Day 79

The blessings that come to us from obeying God, rules, regulations, laid down procedures and processes in organisations we work for, communities we belong to, etc., again are for our benefit. It is never a witchhunt. We can learn a lot from God’s nature, really. As a business owner, I understand the implication of not having processes and procedures spelt out. As a mother, I know the benefits of ensuring my children follow our values and set down rules. While our values are non-negotiables, rules can be if they make a better case. God also modified some laws when people came to him. I have written on some of my past musings.

Imagine if the Israelites don’t adhere to the rule of cleanliness, they would definitely be ill. What about sleeping with each others’ spouses, thereby transmitting STDs. If they don’t follow the rules, everywhere would be chaotic. As I mentioned a day or two ago, a number seemed like common sense laws, but humans would always be humans. And when we are operating in such chaos, we attract similar circumstances. Everything would begin to go wrong.

Bringing it to our world today, I shed tears as I listened to someone’s prayer request. The request was that he had been falling into sin, and yes, he had prayed to God for forgiveness, but he still doesn’t feel alright. You could feel the pain, guilt and shame in his voice. I could relate. And you know, this is why God doesn’t want us to sin. It messes us up; it messes with our thoughts. Even though He has made His grace available, guilt and shame are always there to steal our joy. When one is in that space, nothing goes well. I strongly believe it feels like being under a curse, as outlined in today’s reading. Thank God for his grace and the righteousness of Jesus because it can never be by our righteousness that we would be saved.