Winstons And Grace Walking

Here's a commercial that was on TV when I was a small boy. Nowadays, everybody knows that this kind thing was just wrong. I mean WRONG! Back then nobody knew any better though. Everybody thought there was no harm in smoking, so why not market it to kids in an attempt to line up customers for generations to come?

Have you ever considered that there might be other things that you were taught growing up that were wrong? I grew up in church and am thankful for my heritage. No family is perfect, but that doesn't negate the value of the nurture and love we received there. The same is true of our childhood church families. I am thankful for mine.

Having said that, I learned some things there that were just wrong. Things like "We are saved to serve." "You should rededicate your life to live for Christ and try harder to do better." "To become holy, you need to read your Bible and pray every day, come to church every time the doors are opened, etc."

Everybody in church believed that kind of thing back then, just like the general population believed smoking couldn't hurt you (though that was an unpardonable sin at my church). Folks were sincere about a variety of subjects about which we now know they were dead wrong.

Just as we learned that the message that smoking Winstons was not a good idea, there must come a time when we learn that other messages we received growing up were off base too. Nobody meant to do us any harm, but there comes a time when we need to rise above our upbringing and respectfully say, "Wait a minute. That's WRONG!"