Instructions… Do you read them first?
I admit it, I usually don’t. I arrogantly assume I will know how. But I will also confess…most of the time I end up going to the instructions.
We have been given instructions. How to live has instructions. How to have relationships, how to conduct business, how to deal with conflict, how to care for our bodies, maintain health, on and on and on the list goes… Instructions.
But we never have to read them.
Putting together something without using the instructions can be done. Sometimes we can get it put together pretty good. Other times it comes out all wrong. Sometimes it can be corrected. Other times we’ve damaged it in some way that leaves it warped and beyond repair.
So it is with our lives. We can opt to live it without going by the instructions, and sometimes get by without much damage.
But life is not an entertainment center. Regardless of how you try to make it one. And living it ignoring the instructions will eventually prove that fact. And eventually, it will be far from entertaining…
As I continue to reflect on Psalm 119, I read these phrases… “Your commands make me wiser” (v.98) “ I have more insight..”(v.99) “I have more understanding..”(v.100)
“I gain understanding from your precepts.”(v.104)
Following the directions, (obedience),…. brings about wisdom. Knowledge alone doesn’t make us wise….only the application of knowledge (obedience).
Reading the directions is useless unless you put the entertainment center together like it says.
Father, help me to “..keep my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.”(v.101) Help me to remember and to believe, that what You say, You say for very good reasons, always and only for my greater good.
