Skip to main content

Good Instructions







Recently I bought a shed, a metal shed.  It was 8 x10, feet not inches.  When I bought it, I had every confidence that I could put it together.  However, as I opened the box and saw about 200 pounds of metal staring back at me, my confidence fizzled like a wet firecracker.  I should have known I was in over my head when the kind Lowes man delivered the shed and ran.  He probably thought I would ask him to assemble it.  As I stood looking at the shed, wannabe, I said a prayer, “Oh Lord, what a mess this is.”  My daughters questioned, “Mom, you ARE going to read the directions, right.”  The know that I tend not to read the instructions.  So with my daughters’ questions ringing in my ears, I decided to get out the directions.  There was a moment of panic when I thought perhaps they did not SEND instructions.  They were under all the parts.  So we started with step one and began assembling a shed.   We spent about two hours constructing braces and beams.  Why so long?  Well, the directions were not the best.  So, we would stare at the directions and then at the piece of the shed we were holding trying to figure out what they expected us to do with it.  Often, in the course of putting the shed together, we realized that they had neglected to give us critical information.  Like the fact that there should be three beams.  We were lead to suppose that we were creating two I-beams.  There was so much wasted time, correcting a problem due to faulty instructions.
As I took pieces apart, I thought about the instructions God gives us.
Love your neighbor
Pray continually
Keep your lips from evil
Let him who stole, steal no more
Feed the Hungry
They are pretty straightforward.  God does not ask us to guess at what he wants.  We never have to waste time going back to correct something due to wrong directions because HIS directions are always right.
What a blessing!
What confidence we have that God’s instructions are good and perfect
And there is always a reason for his direction, either in what we read or specific instructions to us, whether WE understand it or not.   It is the reason that we can trust what God tells us to do.  Whether it’s visiting someone, or offering help, we can know that God has a purpose even if WE do not see it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thank You God For Turning Our Ashes into Beauty

There are tragedy and sadness in everyone's life, No one is exempt. Yet, in the midst of the hurt and pain, God is there. He takes the things that hurt us and make us sad and turns them into things are beautiful. The death of my mother  was a tragedy to my dad. However, because of that tragedy, my dad began to see his need for God. In his brokenness, he found a God that could make him whole.  God turned his ashes into beauty. My dad, in turn, taught me to love God.   I am blessed to know God as my savior because of my dad. God also blessed me with a lovely step-mom Life is harsh at times, and many things are sad,  Yet, if we let him, he will take our ashes and make them into a work of art.   He delights in making the ash heaps of our life beautiful.   When we are broken, God is near, and where there is sorrow, he will turn it into dancing.   Thank you, God, F...
Post a Comment
Read more

Doctors and Taxes

Tonight, I’m doing something I absolutely hate.  My husband and I are working on a budget.  I imagine that most of you feel the same way. It’ kind of like taxes and doctors, we dislike them and breathe a sigh of relief when they are done. Truth be told; we really don’t enjoy working on a budget at all.  Yet it is one of the necessary components in knowing exactly how much you have and what you can spend. If indeed we are responsible to God for how we handle the resources that God has given us, then we need a clear picture. One piece of the puzzle that can bring the whole puzzle into focus is a budget.  It allows you to see and compare what you spend with what you have.  Sometimes as I’ve done a budget and looked at what I saw, I could see that the problem was little things that add up.  I realized that the problem was that I forgot the advice I had been given long ago, little things add up.  As we do a budget, we often see little things th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rest For Your Soul

Tonight was such a beautiful sunny night that I decided to go for a walk and enjoy the warm summer sun before another wave of rain hits.  As I cranked up my music and headed out.  I could not help but praise God for the area in which I live.   I, quite literally, live 5 minutes from a small town.   If I want to walk, I can walk down deserted country roads without driving at all.  Yes, I am incredibly blessed.  I saw baby bunnies eating grass by the edge of the road and talked with the most friendly Jersey cows.  They always walk over to the edge of the fence as I walk by nodding their heads in greeting.   There was a deer, in a hurry to catch up with his “deer” friends I suppose.  There were daisies and buttercups, apple trees by the edge of the road and a creek that floods at least once during the spring.  I also occasionally see a very friendly donkey and a few horses who always come to the edge of the fence hoping I have sugar for...
Post a Comment
Read more