Keeping Rules

We believe good parents set specific rules for their children, for their own good. Parents who want their children to succeed lay a foundation of education, nutrition and physical activities that broaden a child’s experiences, teaching them to interact with others while growing physically and intellectually.

My husband's early years lacked that. His parents were young, poor and soon separated, first by war. His father was drafted and sent away from the family. His mother was torn between her own children’s need and the needs of her father and siblings when her mother died, she being the eldest. Their separation ended in divorce, remarriages, separation of children and eventually Department of Human Services intervention, needed to care for neglected children.

Adoption brought my husband and his brother parents that set specific rules, education, etc., changing their interaction within society. Yet, it was their own decisions to follow these rules and parental examples that brought them success. They could have rebelled - many do.

This has always been a good example of our own response to adoption:

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. (Romans 8:15 KJV)

We are given the opportunity to be the children of a loving father, who has set specific rules for us. Even after we acknowledge His existence, we often ignore His rules, His guidelines given for our own growth. He does offer the best for us:

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? (Luke 11:11-13 KJV)

We’ve all seen parents who are quick to give a raised voice or a heavy fist. Not all parents are loving or wish their children success – but God does. And He prepared well ahead of time, before we could understand:

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. (1 Corinthians 2:9-12 KJV)

Because of what He has done for us, what He has given to us now and what is promised for our future, shouldn’t we be aware of His rules, His plans and expectations? Should we try to turn them into what we want? Ignore them? Only at our own peril:

Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; (Hebrews 2:1-3 KJV)