Guardrails

Reading through the law can be grueling.  There's so many do's and dont's, it makes my head spin.  Why in the world would God the Father put such expectations on His people?  Because He loved them!  There just can't be any other explanation, for God is love.  Paul writes in Galatians 3:19 (TM), "The purpose of the law was to keep a sinful people in the way of salvation until Christ came."  To keep a sinful people in the way of salvation!  From the beginning of time, God intended to send His Son to save His people, but until that day came God graciously provided some guidelines to help His children stay on the way. 

As a parent, this is helpful to read.  In a world where darkness abounds, it is our responsibility to come alongside our kids and help them stay on the way.  I recently heard a speaker refer to house rules being like guardrails on a highway.  Those guardrails are there to keep a car from going over the edge of a road.  We all know what a mess it would be if a car actually flew over the edge.  It would be devastating!  What an ugly mess there'd be to clean up, not to mention probable death to all those in the car.  So as parents, we too must establish guardrails.  Love must be the motivation though.  Not control, not pride, not anger . . . only love. 

I did chuckle when I read the Israelites response, "We will do everything the Lord has commanded.  We will obey." (Exodus 24:7 NLT)  I get this mental picture of the little blue and green aliens in Toy Story 2 that kept following Mr. Potato Head around saying, "You have saved our lives, we are eternally grateful."  The Israelites wanted to obey.  The Red Sea had just been parted and the bonds of slavery  shattered.  I'm sure they were extremely grateful.  However, obedience wasn't easy and time after time their flesh would prevail.  Yet God's grace would abound and those guardrails remained to help them.

I want love to motivate all that I do as a parent and grace to be abundant in our home.  It is a daily prayer of mine right now.  Love is tough sometimes.  I used to balk at the concept of "tough love".  Naively I thought, if I train my kids in the right way, their response will be like those aliens, "You have saved our lives, we are eternally grateful."  That would be music to my ears at first, yet like Mr. Potato Head I'd eventually get tired of that heartless robotic reply.  My children have a body, a soul, and a spirit that is unique to themselves.  Growing up involves discovering who they are and who they want to be.  Inevitably, there's going to be a lot of bumps and bruises along the way.  The guardrails are there because they are loved, and grace abounds to help them get back up when they do fall down.  Every parent I've talked to wants their kids to go through life unscathed, so we do our best to help them.  Ultimately though, there comes a time when our children must stand on their own two feet.  Injuries can become the tools our Father uses to shape them.  Parents need to be arrows that point to Jesus, for He is our sure foundation. Just as the guardrails must stem from a heart of love, so should obedience.  It's a shift in all of our hearts that needs to take place.  We obey not because we want to be loved but because we ARE!  That's freeing for me as a child of God and it gives me hope as a parent.