You don’t have to go far in reading the Bible to find some serious lessons for life. Spread from Genesis to Revelation, real people made real mistakes that ended up with serious consequences. Their stories are there in black and white for all to read. I learn from them every day. As I have lived my life and made some stupid mistakes, I have seen that sin is at the root of most of life’s biggest miseries. If you look at some of the high profile court cases that make news across the country and across the world, most of them originate in some or other wrong-doing in the first place.
I need to learn the one-liners in the Bible that are great reminders of how to live. I read this one this morning and then when it came to this afternoon, I couldn’t remember what I’d read. In order for me to remember it, no better way than to write it down. I’m sure there will be a picture on line that quotes it. Let me go and have a look.
Yip!
Picture from slideshare.net
Spiritual intelligence that makes for a life lived in a better way.
Don’t only avoid the evil – avoid the appearance of it.
If we guard our way and in doing so guard our life, we are living sensibly, but we live in a world where there are endless numbers of people who are not guarding their way at this particular time. They may have guarded their way in the past but strayed off the path, or they may be off the path and come round to guarding their way in the future.
If you drive carefully, you are guarding your way and in doing so guarding your life, but it doesn’t mean you won’t be involved in an accident caused by the erratic driving of someone else.
Sometimes people who are guarding their way end up being the casualties in life. I think of David and his adultery with Bathsheba. He was not guarding his way. Bathsheba’s husband Uriah was, yet he turned out to be the casualty of David and Bathsheba’s sin. Uriah died. There was more. The son Bathsheba bore, died.
The pain that goes along with that was overwhelming. The loss of a child is the greatest grief in the world to suffer. Philip Yancey has written a book entitled, “The Question That Never Goes Away”. Here’s what he writes:
“One more, final question came from the audience on my last night in Newtown, and it was the one I most did not want to hear: “Will God protect my child?”
I stayed silent for what seemed like minutes. More than anything I wanted to answer with authority, “Yes! Of course God will protect you. Let me read you some promises from the Bible.” I knew, though, that behind me on the same platform twenty-six candles were flickering in memory of victims, proof that we have no immunity from the effects of a broken planet. My mind raced back to Japan, where I heard from parents who had lost their children to a tsunami in a middle school, and forward to that very morning when I heard from parents who had lost theirs to a shooter in an elementary school.
At last I said, “No, I’m sorry, I can’t promise that.” None of us is exempt. We all die, some old, some tragically young. God provides support and solidarity, yes, but not protection—at least not the kind of protection we desperately long for. On this cursed planet, even God suffered the loss of a Son.”
These are weighty issues. We need to just keep guarding our way and trusting God, day by day. Whatever we suffer, He has suffered also.
These are the days.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂