I must have been twelve or thirteen. It was the early 1990s in the countryside of Pernambuco, Brazil, and I had recently joined a Pathfinder Club, the Seventh-day Adventist youth organization. I was curious, energetic, and particularly interested in anything that happened outdoors.
For weeks, everyone had been talking about a special Sunday game. Think of something between capture the flag and paintball, allowing for a very different equipment budget. We used repurposed spray bottles filled with a red solution. When someone was hit, a reddish mark appeared on their clothes and then disappeared after a short while. It disappeared too late, of course. Someone had already seen it. You were out.
Finally, Sunday arrived. Teams were ready. Everyone was waiting near the courtyard. Then the director discovered that he had forgotten the key to the room containing the club supplies, including the products needed for our red mixture.
His house was some distance away. Fortunately, a window had been left open, and an adventurous teenager was available.
Me.
“Ackley, can you climb through the window and get the two bottles?”
Of course I could. I was practically on my way when he called me back.
“There’s something important. Do not open or sniff what’s inside the green bottle.”
I agreed and ran off.
More than thirty years later, I still wonder why anyone would say that to a curious teenager. Until then, smelling either bottle had never crossed my mind. My assignment had been wonderfully simple: climb in, pick up two bottles, come back. Now I had a new question.
Why not sniff the green bottle?
Maybe it smelled terrible. Maybe it was funny. Maybe it made your eyes water. By the time I reached the supplies, I had decided that one quick sniff would settle the matter. I was not going to drink it or spill it. Just one sniff. An extremely modest investigation, as I saw it.
I opened the bottle, brought it close to my nose, and inhaled.
My vision went dark. Suddenly, I was sitting on the floor.
I do not remember exactly how much time passed, probably only a few moments. Gradually, my vision returned. I was dizzy, but I finally had the answer to the question that had seemed so important.
Now there was another problem: everyone was waiting, and I needed to return without anyone noticing what had happened. I picked up the bottles and climbed back out. In my mind, perhaps I was walking perfectly normally.
I have my doubts.
I handed the bottles to the director, doing my best to look completely fine. The activity continued. As far as I remember, I told no one that I had personally investigated his warning.
The warning was there for a reason
Years later, Romans 7:7–8 gave that memory another meaning. Paul describes how sin can seize an opportunity through the commandment that identifies what is forbidden. I recognize something of that in my reaction to the green bottle.
The warning did not create the danger. The danger was already there. The warning existed to protect me. Somehow, I had turned protection into an invitation to experiment.
Genesis describes a similar narrowing of attention. Adam and Eve had an entire garden, yet the conversation with the serpent centered on the one tree God had restricted. Temptation can make everything we have been given feel smaller while enlarging the one thing we have been asked to leave alone.
There is nothing wrong with curiosity or asking questions. Christian faith does not require us to abandon reason. The problem begins when we decide that we must experience the danger before trusting the warning.
Some lessons do not require a wound. Some answers do not need to be discovered while sitting on the floor, waiting for our vision to return.
Perhaps there is a “green bottle” somewhere in your life: a boundary you understand well enough to respect, even while wondering whether crossing it would really matter. Wisdom may begin with trusting the person who can see what you cannot.
That Sunday, I wanted to know what was inside the bottle. I found out. I could have trusted the person who already knew.
Scripture for reflection: Romans 7:7–8; Genesis 2:16–17; Genesis 3:1–6; James 1:14–16.