The newspaper headline of the Wichita Eagle, for August 11,1993, stated, FORMER NEBRASKA LAWMAKER ADMITS TO BILKING CLIENTS. It spoke of a report from Dakota City, Nebraska, about a handsome man of physical stature, a husband, a father of two children, a former county attorney, prosecutor, and state senator, who pleaded guilty the previous day, "to stealing thousands of dollars from clients in his private law practice in 1991." The article states that "less than an hour after Kurt Hohenstein's resignation from the Legislature took effect, he admitted to one felony theft count of stealing about $30,000 from clients."

What made this newsworthy was not only that a man of such high position had fallen so far, but that Kurt Hohenstein was also a Little League Baseball coach who taught kids the rules of the game and the thrill of competition. "He played the game as a child in Nebraska. He grew up and taught the game and its lessons to his and other children."

In 1993, he was convicted and sent to prison, where he wrote a book. In his book, he tells how baseball again reminded him of the values he apparently had forgotten and which he had learned in Little League baseball. Every organized competition has its rules, and Hohenstein realized that he had forgotten the rules. He states,

"The story of my fall is for another place, another time. But the consequences of my fall, the tumultuous reversal of the values that I had instilled in my children, turned upside down by my actions, are not delayed and therefore the story of that reversal cannot be postponed.

Children are dramatically more honest than adults. My own son and daughter, with their hurting eyes and quavering voices, have asked me how this happened. In doing so, they have opened up a chasm of bigger questions. Standing next to it, and looking across to them, it seems impossible to ford, too wide to bridge, too deep to explore. So I look for a pathway between my misdeed, my broken values, and their need to understand."

The pathway that Kurt chose to help his children understand was found by returning "to the fields and playgrounds of Nebraska, in hope of finding not victory or glory, nor hits and homers, but simply the childlike honesty that is the essence of baseball. I search to find that essence of the game we played long ago, the game I lost, and the game I seek again to play today." The pathway of understanding was his book titled, "The Rules of the Game."

What is worthy of great attention in the Kurt Hohenstein story is the fact that the path to wrong-doing is so subtle and alluring. The foundational values of youth and sports were somewhere lost, and Kurt found himself on a pathway of hurt, pain, loss, and seemingly endless damage. His marriage, children, career, friendships, and future have all been blighted. However, the resultant impact of wrong-doing was not clearly seen or felt. His first day in jail was never grasped as a credible reality. It was never visualized as a possible outcome of his misdeeds.

That is the nature of sin and wrong-doing. The tollbooth is not seen, and too often wrong-doers believe that they are on a free highway. That lie is furthered by miles of travel that are "toll-less" and by the presence of a good number of other reckless drivers who are on the same road. We, as sinners, don't see the day that our parents' hearts are crushed, our marriage ends in shame, our children struggle to make sense of it all, our freedom is lost, or our credibility and integrity has collapsed.

God would like to say to us, if we are walking down such paths of wrong-doing, "STOP." Get off that path today. Walk no further. You are on a toll road. Do not let the many other wrong-doers driving alongside cause you to believe that you need not exit now. Indeed, these words may be the Lord's sign which shouts, "Last Exit." The toll ahead is far greater than you can possibly grasp.