Right at the start

I don't always know right from wrong. Or perhaps better said, I don't always know grey from right or grey from wrong. There are some things I did in my early life, particularly in business, that I had to learn were wrong. I thought they seemed neutral. Some matters that I thought were grey areas I later learned were not. They were not big things, but more technical matters related to my profession. 

There are other human behaviours, that from the time I first heard of them, seemed wrong. They still hold. Almost everthing I thought was wrong when the child me first heard of them, was indeed wrong and twisted. That first impression, that gut sense, stuck with me - even when I was an adult and tried to rationalize them away. When I ponder whether a particular act is morally right or wrong, I find I often revert to a very simple question, "When you first heard of this act, what did you think?"

Before I was old enough to know the difference between political parties and philosophies, my first impressions ruled. That gut reaction. As I look back its remarkable how the instinct of me the child was nearly always the one I still hold, or have returned to, in my later years. I believe that is a grace of God poured out on his youngest children who are raised in homes that believe in Him. This is a personal belief, not necessarily a theological truth.