I have just returned from a week on the coast and came home without sunburn, which is monumental. As a teen, we lived walking distance from the beach so nearly every summer day would include a trip to the white sands upon which I would plaster myself with baby oil laced with iodine so I would appear tanner. The fact is, what I called “laying out” was really basting my body in the oven of the sun. True, I was tanned to perfection, but now that I am “slightly” older, I wonder about the sanity of those days.
Ah, youth! This observation goes well beyond tanning. The things we do in life all have consequences. Being tanned as a youth increases wrinkles (at the least) or skin cancer (at the worse.) My mother, who never went into the sun and at age 68 didn’t have a wrinkle on her face, would tell me to use sunscreen!!! I didn’t listen!
I got to thinking about this sitting under my umbrella on Ship Island, which is a good place to ponder life! I thought about how as children we were warned by our elders about all kind of things we should avoid because of the life-long consequences. Most of us didn’t listen because we knew more than they did…hey, we knew more than anyone! We were the enlightened ones…that is until the consequences fell down all around us. We cried, “Why didn’t someone warn us??” Fact is, they did, we just didn’t listen.
This is not new…it started in the Garden of Eden when Eve had her encounter with the “snake!” God had set up very specific guidelines but neither Adam nor Eve listened and there were life-ending consequences. In the book of John, Jesus often repeats two phrases: “I tell you the truth”; and “He who has ears let him hear.” God is for us not just wanting to ruin our good time! He has rules for our good but only if we listen and obey! The Word is God is full of instructions that the world calls a list of “cannots.” I have lived long enough to know, however, it is spiritual sunscreen from a loving Father who doesn’t want His children to get burned in life.
King David knew this first hand… only after breaking some commandments did he realized God’s ways were for his good. Psalm 25:10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. God wants us to live a thriving life and sets forth boundaries but when those boundaries are breached there will be consequences. For David, his sin of adultery and murder resulted in the death of his child but even more in his loss of fellowship with the God of his youth. He was a wreck. Read about the guilt and pain of sin in Psalm 32.
My mama told me, I told my daughter, and she has told her daughter how to avoid the pitfalls in life but I didn’t listen, nor did my daughter and I bet there will be some stretching of the envelope from my grand. I am listening now…perhaps you are too. So, do we just give up thinking it does no good to urge others to follow God’s law? No! Listen to the last words David spoke to his son, Solomon, “I am about to go the way of all the earth….So, be strong, show yourself a man, and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and deep His decrees and commands , his laws, and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go. (I Kings 2: 2-3a) David had learned the hard way what rebellion can do. He wanted it to be easier for his son…we want it to be better for those we love so we continue to tell! It is not our responsibility to make them obey but it is our responsibility to tell them the truth of God…He who has ears, let him hear.
I am afflicted with brown spots and wrinkles because I didn’t listen back then so this past week when my granddaughter and I went to the very same beach I once basted upon, there was one big difference…SPF 50! I am not tanned but then neither am I burned. Maybe she will learn the sunscreen lesson maybe not… But the lesson of following God is much more important. Let it be my desire to teach her, to tell her the truth, and to pray for her to have ears to hear.
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