You just think things are different!

You just think things are different. When you were a child, your parents
started training you from the time they could tell you not to do something,
and you looked them straight in the eye, and did it anyway. That is when
your parents knew that you knew the difference between right and wrong. You
know the drill. Sit up straight. Don't play in the street. Wipe your feet
before you come into the house. Don't talk back to your parents. Behave in
school. Eat your vegetables. Brush your teeth. Do your homework and much,
much more over the years. And when you broke the rules, there was a price
to pay. You were punished. All in all, those lessons helped you to grow up
to be a reasonably responsible adult. But while the training was going on,
you were always thinking that your parents were old fashioned. Things had
changed since they were young. So you rebelled along the way. If you were
lucky and had parents that were committed to raising you the right way, they
continued to guide you no matter how much you protested and told them you
knew more than they did. If you were raised by Christian parents they knew
that Proverbs 22:6 said, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when
he is old, he will not depart from it." (KJV) See, God knew that you would
rebel, but He also knew that in time, and the older you became, the wiser
your parents would seem.

But if you look at the kids that simply listened to their parents and did
what they were told and taught, they seemed to breeze through life and get
good grades, had good jobs and entered into adulthood very well adjusted and
totally prepared for whatever life threw at them. I believe the word for
those kids down through the ages was and is "Nerd". But the nerds of the
world have the good jobs and the stable relationships and very little
trouble adjusting to the world around them. They are not 35 years old,
barely making ends meet and riding down the street on a skateboard with
their pants half off and with so many tattoos that their own parents hardly
can tell what they look like anymore. They don't complain that life is hard
and unfair and that the world is just picking on them. They are not in a
world that they did not learn to be in. The bottom line is, if you don't
have an education, there will be no substantial job for you. If you don't
learn respect and honor, you will always be at odds with society. And you
will always be angry at everyone and everything because deep down you know
that you are where you are because of bad choices you made. You didn't eat
your vegetables!

As Christians in the grown up world, those of us that did listen and learn
are not home free either. As Christians we have all the temptations that
the world offers everyone else. We not only had a rearing by our parents,
but we also have learned the teachings and wisdom of our Heavenly Father.
Why is it then that we want to "play in traffic"? Why is it that we are
tempted and often go where we know better than to go? If we would just
listen to our Heavenly Father, life would be, as in His words in Isaiah
48:17-18 "I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who
directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My
commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like
the waves of the sea." So even as adults we think that we have arrived and
we know everything. But if we are adults and still rebelling against the
training of God, we too are deluding ourselves by thinking that things are
different now. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Some things,
the best things, never change. Walk in His laws and know what it is like to
have true peace.....Patti