Before anything else: God loves you the same amount every day, including the days when you do something silly.
Imagine you ride your bike down the same street every day to get to your friend's house.
One fine day a pothole appeared in the middle of the road. You did not see it, you rode straight over it and you fell. Grazed knee, dirty clothes, a little cry.
Listen carefully to this part: falling the first time is just part of it. Nobody had warned you the hole was there.
But now you know.
Tomorrow, when you go down that same street, a choice shows up. You can swerve a little and pass by the side, or you can ride straight in and fall into the same hole again.
Today's Bible verse says this with a very odd comparison, one that is a bit yucky. It says that whoever does the same silly thing twice is like a dog going back to eat what it already threw up.
Yuck, right? It is meant to be yucky. It is the Bible's way of saying: you already know how this one ends.
And here is a lovely story. Near a pool of water there lived a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. That is a very long time in the same place, waiting for the same thing.
Jesus came near and asked a strange question: "Do you want to get well?"
It sounds like a silly thing to ask a sick person. But sometimes we get so used to the pothole that we forget it is possible to get out of it.
Then Jesus said: "Get up, pick up your mat, and walk."
Notice that he told him to take the bed along. Whoever carries the bed away is not going back to that place ever again.
God is not cross about your first fall. He helps you not to go back into the same hole.