There’s few things worse in this world than someone who knows what he’s doing and doesn’t need any advice…especially when he’s a few years shy of twenty years.”
–Lou Bradshaw (Along the Way)
“He will die because there is no instruction, and be lost because his great stupidity.”
–Proverbs 5:23 (HCSB)
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I used to enjoy sitting around the table listening to my elders talk. I dared not interrupt, except in rare moments, but it was my part to listen and learn. This was true of parents, teachers, and especially my coaches. I wanted to gain more knowledge (shame it didn’t apply to studies back then), I wanted to practice more and more.
I remember one time as the baseball team took a train trip to Utah for games. I played cards with the rest of the guys and came out the big winner. My Dad happened to be on that trip and took me aside telling me that he didn’t think that my Grandma and Aunt would be very pleased knowing I had won money from cards, and that I should give it back. Lesson learned, and I never gambled again. When one stops to look at it, gambling is really stupid. The definitions of gambling: the act or practice of risking the loss of something important by taking a chance or acting recklessly. A little game of cards, you may question, but it all starts somewhere.
What it really boils down to is selfishness. I want more; I don’t need to depend on the Lord, I’ll take my chances. Gambling is not trusting the Lord with our lives, and that includes our finances. It is not being a good steward; remember that money in your pocket actually belongs to the Lord.
But there are other ways of gambling. Drinking, driving too fast, bizarre acts of recklessness. I remember a person I knew years back. He was ready to dive into the lake. He looked at the water and was gambling that it was deep enough for him to dive. It wasn’t and he became a quadriplegic for life. Yet, there are those out there who know it all. No need to try to tell them anything and when disaster hits, what happens? Meltdown. They need a safe place.
What happens on the Day of Judgment? Today is the day of salvation. Today there is compassion and it is only intelligent to choose salvation today, for in that day there will be no compassion. Grace now or there will be judgment later.
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I had to smile as I read this description from a book I am reading. My we have come so far in our requirements for life.
“…she picked up her bundle and followed upstairs–the first real stairs she had ever seen–and into a room on the floor of which was a rag carpet. There was a bed in one corner with a white counterpane and a washstand with a bowl and pitcher, which, too, she had never seen before…. How clean it was! There were some flowers in a glass vase on the mantel. There were white curtains at the big window and a bed to herself–her own bed….”
–John Fox (The Trail of the Lonesome Pine)
June would have been beside herself, maybe gone insane, with all the “stuff” we have now. There are little red, green, and blue lights throughout the house, and a beep for this, a beep for that, and other sounds that I can’t describe. We have beds that are self-heating. I remember warming a brick to shove under the sheets in the winter, or at least a hot-water bottle.
Perhaps all of our modern “necessities” have taken part of the wonder and simplicity of life away. We look for the next gimmick and don’t even consider that we should be content with life. The Lord is there, we have family and hopefully a few good friends.
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“When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.”
–James Whitcomb Riley
Thought this would be a good one to start the day since it was supposed to be our first freeze last night. There was none on the ground this morning, but I did feel some on the windshield of the truck. So, no frost on the punkin here.