Upon the birth of his fifth child one of my students in Uganda assured me that was their last child because the doctor gave his wife pills. About six months later he came to class quite glum. He told me his wife was pregnant. He told me he didn’t know why because she took all the pills. He watched her take them. All of them – at once! Talk about a hormone overload – poor lady.
Now I have a choice. I can talk to you about moderation and not taking too much at once. Or I can talk to you about following directions. My father-in-law was a great one for following directions. Whenever he got something that needed assembling he always read the directions first before doing anything. He was an accountant. What would I expect? He was always a bit frustrated with me because I never got out the instructions until I got stumped, which was most of the time. Then I had to back up and take things apart and start over.
There are tornadoes, earthquakes and floods that bring great loss to us and are out of our control. But, most of the bad things that happen to us are the result of bad decisions. People are killed in cars because someone was drinking or texting. People go to jail because they made some truly bad decisions regarding that bank down the street. Most of the bad things that happen to people could have been avoided if they were to follow the instructions for life that God has given to us.
Paul wrote to us about the Scriptures being profitable for instruction. They really are. So often we can’t back up and reassemble. But we can be forgiven.
Written by Roger Bothwell on May 30, 2014
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org