8-10-19

My son and I went to Walmart yesterday. We were over by the game section just checking out what they had and we decided to grab some Uno cards since the deck we have at home was missing several cards and we haven’t been able to play it in years. It sounded like lots of fun!

When My husband got home we ate dinner and sat down for a good game of Uno. We read over the instructions to refresh ourselves on the rules, then we began to play. We were laughing and playing and my son was telling us about how he plays this with his friends sometimes. We went a couple more rounds and I laid down a draw two card. My son was the next player to go and I was expecting him to draw his two cards and skip his turn, but instead he lays down another draw 2 card and laughs at my husband saying, “ha ha, you have to draw 4!” My husband and I were both confused and asked him what he was talking about. Since I had played a draw two, he is supposed to draw two and skip his turn. My son became really upset and said, “That’s what the rules are! That’s the way me and my friends play!

We got out the instructions and read them out loud again. My son, still distraught says, “Well that’s the way I was taught, that’s the way I’ve always played.” We asked him if he and his friends had read the instructions before they played. He said, “No we didn’t have any, we were just going by how the other kids played it at home.”

Then my husband, trying to ease his confusion says, “Bud, if you don’t have the instructions, you will play it however you want, but that doesn’t make it right.” I’m telling you after he said this, it was like a lightbulb literally went on in my head. I said, “That’s exactly right! If we don’t have instructions, we will do whatever we want and think it’s right. Just because someone told us so, or we came up with it on our own, doesn’t make how we are doing it correct. We need instructions!” Amen!

You know, God has his own instructions for how his people should behave! The world and the unbeliever may be doing it their own way, but we are equipped with His Word in black and white, so there isn’t any grey area to get us confused. We can’t expect to obey the Father, and “play” out this Way of life without reading the instructions first! If there is not instruction, there is chaos and confusion.

I challenge all of my Christian friends to go back to the foundation of our beliefs. Go back and read God’s instructions in the first five books of the Bible. If you think, “Oh those Laws are so burdensome and outdated,” please go back and read them again with a different mindset. Read it with the idea that a Father, with overflowing love for His children, laid out instructions to protect His children, and keep them safe from harm, because that is exactly how His Words were intended to be read the whole time! God is our Father, and we are grafted in as His children.

Friends, I guarantee you will be overwhelmingly blessed by reading It with this mindset. I sure have been! I pray these words give hope to someone this morning, and spark a new idea about Gods instructions. And if there may be a friend of mine out there who has never heard of this kind of Love, I would be more than happy to share it with you! God bless you all!