Guidelines For Living Devotional

Question: How deep is your spiritual commitment?  You made the decision to receive life from Jesus Christ, right?  But have you made a commitment to surrender, to give everything, to commit your will to Him and let His Word guide your life? 

An old Doonesbury cartoon by Gary Trudeau pictured a young man who was being interviewed by the president of an advertising company.  The dialogue went like this:  The executive says, "So you want to be an ad man, eh, son?"  And the young responds, "Well, I think so, sir.  I mean, I can't be certain, of course, but it seemed worth looking into, you know, to see if it worked out, if it felt right, and ... I ... uh..."  That's commitment... or, is it?

What's wrong with cheating as long as you don't get caught?  While most people would publicly decry the practice, the majority of people, two-thirds, practice some form of cheating says a leading authority on human behavior.  It's the getting caught that becomes embarrassing.  Especially prevalent is the practice of deception by college students according to the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization.

When Bud and Shirley James went to a party and things began to drag, someone got out a Ouija board.  A friend who was a Christian asked, "Will I have a baby?"  The woman already had several children, and she and her husband didn't plan for any more.  However, the person operating the Ouija board replied, "Yes--twins!"  Everybody had a good laugh!  But six months later, nobody was laughing.  The same woman gave birth to twins, who were still-born.  What no one knew including the woman herself was that she was pregnant at the time.

Sarah Winchester didn't have to be convinced of the spirit world.  The widow of the man who invented the Winchester rifle believed that the spirits of the people killed by Winchester rifles would haunt her unless they could be driven away by the sound of hammers.  So she had men construct a house built with stairways leading to nowhere and doors leading into one inch deep closets.  For 36 years carpenters labored 24 hours a day.  Eventually a house was built with 160 rooms, containing 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 10,000 windows.  Undoubtedly, it is the strangest house ever built.

Have you ever stood on the banks of two great rivers and watched as the two merged into one?  Turbulence and white waters fight each other as the two finally settle and begin to flow.  I've often thought of that as I talk with couples about the merging of two lives--or for that matter, two families--which become one.  There is difficulty enough when two people bring different habits, cultures, and attitudes into a marriage, but when two families are blended, the factor of turbulence only multiplies.

"By the world's standard he was a failure," wrote Bernie May. "Even worse, he was a fool. 'What a waste,' his friends said when he died. 'He had everything and threw it away'" His name was William Borden, of the wealthy and famed Borden family.  His family had made millions in the milk business back at a time when money was scarce.

"If I were in charge of the world," says Lucy to good ol' Charlie Brown, "I'd change everything!"  Charlie, looking a bit puzzled, says, "That wouldn't be easy.  Where would you start?"  "I'd start with you!" says Lucy.  Changing the world usually means changing other people, whipping them into shape, making them conform to your ideal. 

I picked it up from my friend Ken Gaydos, and I suspect that he got the idea from someone he had heard.  It's concluding an interview with the question, "If you could live your life all over again, what would you do differently?" 

William Wordsworth, the English poet, wrote, "The child is the father of the man," meaning the events of childhood shape your destiny and future as an adult.  Another way of putting it is the rather old saying, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."