapter for a laptop costs $100? I didn't. I do now.

So now I am faced with a dilemna. Clearly it is my son's fault that this was broken. I was never angry, but my son is characterised by this kind of carelessness. Do I make him pay the whole $100? Do I forgive him and not make him pay any? Well, when I was 12, $100 was...25 Mariners games...it was a fortune. What does it mean to him? So I get home from the computer store and I tell him, first off, that he is going to have to pay for this. I tell him half now and 5 dollars a fortnight for 24 weeks. He gets ten dollars a fortnight in pocket money. He is stunned, because he is saving for something. Then he starts negotiating. "What if," he says, "you pay half because you put the laptop on the speaker?" I said I would think about it. My wife says it is my call. Was the laptop unstable? Not if you don't pull on the CORD! (in my best Brian Regan voice). That is like the police saying, "If you didn't live here, the burglars wouldn't have robbed your house." (That actually happened to some missionaries I know who lived in Iran before the revolution).

So I am sitting here thinking. If God had made US pay full restitution for our sin, we would all be going to hell. But I want my son to learn about making things good. So I call a friend of mine, who has a 16 year old son, for a second opinion. Yep, make sure he gets both messages. Restitution tempered with Grace. I still feel bad making my son pay half, but I feel good in knowing that he is going to learn two things here. Well more. He is going to learn that I love him...I mean he already knows that, but I told him that I am cutting his debt in half because I love him so much, I can't stand to see him hurting.

Now if only the guy I loaned my CD player to in Bible College and got it stolen was reading this.....