Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep Your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep Your word. I do not turn aside from Your rules, for You have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore, I hate every false way. (Verses 97-104)
One of the things I noticed right off about having kids is that they aren't born obedient. We had to teach them certain things. And our rules weren't necessarily compatible with the rules of other households. For instance, I didn't want our children to touch things on the coffee table because I didn't want them to go to other homes and pick up anything they felt like touching, terrorizing relatives who don't have kids or neighbors who have Lladro porcelain figurines within reach of little hands. I was the only parent with that rule, trust me! So it was interesting when kids came to play at our house. My children were the ones enforcing the rules on their playmates. "Mommy doesn't want you touching that!" they'd say. And the other kids looked at them like my kids were from another planet. Another rule: No R-rated movies. We didn't go and we told them they couldn't. It was a rule easily bucked, and I'm sure they all either broke it or were tempted to when they were high school seniors. But they all understood the purposes behind it. We don't want our minds or yours corrupted. They didn't have any friends with that parameter in place. So, it was sometimes uncomfortable. What we had going for us as a family, though, was respect. Even though some might have thought our rules too strict, our kids knew why we wanted them to obey. It was never about power or control. Always it was for their good. To equip them in wildly unruly world.
God's Word must be intentionally followed. From the day we asked Christ into our hearts, we are in a new family with new rules. Good families have standards. Virtues by which they guide their lives. Bad families run amok. Children doing whatever they want. Mom and Dad either too intimidated, too enlightened or too lazy to rein them in, ignoring the shaping of their kids, which is their duty the moment a baby first gulps in air and cries its first tears. We, as parents, are responsible for their behavior and are a huge part in the development of their consciences. Would God do any less? Born now into His family, we are taught by Him how to live. We decide to obey because we respect our Father and understand that, though we don't always understand fully the whys of all God asks of us, we do know we are loved. We obey and His rules aren't annoying. As children, of course, we grow into this understanding. That is why we need to read the Bible. It's where God shares His thoughts as well as His rules. It's where we hear His heartbeat and know this Father is good.
That doesn't mean we haven't touched the "spiritual" stove and been burned. Put our hand to the fire just to see what "hot" means. Having done so, though, most of us won't do it again. We see the wisdom in the instruction and the protection it provides keeps us from greater danger from bigger fires. Sweet. Sweet to know what others don't. Sin hurts. Makes me want to know what else God says that will keep me from the burn unit and the massive uphill battle back to health. This is what makes the psalmist find God's will to be honey. It's why I want to hold back my feet from every evil way. We make a decision every day...every minute, probably...to follow what God tells us to. If we don't understand we are loved to pieces and the "precepts" are to conform us to the family and bring us greater peace and joy, we will be wild children always looking for the boundary that is ever further and further out. I love knowing what pleases God. No guessing. No reaching just to see. And I'm joyful in the corral of promise and prosperity that fences in my urges and gives them purpose. I've been a wild horse on the range, mane flying in the breeze as I'm carried along by the momentary sense of freedom that comes from rebellion. The "you can't catch me now" that drove my mutiny finally entangling me in the brambles with no way out. No thank you! Not this woman. Not any more. I love God's law. Crave His Word. Eat it like honey. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34).
One of the things I noticed right off about having kids is that they aren't born obedient. We had to teach them certain things. And our rules weren't necessarily compatible with the rules of other households. For instance, I didn't want our children to touch things on the coffee table because I didn't want them to go to other homes and pick up anything they felt like touching, terrorizing relatives who don't have kids or neighbors who have Lladro porcelain figurines within reach of little hands. I was the only parent with that rule, trust me! So it was interesting when kids came to play at our house. My children were the ones enforcing the rules on their playmates. "Mommy doesn't want you touching that!" they'd say. And the other kids looked at them like my kids were from another planet. Another rule: No R-rated movies. We didn't go and we told them they couldn't. It was a rule easily bucked, and I'm sure they all either broke it or were tempted to when they were high school seniors. But they all understood the purposes behind it. We don't want our minds or yours corrupted. They didn't have any friends with that parameter in place. So, it was sometimes uncomfortable. What we had going for us as a family, though, was respect. Even though some might have thought our rules too strict, our kids knew why we wanted them to obey. It was never about power or control. Always it was for their good. To equip them in wildly unruly world.
God's Word must be intentionally followed. From the day we asked Christ into our hearts, we are in a new family with new rules. Good families have standards. Virtues by which they guide their lives. Bad families run amok. Children doing whatever they want. Mom and Dad either too intimidated, too enlightened or too lazy to rein them in, ignoring the shaping of their kids, which is their duty the moment a baby first gulps in air and cries its first tears. We, as parents, are responsible for their behavior and are a huge part in the development of their consciences. Would God do any less? Born now into His family, we are taught by Him how to live. We decide to obey because we respect our Father and understand that, though we don't always understand fully the whys of all God asks of us, we do know we are loved. We obey and His rules aren't annoying. As children, of course, we grow into this understanding. That is why we need to read the Bible. It's where God shares His thoughts as well as His rules. It's where we hear His heartbeat and know this Father is good.
That doesn't mean we haven't touched the "spiritual" stove and been burned. Put our hand to the fire just to see what "hot" means. Having done so, though, most of us won't do it again. We see the wisdom in the instruction and the protection it provides keeps us from greater danger from bigger fires. Sweet. Sweet to know what others don't. Sin hurts. Makes me want to know what else God says that will keep me from the burn unit and the massive uphill battle back to health. This is what makes the psalmist find God's will to be honey. It's why I want to hold back my feet from every evil way. We make a decision every day...every minute, probably...to follow what God tells us to. If we don't understand we are loved to pieces and the "precepts" are to conform us to the family and bring us greater peace and joy, we will be wild children always looking for the boundary that is ever further and further out. I love knowing what pleases God. No guessing. No reaching just to see. And I'm joyful in the corral of promise and prosperity that fences in my urges and gives them purpose. I've been a wild horse on the range, mane flying in the breeze as I'm carried along by the momentary sense of freedom that comes from rebellion. The "you can't catch me now" that drove my mutiny finally entangling me in the brambles with no way out. No thank you! Not this woman. Not any more. I love God's law. Crave His Word. Eat it like honey. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34).
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