Rules of the Road - Part 4

Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:7-8 ESV). Soon I will have been a father for 39 years! I have mentioned in other devotionals that there is nothing more special, more rewarding, more blessed, than to hear the words, I love you dad. I am very blessed in that I hear those words often from my three boys! I have made the transition from knowing very little (the teen years) to being a rusted friend and advisor (the adult years)! It is great! For many of those years I was a Pastor as well. You might say a "spiritual father" even to many who were much older than I was, yet they treated me with great respect, and I always felt blessed by that position. Often, in both roles as father I had to administer some attitude adjustments, and the result wasn't always pleasant. But all in all, the office father (dad), and father (pastor), held pretty well. Today’s fourth “rule for the road” contains an entreaty to fear the Lord and to turn your back on evil. The promise that follows is that we will have “renewed health and vitality.” It speaks to me of those better times in life, when you actually hear the crickets singing and catch the glow of the sunset, rocking in your easy chair out on the back porch after a long hard day. You glance up to catch a glimpse of it all, and for a moment it's almost as though your heart stops while you countdown the last seconds of daylight, waiting for the encapsulating call of a hoot owl, and the patter of little feet as they scamper out on the porch to crawl up in daddy's lap for that last kiss good night. So I'm a dreamer, but I have had days like that. And I know how I felt inside, and it was, if I could borrow the Campbell's Soup slogan, "Um, Um, GOOD! It was what families were once made of. It was the marrow that held would-be "broken" bones together, wrapped in the "muscle" of family. Oh, you may think you are too big to be crawling up into anyone's lap for those late-night kisses, and your sunset might be nothing more than the fade of daylight through a window in your office building or place of employment. The singing of the crickets so many of us take for granted, may be nothing more to you than your car radio trying to keep yourself alert and awake while you drive home to hamburger helper, kids screaming; and the only encapsulating call of the wild you hear is the neighbor's dog barking or the blaring sounds of the television playing the same episode of Friends that you've seen three weeks straight. Talk about "defining moments". The point is that there is no greater enemy to the "power" of faith, and the reverential fear of God in the heart, than the conceitedness of our own wisdom, our own self-sufficiency. In fact, many who have become "self-sufficient", and have utilized "God-given" talents to catapult themselves to a place of wealth and success find it hard to hear God, or even listen for Him. For those who live in the reverential fear and admonition of the Lord, our encouragement is promised in that it shall be as nourishing as a well rounded meal, and will strengthen and calm our hearts through prudence, temperance, and sobriety, the calmness and composure of mind, and a good sense of proper appetites and passions, which our faith teaches. Crawl up in God’s lap again! You won’t be disappointed!