you remember the show. two families are revealed in a real life family portrait, then begin jumping for joy when they are introduced to the studio and viewing audience. the games begin with the phrase, "the top ten answers are on the board..."
i spent my weekend with a family that i have known for many years. early Monday morning (ok not really early, but 7 a.m. is early on your day off!) i woke several time to screaming. not bad, blood-curdling screams, but to screaming like this: "get out of bed! it's ten to seven and you have band practice at 7. you are going to be late," "it's seven-thirty, get out of the shower. i am going to be late for work," and my favorite "ouch! hey you are not supposed to bite my hand,". it's always fun staying at their house!
but the events of the morning got me thinking, when i really woke up at the more decent day-off hour of 9 a.m. i was thinking about when i was a kid and everything my mom did to get me out of bed. turning on the lights and leaving the room, pulling off my cover in the middle of winter, turning music on very loud, physically pulling my out of bed and yelling at me to get out of bed or i will be grounded for tv for life. (the ground from tv thing did not work. in fact my mom bought me my tv for my birthday several years ago!)
all of this reminded of God and Israelites. time and time again in the old testament the Israelites separated themselves from and God and did their own thing. and time and time again, God would send some one or something that would warn them to do the right thing or there would be some serious consequences. and then they wouldn't like what was said, turn away from God, fall on their faces and then go running back to God. He would accept them back and life would go on until they did it again. He would not get frustrated, at least He didn't share that with us.
will we ever be able to break away from going back to our old behaviors? are we truly able to be people who follow Jesus and keep growing?
Comments