So True

 Whoever scorns instruction will pay for it, but whoever respects a command is rewarded. (Proverbs 13:13)

         This morning’s proverb is another of those obvious ones. We even have stereotypes… like men won’t use maps and then won’t admit that they’re lost or stop and get directions. Men won’t use assembly instructions and it takes three days to put together what should have taken two hours, but he’s “MacGyver.” We all do the same thing in one way or another. Just think about diets. Simple reality: if you eat more than you need, your body stores it and/or it does something nasty to your body. But we keep being told, we can eat anything we want as long as we take this pill or drink that beverage, or we can eat as much protein as we want as long as we don’t eat carbs, or if we just eat specific carbs, we’ll be slim and trim, because the truth of the matter is that we don’t want to obey instructions, we want to find instructions that will obey us. 
      But when we do live according to the instructions and commands of Scripture, things tend to work right. I’m not saying that obedience to Scripture means that everything will be the way you want it to be, but I’ve found that as I move in that direction, things tend to be better and as I move away from it, things get worse. The more we insist that the universe be as we command, the harder life will be for us. Peace is found in respecting the commands God gives us and the commands He gives the universe. Chaos reigns when we decide we know better than God how things “should” work.