Guidelines For Living Devotional

In St. Paul's Cathedral in London is a painting done by the artist, Holman Hunt, often reproduced in Sunday School literature, which shows Jesus standing at the door of an English cottage, a lantern held in one hand, gently knocking at the door. It is based on the words of Jesus recorded in Revelation 3:20, which say, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

A Guidelines' listener who was in a doctoral program at New York University wrote telling about a teacher whose memory will never escape him. The teacher who so impressed him was an instructor at New York City's prestigious Peter Stuyvesant High School. In his classroom hung a 3 x 5-foot flag. On the flag were three black letters against a brilliant background of red, and what was the message? The three letters spelled B-U-T, the adversative conjunction. That's it. When lecturing, this teacher would reach a point where everything that followed hung on one word. That's when he would point to his flag and go on.

Do the old questions never really go away? Almost every time I talk with someone who has had something happen which he didn't like, I am asked, "How could a loving God do this?" Or, "I can't understand why God didn't step in and do something. After all, if He is as powerful as He is supposed to be, why didn't He stop this from happening?"

Night had draped its dark curtain around the Sea of Galilee. The Palestinian sky, which usually had countless stars, was darkened with an ever-increasing number of black storm clouds. Thirteen men made their way to the water's edge. One by one they entered a waiting ship, and when all were on board, they launched out onto the choppy waters, and steered for the opposite shore.

Where do you draw the line? I thought of that issue when Brother Andrew—the man often described as "God's Smuggler"—sat at lunch with me and a group of friends and of being severely criticized because he had reached out to the Hezbollah, in an attempt to bring peace between them and Israel. "Anybody who is a friend to them is an enemy to Israel," said his critics.

"Dear Dr. Sala," writes a friend of Guidelines, "I have a question. How come the God of the Old Testament, who allows killing of men, women and children, is so different from the God of the New Testament who says love your enemies? Did God change His mind, or are we talking about two different Gods? There is a big movement…that is saying that they are two different Gods. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts."

So, you have fallen out of love, have you? And it didn't take long after he moved in with you. In fact, you are not sure whether he ever loved you, though he said he did. This, of course, brings up the issue of what love really is.

When God's hand touches your life, no matter who you are or where you are, it is always earthshaking. It was true of the time Jesus sat with his disciples, perhaps overlooking Galilee, and taught them. What He said was disturbing to be sure. He talked about loving your enemies, not storing up vast treasures here on earth, not worrying about life, or earning a living, and not judging other people.

"What price are you willing to pay for success in the business world? Are you prepared to reach the top though it may cost your marriage, or the affection of your kids?" So what if you climb the ladder of success, only to find that it was leaning against the wall of the wrong building?

Michael Gordon is an attorney who often gets up at 3 a.m. and goes to the office before the roosters start to crow so he will be prepared for the "big one." Knowing he was a workaholic who was committed to succeeding, his brother gave him a hard hat and a pair of construction goggles when he got married along with this bit of advice: "Juggling family life and work is hard. Really hard. But if you keep at it and work hard, the rewards are sweet as sugar."