davidbowerkingwood

Life comes with a lot of Assembly Required

The manufacturer’s assembly instructions

The Bible is God’s gift to his children; it is the manufacturer’s assembly instructions for life. From the time we are a baby on through our later years we are faced with a never-ending assortment of decisions and choices that need to be made for us to continue our lives; some of these are incidental and some are essential. I have found it very interesting that some of the most important decisions must be made while we are still young and inexperienced in the affairs of this world.

We make decisions concerning marriage and career while we are still so young and relatively innocent; these decisions have a strong impact on everything that will come later. The Lord knew we would wind up in this situation and gave us instructions on how best to fit the pieces of our lives together in the way he had planned for us and would produce the best results.

What makes this so dangerous is all too often young people who are making important life decisions have no idea how much they don’t know; they have no idea how extensive will be the change in their perspective on almost everything as they grow older; I am still fascinated by the changes in my perspectives on life as I discussed in A Surprising Discovery.

The Swing Set

Many years ago, when the children were still small, we decided it was time to get them a swing set for the backyard. We found a fully assembled demo set at one store that was available at a discounted price; that seemed like a good choice especially as it was already fully assembled and I thought it would be delivered to us that way.

Boy, was I wrong about that; when delivered, the swing set had been completely disassembled and had all of the nuts and bolts dumped into one big bag and there were no instructions included. Not only did I have to assemble the swing set completely but I had to do it with no instructions whatsoever.

I learned quickly that there were certain guidelines that I had to follow and after extended trial and tribulation I finally got it put together; it probably took twice as long as it should have because there were no instructions for assembly so my approach had to be trial and error. It is this confusion and delay that God wants to spare us by giving us careful instructions on how we should assemble our lives.

Your Life Assembly is Still a Work in Progress!

All of us are still working on life assembly; as long as we live we will be works in progress. We are much more complicated than a swing set and our assembly can get really complicated; what complicates our situation even more is we are handed conflicting assembly instructions by the world, the flesh, and the devil. All too often these false instructions appear to offer shortcuts and quick fixes that will wind up leadings us down dangerous slopes that could harm us. In my work with GMO I see so much of this all over the world; Satan is alive and well on planet Earth and all too often people are looking for what appears to be the easy way.

Things that are True, Honorable, Right, Pure, Lovely, and Admirable

In his grace, God has given us the best advice about assembling our lives; I’m particularly appreciative of the advice given in Philippians 4:4-9 where it is written:

“⁴ Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! ⁵ Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

⁸ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.⁹ Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”

I personally think on these verses many times a day and encourage others to think on them as often as they have the opportunity. We have a responsibility to ourselves and others to help them focus on the authentic assembly instructions provided by the manufacturer and ignore the false instructions that come from other sources.

The Media

The vast majority of the news and information we see is totally contrary to the advice we are given in verse 8; how great a disservice are we doing ourselves to let the media influence our perspectives on our lives as children of God. We look at the world through the media’s eyes and we see the good, the bad and the ugly everywhere we look; on balance the bad and the ugly seem to be featured, especially so in Washington, D.C.

Ask yourself in the privacy of your own mind: what percentage of your thoughts are rejoicing in the Lord and what percentage is worry or annoyance over current events? Your private answer to that question can give you a guide to how well you’re following the manufacturer’s instructions for your life assembly.

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!