“Keep the commandments and keep your life; despising them leads to death.” Proverbs 19:16 NLT

 

“Keep the commandments and keep your life.” Disobedience can lead to disaster. 

 

We all know that disobedience has consequences, and it particularly obvious when we are young. 

 

I remember one such incident as a child. I was probably 6 or 7 years old. I had received an “airplane” as a gift. The way it worked is you pulled it back attached to a large rubber band and released. It would take off at amazing speed, especially for a young boy. It was the first day that I received it, and it came with instructions from my dad. “Don’t fly it in the house, don’t fly it in the house.” For brevity sake, I won’t write the number of times that I received the instructions. But it was probably close to 20 times through that day. And that evening? Family movie night. Now family movie night in those days consisted of a clicking projector with film and a pull up movie screen in the living room. There we were; parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a few cousins watching our home movies with great delight. Suddenly there was a noise and hole in the screen, and a collective gasp. You guessed it, my “airplane” had flown right through the screen in the middle of family movie night. Somehow even though I had heard, “don’t fly it in the house” at least a dozen times, I thought that practicing pulling it back on the band would be OK, because I wasn’t “trying to fly it.”  But my hand slipped, and my disobedience lead to disaster. I was terrified in the moment. My dad would tell me years later that he had a difficult time disciplining me because he was laughing so hard. For years I would be reminded of my actions seeing the taped up screen. 

 

It is a funny story now, but is a reminder to me about disobedience and consequences. The consequences of a child’s disobedience is easily seen, has limited real consequences but is a good learning opportunity for the rest of life. Perhaps the relationship between disobedience is less evident as we mature and as life gets more complicated, but it is none the less real and comes with both seen and unseen consequences. 

 

Some things are just good for you. Worship, prayer, exercise, eating good food, drinking water. No one would argue that they are generally good for you. Whether your actions line up, might be a different story.  God’s commands are good for you. Not meant to hinder you, but to have you live free.

 

 

This week, purposefully seek to obey the commands we are given.  They are good for us.

 

In His Hands, 

 

John