I warned him to stay back. I told him there would be trouble if he insisted on getting that close, but Barnabas (our 85-pound pit bull) refused to heed my warning. Instead, he marched right up to the gurgling drainage pipe and stuck his nose less than an inch from the opening just as a violent blast of water shot out, soaking and surprising my curious canine. “I told you,” I scolded, but after a moment of shaking and sneezing, would you like to guess what he did next? Yup, he sauntered right back up and stuck his nose in the pipe again. Evidently, he didn’t mind another face-full of water. Crazy mutt!

But I have no room to talk, for I’m guilty of making the same bad calls. More than once I’ve failed to heed a warning and found myself sorry I hadn’t listened. Like so many of us, I felt the advice didn’t apply to me, or I slapped it away with two of the most dangerous words in the English language: “I know.”  

“I know,” says the secretary who was warned that the cute guy she’s been flirting with at the office is married.

“I know,” says the obese individual whose doctor has, once again, stressed the dangers concerning his weight and the need for him to change his lifestyle.

“I know,” says the teenager whose youth leader warned him he was on a dangerous path by hanging around with the “in crowd.”

“I know,” says the church members whose pastor lovingly reminds them they would have fewer struggles with doubting their faith if there attended church regularly instead of when they felt like it.

I know. Dangerous words. Knowing and doing aren’t the same thing. We know a lot of things, but how many of them are we doing? Barnabas knew the pipe spit water. He learned that the hard way, but he failed to heed the warning and instead returned to what he wanted to do. He knew it was safer to stay away, but his curiosity won out over his intellect at that moment.  

Too often, when we utter the words “I know,” it’s our way of saying, “I know, but I don’t care enough to do anything about it.” Of course, we would never put it like that, but if we know and we aren’t doing what we say we know to do, what other reason could there be for our lack of effort? Sure, there are plenty of excuses: it’s too hard, it takes too long, I’m too tired, I don’t have the time, etc., but when we boil it all down, the conclusion is still the same—we don’t care enough to do what needs to be done. It’s not important enough to put forth the time and effort. And the result? We’re soaked with a spray of water. . .

Or involved in a complicated affair. 

Or hospitalized after a massive heart attack.

Or sitting in prison after being arrested for a crime our buddies committed, leaving us to take the fall.

Or watching our faith fall apart as we pull further and further away from God.

Knowing what to do in stressful situations is terrific, but it does no good if that knowledge doesn’t spur us into action. Don’t just know; do. Heed the warning. That’s not to say when we do, life will be perfect. But it will undoubtedly be better, and more than that, it will please God because to do anything less than what we know to do is a sin.