Shade Tree Wisdom 1/7/09

Here they came again, the two ladies with their LED flashlights, swinging along on this chilly morning, still cheerful, still filled with vim, still “doing their New Year thing”. I wish them well in their endeavor.

But it goes to show we really are sort of creatures of habit and do things that are recommended highly or offered as a way to healthy living. OK. Habits really are what make us able to get through the day, aren’t they? The morning routine, for instance. The alarm rings, and the rest of the morning is always the same. It’s easier when we don’t have to think of every step we take. And we also take on stuff from the world around us.

I was reminded of this just this morning when a radio preacher was speaking about the time in the movie “Gone With the Wind”, Rhett Butler shocked the country by using the word “damn” in conversation. Well, the storm of indignation that swept across the nation would astonish our day when an hour of prime time TV offers murders, adulteries, perversions of many kinds.

The difference is that then most people were in agreement about what was right and not right. Today, our children have never been taught that there IS even a right and wrong. And the result if the sort of world we see around us.

St. Paul speaks of people who “did not think it worthwhile to retain knowledge of God, God gave them over to depraved minds.” Romans 1,28. Then he follows with the list of their “all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. . .”29.30.

For such our dear Lord Jesus suffered and died, that He might win us to Himself, pay for our sins, and give us the hope of eternal life. In Galatians Paul speaks about the Spirit who inhabits us, and of bearing His rich fruit. Gal. 5,22. Then he says, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” V.24.

We do well to have a habit of saying, “I have been baptized, Christ died for me, and Satan can no longer overpower me, I thank Him."

GPD 1/7/09