Baby Steps

When I was a little boy (many years ago), one of the games we played as children were called “Mother May I?” This was back in the day when groups of children would get together and play games outside, rather than playing a video game against a friend or some random person in Delaware. We played Hide and Go Seek, Freeze Tag, 1,2,3, Red Light, Red Rover, and others. Mother May I was a straightforward game. One person was the “Mother,” and everyone else lined up shoulder to shoulder facing the Mother. Then, one by one, the Mother would tell each player how many of what type of steps they could take toward “her.” The options included giant steps, scissor steps, bunny hops, or baby steps. When the “Mother” told you how many of what type of steps you could take, you had first to ask, “Mother, May I?” If you did, you could take the steps toward the one who was the “Mother,” but if you moved before asking, you had to go back to the start. Whoever got to the Mother first was the winner and got to be the Mother the next game.

I know it doesn’t sound as exciting as building a virtual empire or saving the world from invading aliens, but it didn’t cost anything, and it gave everyone something to argue over (like whether or not the baby steps were too big!). As I look back on it, however, it reminds me of a very important spiritual truth... baby steps add up. Almost everyone who ever won a round of “Mother May I,” had to take some baby steps. Baby steps aren’t inconsequential. They take you farther from where you were and closer to somewhere else. Baby steps matter. 

When I say that baby steps add up, I am not thinking of literal small steps, although that is undoubtedly true. What I mean is that small compromises or small rationalizations will add up to major spiritual problems. The Christian group “Casting Crowns” has a song that says, “It’s a slow fade when you have given yourself away.”

In other words, people don’t usually turn away from God all at once. We don’t intend to rebel against God completely, but we compromise on something little. We take a baby step. Then maybe we rationalize another small turning away from God… nothing major, just another baby step. It is not a fast track to rebellion but rather a slow fade. Little by little, we take baby steps in the wrong direction until we find ourselves in bad spiritual trouble.  

Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “I think I want to become an alcoholic and a drug addict, lose my job, my house, and my family, turn to a life of crime and wind up in jail.” But this is exactly what happens to some people. In the same way, no one consciously decides that they want to grow cold and distant in their relationship with God, drop out of the church, avoid Christian fellowship, and live depressed, sinful lives racked by guilt… but it does happen. And it almost never happens all at once. It is one “baby step decision” at a time.

The first verse of Psalms 1 says this: “Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!”  Notice the progression present in this verse. First, you walk, then you stand, then sit down to stay for a while. Baby steps toward sin and evil will add up. They may seem harmless when we take them, but baby steps always add up. Make sure the baby steps you take are in the direction you want to go.