Guiding Principles

I haven't posted a serious, non-farming related post in a while, but something's been on my mind.  I'm a casual observer of our culture and being an old-fashioned traditionalist, some things have me scratching my head.

I've been thinking a lot about our direction as a culture, specifically, things that direct our lives. How do people get their bearings?  How do we build the moral constructs in our lives that define right and wrong?  What determines the course that we will take in our lives?

Back in the old days, ship captains would use a sextant, a compass, and a telescope to find the North Star in order to navigate through dangerous seas. The North Star was critical for navigation before the advent of GPS, mapquest, or OnStar.  The North Star is virtually fixed and once this star was located, it could be used to calculate direction and the angle of altitude to determine latitude.  The crucial thing to realize is that other stars' positions appear to move throughout the night sky.  If you were using them to navigate by instead of a pole star, you'd be quickly lost.

Hmmm.  What can we learn by that?  I'm thinking that we should set our course based on timeless, immovable 'landmarks' and not base our direction or convictions based on guideposts that shift over time and circumstance.

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Where else do we get our 'marching orders' that determine the course that our lives will move in?  Well, the Institution of the Family is another important determinant.  I was blessed to have been born into a great family.  A family that taught me faith, gave me love and support, and gave me great principles upon which to build my life.  My Mom & Dad pointed me in the right direction and gave me boundaries.  Now, I could go off course for sure, and I did from time to time, but the Book of Proverbs gives us some real wisdom here:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6

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Still, we have free will.  We can rebel. Or dysfunctional families may not instill values or may instill faulty values.  What is guiding us then?

How are we going to live?  Well, we like to say we are a civilized people.  We live under the rule of law. We have laws codified that give a law-abiding people boundaries.  From a National Standpoint, governments have some form of a constitution that sets in stone, hopefully, some guiding principles and limitations.  One of the US Naturalization Test Questions says: "What does the Constitution do?"  The correct answer is:

1. Sets up the Government
2. Defines the Government
3. Protects Basic Rights of Americans

What happens, though, when that document can be re-interpreted or ignored?  It would seem that as a country we could quickly lose our way, similar to a ship's captain who has used a moving star instead of a pole star to calculate his journey.  The situation, though, is more dire than aimlessly drifting, lost at sea.  We are drifting toward the rocks.

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In thinking of the Law, I am reminded of the Ten Commandments.  God sent Moses down from Mount Sinai with tablets of stone containing some guiding principles that He wanted His people to follow.  What happens when we determine as a stubborn and stiff-necked people, that we don't want to follow some of these commandments?  Or perhaps we rationalize and make excuses when we deviate from them?  Or maybe we've become so arrogant that we think that those rules are archaic and old fashioned and don't fit in with the culture of today. Maybe we can create our own rules?

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God, through great men inspired by His Holy Spirit, penned the Bible.

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The Bible, God's Holy Word, gives instruction, guidance, direction.  It is the Owner's Manual for the human species.  If you want to learn about Accounting, you study an accounting book, and if you want to learn to cook, you read a cook book.  If we want to learn about God and the purpose that He has for our lives, and mostly, the direction we should take, we should read God's Book.  Too often we don't.  Or we pick and choose convenient things to follow (and to ignore).  Or we'll pick certain things out of context and twist and turn the Word of God to suit our needs du jour.  We want to set our own course in life.  We become like the hard-headed people in Israel, who it was spoken of in the very last verse in the very last chapter of the Book of Judges:

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.  Judges 21:25

Wow!  Sounds like today, huh?  Everyone determining their own morality.  To that, I think of this:

There is a way which seems right to a man,But its end is the way of death.  Proverbs 14:12

In doing so, we become like a rudderless ship, whose anchor has given way, and we're drifting dangerously toward a rocky reef.  We're the captain of the ship, masters of our destiny, and we've broken away from our moorings (Bible, Law, Constitution, Traditional Family Values).  We must look so foolish to our Creator.

There is a lighthouse, by the way.  Jesus points the way to safety.  Jesus, through His shed blood, gave those who believe on Him life!  Jesus is the immovable rock.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.  Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”  Matthew 7:24-27

Won't you build your house on the Rock and get your guiding principles from HIM?