One summer day when I was a young girl, I had been playing in a nearby neighbor’s yard as I heard my mother call out for me to come home. With it being summertime I was of course barefooted. As I walked back home, I stepped on a board that had been piled up on a small mound of debris. As I stepped over one of the boards and as my foot came down onto another one, I felt something like a thorn going into the arch of my foot. As I looked down I saw not a thorn but a 2 inch nail. As my mind registered what had happened the pain began to rise from my foot and quickly went up my leg. I grabbed the top of my leg to try and stop the searing pain from moving farther and began to cry out for help. As the pain became intolerable throughout my entire body, I knew that I had to pull the nail that was attached to a board out of my foot in order to at least wobble and get myself home, because it had appeared that no one was coming to my rescue. As I looked down and saw that the nail was old, bent and kind of orange in color, I could only assume that the nail was rusty and that I was going to die an excruciating death. Once I got home and my mother treated me with medicine and compassion, within 24 hours I no longer had any pain or side effects. But I did however learn a very powerful lesson. Like most parents I had been told by my mother to never play on old piles of wood or debris, because of the possibility of rusty nails. Yet that morning in a hurry, I disregarded what I knew to be right. I ignored what she had repeatedly taught me. I had been both lazy and preoccupied and I paid a horrific price for it that day.
Disregarding what we know to be right, whether through laziness, preoccupation with other things or simply rebellion, always brings undesirable and spiritual damage and consequences. That pile of debris was a stumbling block to me, yet I was unwise to see it as such, because deep inside me was an irritation to do what I wanted to do and not what I had been warned not to do. No, the rusty nail did not end my young life, but it did threaten it and in the end brought a huge amount of discomfort caused from the extreme pain and distress to both me and my mother. Anytime we choose another path from the one we know to be right, as taught by our parents or the Word of God, it is like stepping onto a dirty old pile of nails and debris, barefooted. You never know what you may step on because often times you will not be able to see what is underneath your next step. When we act or seek to justify our lazy or rebellious choices for whatever reason we choose to make them, we will always end up hurting ourselves and effecting other as well. When we lie to ourselves by thinking that we are not really doing anything wrong, that it doesn’t really matter or perhaps even try and console ourselves with the thought that everyone else is doing it, or something even worse, we believe the lie that we will not be negatively affected by it. We somehow convince ourselves that we are the exception to the rule and therefore immune to the consequences of breaking it. Obedience must become our priority! Those who walk in obedience finds peace and rest. Those that rebel and walk in the flesh after having been warned, have only an eventual world wind to look forward to. But when obedience becomes our goal, it is no longer an irritation. Instead of a stumbling block, it becomes a building block that leads to true freedom. The more we obey revealed truth, the more we become liberated. So come, no run to the One who offers you a peace that the world knows not, and there you will find what you are looking for! Sometimes the truth can hurt. But if we learn from it, the pain is worth the lesson!
Do not be wise in your own eyes: Fear the Lord and turn from evil. Proverbs 3:7
Loving on you today,
Bren
HigherGround Devotionals 