Have you watched a baby? Really watched them. They are living sponges. All they have are their senses to tell them of their life just beginning.
Do they hear tones of love OR anger?
Do they see affection OR distance?
Indeed, before they even know what life is they are inputting data without pause that will determine their course for years, possibly their entire life.
But we, as Christian adults, should pause.
I Corinthians 10:24 states, "Let no one seek his own good, but the good of another."
Yesterday, in America, we celebrated "Independence Day."
Mankind has raised the concept of independence to a place of idolatry. Not only rejecting the concept of a Creator and the accountability our position as the created naturally assesses, but also rejecting the concept of becoming a harmonious member of a society, a marriage, a family, and most importantly - the Body of Christ.
There is an evil in all of us that seeks its own way.
Paul wrote the Corinthians a third time, "For I am afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I want you to be... I fear there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance, disorder...that I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin, and debauchery in which they have indulged...our prayer is that you may be fully restored...strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace."
Take a moment to slowly re-read those words.
Let them sink in.
Choice and its destiny;
powerful when divinely embraced for others,
destructive when egocentrically driven.
Do we make choices to harmonize our sphere by serving another's good before our own or do we make choices of discord, seeking our own?
It's that simple. Make no mistake; our choices are intentional, no matter what lies we tell ourselves.
The harsher truth is, short of God, mankind tends to duplicate the example set before the eyes and the ears prior to the ability of putting words together is possessed.
This reality takes the responsibility of marriage and family to another whole level... stratospheric level!
My parents determined early in their marriage to read and learn how to become a harmonious unit; and they partnered together towards harmony. My husband's parents, I am left by observation, mostly chose independence. Dad did his thing; mom did her thing.
Begs the question: do our beginnings - good or not so good - excuse our present? Absolutely not.
Go back and read what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. We all have beginnings that miss the bulls-eye of God! Paul counted himself among the worst of beginnings.
It is not how we begin, but how we choose to persist.
In a day and age when people are screaming for individual rights to the point of rioting, Christians among themselves need to be representing and living God's sovereign heart for harmony. For the married couple, start with your marriage. For Christian singles, work on harmonizing within the Body of Christ, strengthening relationships as you edify others before you seek out edification.
I challenge each of you as a student of God, regardless of your beginning, bring yourself under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit and allow His correction to re-shape that which perhaps was misshapen from birth.
"When I was a child, I spoke like a child. thought as a child, reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things." (I Corinthians 13:11)
Paul made a choice that changed the trajectory of his life. In fact, he made many, many choices every day that kept him on God's track, so that he could confidently say, "I will know fully just as I also have been fully known."
