The Five Second Rule

"When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” 1Corinthians 13:11 (NLT)

By Alexandra Copeland

The first time I heard about the five second rule, my son was a two-year-old toddler. He had been nibbling on a cookie and dropped it on the floor accidentally. Within the few seconds it took me to get to him, he had picked up the cookie off the floor and stuffed it right back in his mouth. I was kinda’ grossed out, but my husband matter-of-factly said, “Don’t worry about it, babe—five second rule.” Most people will agree that if it hits the floor, it’s contaminated with whatever germs may be on the ground. That’s the simple truth, but it doesn’t stop some folks from believing that just by saying those three words, “five second rule,” all the germs will miraculously go away. 

This wasn’t the last time the five second rule was used with my little one. To my chagrin, he and his father made a sport of it at times, just to get under my skin. I get a chuckle when I think about how fast my son’s reflexes became. As most kids do, at such a young age my son had lots of oopsies, and it was as if he instinctively knew to quickly swoop up the goodie that he had accidentally dropped. In his little mind, doing so would be as if he had not dropped it at all. This is a reflex that all of us have, but as adults, sometimes it does not serve us well. 

As my son grew older, I noticed that if a piece of broccoli or a carrot fell on the ground—no problem; it could stay there for days. But if I was watching, and he happened to be eating something yummy that had fallen on the floor, he knew he’d hear “Throw it in the garbage!” before he could pick it up and put it back in his mouth. This seemed to quicken his reflexes even more. He wanted to make his move before my reprimand.  

When it comes to some of the decisions and choices we make in our lives, we will definitely try to make this five second rule stick. This is especially true with some of the toxic relationships we keep trying to hold together. They are falling apart at the seams, and everything about them is screaming for us to let ‘em go, but the moment some piece falls to the ground, we pick it up lickety split, convincing ourselves that God isn’t looking. We’re not two-year-old kids who don’t know any better. 

We’re fully aware when something no longer feels right, but we keep holding on because we’ve made ourselves comfortable with the dysfunction—comfortable with the pain.  

Pain isn’t a natural or normal state. It’s not what God intended for any of His children. So when we begin to feel pain for any reason, it is an indicator that something is awry. Somehow our lives have gotten out of balance, and we need to examine God’s Word and draw nearer to Holy Spirit to get our grooves back.  

We also see these reflexes of a quick drop-and-swoop with various kinds of addictions. We will often get to a point where we allow addictions, obsessions, and toxic things to fall to the ground, but the reflex—the need to quickly go back to the familiar—kicks in when we experience the discomfort of being without them. We continue going back to things that can potentially harm us because we perceive the pleasure of indulging them to be greater than any harm or pain they might cause. When we’re young and immature, there’s a bit of tolerance for this, but as the Apostle Paul put it so beautifully in 1Corinthians 13:11 (NLT), “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” 

We may not want to admit it to ourselves, but most of the time we know when something isn’t good or right for us. We feel it on a soul level, but our flesh will betray us sometimes, and we allow it to trick us out of our convictions. It’s tough business, there’s no doubt about it, but we’re not in this alone. The help we need is in the person of the Holy Spirit, and he abides within us.  

Jesus Christ tells us in John 14:26-27 (NLT), “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. 27 I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.” Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to have the extraordinary gift of Holy Spirit power inside us. It’s not our power. It belongs to him, but he will use it on our behaves if we ask him. It’s his pleasure to help us, and we desperately need his help.  

Our problem is that we repeatedly look to others and to the world to fill up our empty spaces. We look everywhere for the answers we need, instead of seeking the one who has them all. Only Jesus Christ can give us what we need. Only he can provide the kind of peace that we are looking for. We can’t get it from anything else or anyone else; and truthfully, the peace and love of Christ is so amazingly awesome, that once you experience it, you wouldn’t want to look for anything outside of it.  

The Apostle Paul talked about putting away childish things. Children sometimes pretend to be superheroes, because they don’t yet understand they don’t need to be in order to live extraordinarily. They pretend to be able to do anything, and they will often try different things because they haven’t developed an understanding of boundaries. As we mature though, we should learn boundaries, and we should also learn to depend upon God for everything that we do, because we can’t do anything without Him. We’re not superheroes, our strength comes from God. He empowers us through the indwelling Holy Spirit. So when God tells us to put away childish things, we need to come clean about what is keeping us locked in immaturity, and rise up in our minds and hearts to have the faith of Jesus Christ to do what He says. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.