Guidelines For Living Devotional

In 1889, a dam broke on the South Fork Reservoir, some 12 miles east of Johnstown, Pennsylvania in a valley of the Allegheny Mountains. Raging waters surged down the valley and swept over the town, taking 25 lives and causing some $50 million in damages, a considerable amount for those days.

"Dear Dr. Sala," begins a letter from a very discouraged friend of Guidelines, who neither gave his full name nor an address.  Jason tells about a broken home and the heartache he has experienced as his dreams and hopes fell apart.  He says, "Many times before I left, I cried to God and begged him to save my marriage.  What happened?  Where was He?  Why didn't he knock some sense into us?"  He described his ordeal as a long valley through which he was walking and then, thinking about taking his life, asked, "How long are valleys supposed to last?  Would you address the subject of suicide?"

One of the reasons we tend to worry is that life can quickly get out of control.  Someone you care about, someone you love, isn't listening, isn't responding, or just doesn't get it.  Say, for example, you are responsible for someone or something, and your best effort isn't enough.  You can't walk away from the situation.  Quitting isn't an option.  It may be a teen, an aged parent who depends on you for help, or a family business which seems to be going the wrong way.

The most difficult time of your Christian experience is when the sky seems to fall in and your world comes apart.  No, you don’t deserve it.  No, you are not being punished.  No, God hasn’t closed the door on you and shut off phone service, and certainly He hasn’t picked you out to see if you can withstand the punishment Job endured.  But just the same, when you are hurting—whether it is from the loss of a baby or when you become a victim of pain and sorrow—you feel alone and often feel estranged from God.

"As long as the present is at war with the past," said Winston Churchill at the conclusion of World War 2, "there is no hope for the future!"  The connection between the present and the past is something like the force of heredity.  It's there, but it can't always get you where you want to go.  Writing to the Philippians, Paul stressed the importance of forgetting the past and focusing on the future.  He wrote, "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

Home is the canvas on which you paint the memories of your life!  It isn't how elaborate is the house in which you live that makes it home. It's who lives there and the love that turns a house into a home.  Your house is built of steel and beams, but your home is built of love and dreams.  When you live in a rented house, you hang pictures on the barren walls and try to make it as warm as possible, but you live with the reality that this house isn't going to be your home forever; it's temporary. Then you are able to put together enough money to make the down payment on a house. You buy it or you build it. This time it's different. You can paint the walls purple with yellow stripes; you can tear out the bath and replace it. You can redo the kitchen.  It's yours. That house becomes your home.

Homes and mansions or castles are vastly different.  Take for example, Hearst Castle with its marble statuaries mirrored in a reflecting pool; or the Vanderbilt Estate; Buckingham Palace, the home of British Royalty; Warrick Castle; and the Forbidden City in Beijing, the residence of Chinese Emperors.  One of the most beautiful dwelling places in all the world would surely be Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, with fountains spewing forth water in crystalline streams.  Then contrast living there with what you call home. Would you trade the warmth of your fireplace or your favorite nook in the family room, for life in a palace or castle?  It’s not even tempting to me, to say nothing of thinking about the cost of repairs or taxes, should you be given a palace.

The person who stands for nothing will fall for anything, so goes conventional wisdom, but the person who does stand for something--whether it is the refusal to cover for fellow employees who cheat on their time cards, or has the conviction to abide by what he or she believes is right--will soon discover that everybody doesn't appreciate that commitment to decency.  It makes them squirm to have such a one in their midst.  It's true that people do love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

One of the lessons which we often learn too late is that it is not only hard to keep the peace but far more difficult to bring peace where there is none.  "Blessed are the peacemakers," said Jesus, "for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).

The head may be the center of the intellect, the control center of the human body, but it is the heart which has captured the interest of lovers and the fancy of poets because the real emotional issues of life come from the heart.  Long ago, Jesus put this truth in focus when He said, “... out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).