Leaders attack me for no reason, but I fear Your law in my heart. I am as happy over Your promises as if I had found a great treasure. I hate and despise lies, but I love Your teachings. Seven times a day I praise You for Your fair laws. Those who love Your teachings will find true peace, and nothing will defeat them. I am waiting for You to save me, Lord. I will obey Your commands. I obey Your rules, and I love them very much. I obey Your orders and rules because You know everything I do. (Verses 161-168)
God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. 1 John 3
I always used to wonder how my mother knew things I'd done that she didn't see me do. Wrong things, usually. "I have eyes in the back of my head," she'd say. Then I became a mother and grew a pair of those eyes, too. It's that connection with your kids that renders a prescience about their activities. But it's not really so magical as it used to seem to me or my kids. The truth of the matter is I was bigger than they, smarter than they and watching them more carefully than they thought. A two-year-old is pretty predictable, too. Steady by then on chubby legs, she will, without doubt, be rummaging through all the stuff she could only look at and covet touching before she could actually get to it. It's just in the nature of things that kids will test boundaries because they now have them in the mobile, fascinating world of walking about. Three-year-olds are faster. A little smarter. Understand a few of their boundaries and step over them just to see what happens. In our home, it happened fast! Of course, the bigger the kid, the harder it is to always see where they are or what they're doing. If, by the time our children are driving around instead of toddling, we haven't instilled boundaries in them so that they become the child's boundaries, also, we will be awake lots and lots of very long nights.
This world is dangerous. A labyrinth of wrong turns and scary creatures popping up to scare us to death. No longer do we navigate the living room of our home on unsteady legs. Our world is now the universe and we are in it to decide what direction we will go. Without running into the walls or falling off the edge of a cliff. How is that possible? Everywhere we go are beggars wanting us to take care of them or charlatans wanting us to buy into their various medications to ease the pain of the journey. It's a macrocosm and we are but a tiny speck maneuvering around it. It seems to me we need a map. Guidelines for living that keep us safe. So that when we find ourselves lost and alone we can check it for the way out. Or in. Or through. Imagine how relieved you'd be if you felt hopelessly lost and then your GPS kicked in to show you the way home. Whew! You'd want to kiss the map. It then becomes a "treasure map."
How is it then that we think we can navigate this world without God's help? He sees everything, all at once. And not just the physical stuff, but the way things work, the heart of each person, the past, present and future, and how it all plays out. He knows, from beginning to end, the plan and how best to walk in these troubled times. Do you? I don't. I need Him. God is so much bigger than I was to my children. The comparison is almost silly except it's all I have. The Father's realm is far, far more immense than the earthly parameters my rules for our kids set. He knows we have to get out there and make life happen in the vastness that exists under heaven. That's why God didn't leave us without a navigation system. Certain rules of the road without which we are certain to crash. Pretty loving of Him, isn't it? And when you think of all the people who refuse the assistance, like a husband who won't stop at the service station to ask for directions, it's no wonder we are all careening into each other's lives, wreaking havoc.
Peace is hard to come by in our world. We have so many reasonable facsimiles, synthetics, that mask our need for it. If we drink enough, take enough drugs, work hard enough, make enough money, get enough power, find a person who makes us think we are loved...name it, the panacea...we can for a short time forget that we are, interiorally, messed up and off course. That's why the map, the directions, are so handy. We might have driven headlong into the far country where we find ourselves, but God's directions will get us out. It might be quite the road trip, but we can use the map, kiss it's wisdom like we've found great treasure, and get on down the path blowing bubbles in the back seat while our Father drives the car!
God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. 1 John 3
I always used to wonder how my mother knew things I'd done that she didn't see me do. Wrong things, usually. "I have eyes in the back of my head," she'd say. Then I became a mother and grew a pair of those eyes, too. It's that connection with your kids that renders a prescience about their activities. But it's not really so magical as it used to seem to me or my kids. The truth of the matter is I was bigger than they, smarter than they and watching them more carefully than they thought. A two-year-old is pretty predictable, too. Steady by then on chubby legs, she will, without doubt, be rummaging through all the stuff she could only look at and covet touching before she could actually get to it. It's just in the nature of things that kids will test boundaries because they now have them in the mobile, fascinating world of walking about. Three-year-olds are faster. A little smarter. Understand a few of their boundaries and step over them just to see what happens. In our home, it happened fast! Of course, the bigger the kid, the harder it is to always see where they are or what they're doing. If, by the time our children are driving around instead of toddling, we haven't instilled boundaries in them so that they become the child's boundaries, also, we will be awake lots and lots of very long nights.
This world is dangerous. A labyrinth of wrong turns and scary creatures popping up to scare us to death. No longer do we navigate the living room of our home on unsteady legs. Our world is now the universe and we are in it to decide what direction we will go. Without running into the walls or falling off the edge of a cliff. How is that possible? Everywhere we go are beggars wanting us to take care of them or charlatans wanting us to buy into their various medications to ease the pain of the journey. It's a macrocosm and we are but a tiny speck maneuvering around it. It seems to me we need a map. Guidelines for living that keep us safe. So that when we find ourselves lost and alone we can check it for the way out. Or in. Or through. Imagine how relieved you'd be if you felt hopelessly lost and then your GPS kicked in to show you the way home. Whew! You'd want to kiss the map. It then becomes a "treasure map."
How is it then that we think we can navigate this world without God's help? He sees everything, all at once. And not just the physical stuff, but the way things work, the heart of each person, the past, present and future, and how it all plays out. He knows, from beginning to end, the plan and how best to walk in these troubled times. Do you? I don't. I need Him. God is so much bigger than I was to my children. The comparison is almost silly except it's all I have. The Father's realm is far, far more immense than the earthly parameters my rules for our kids set. He knows we have to get out there and make life happen in the vastness that exists under heaven. That's why God didn't leave us without a navigation system. Certain rules of the road without which we are certain to crash. Pretty loving of Him, isn't it? And when you think of all the people who refuse the assistance, like a husband who won't stop at the service station to ask for directions, it's no wonder we are all careening into each other's lives, wreaking havoc.
Peace is hard to come by in our world. We have so many reasonable facsimiles, synthetics, that mask our need for it. If we drink enough, take enough drugs, work hard enough, make enough money, get enough power, find a person who makes us think we are loved...name it, the panacea...we can for a short time forget that we are, interiorally, messed up and off course. That's why the map, the directions, are so handy. We might have driven headlong into the far country where we find ourselves, but God's directions will get us out. It might be quite the road trip, but we can use the map, kiss it's wisdom like we've found great treasure, and get on down the path blowing bubbles in the back seat while our Father drives the car!
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