FOOD FOR YOUR JOURNEY
22 October
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.
Psalm 119:9
I can remember as a young teenager one of my school teachers saying to me:
If you don’t change your ways you’ll amount to nothing!
Many years later, whilst on holiday in The Cape, South Africa, with my parents, I met a wonderful girl called Marlene who challenged me to think about what the Bible taught. She was a Christian and she told me about Jesus and what He had done for all of us on the Cross of Calvary. Reading the Scriptures some time later I came to realise that the Word of God was actually having an effect on me. It was changing my attitude and behaviour. It was having an effect on my thoughts and the way I looked at life and the way I treated other people, and it is for this reason that I have chosen today’s verse in Psalm 119.
There are so many parents nowadays who lament the behaviour of their children and wonder if they are to blame, asking the age old question: Where did I go wrong? Schools spend an enormous amount of time and effort, not to mention money, on students who have so called behavioural problems. Special units within schools are set up and Teaching Staff are sent on additional training courses to try and understand these issues and to learn how to handle pupils with special needs and I have often wondered if all this is because we have ignored God in our homes as well as in our schools. Perhaps it is as a result of the whole of society deciding they can get along fine without God and the teaching of Scripture. In America the reading of Bibles and praying is banned. Public reference to Jesus Christ and His atoning death on the Cross is not permitted.
And yet the Bible tells us that:
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Matthew 4:4
What are we to make of this?
I know for absolute certainty what I will choose….. and it is written in the Bible:
With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee. Blessed art thou O Lord: teach me Thy statutes.
Psalm 119:10-12