Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.
Abraham Lincoln
It’s Memorial Day, and I’ve been thanking God for all those who have given their lives for our freedom and to honour our country. It started me thinking about how little we honour them or anyone, especially God, today.
If you haven’t considered this before, just try it. If we honour God in all things, he’ll always be pleased, and if he chooses to bless us, it’s often in ways that we don’t expect. I love this characteristic of God—the unpredictable, don’t-put-me-in-a-box ways he chooses to bring joy into our lives. However, we do need to keep in mind that sometimes when we’re looking at the torn up, hard-to-put-back pieces of our life, it might not look like any kind of blessings at the moment. It’s only down the road of our faith walk that we learn how perfect his plans are for our lives. C.S. Lewis’ quote best sums it up:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.
At times, we need to understand that we won’t get our answers until we reach the other side, but we can always assume the best about God’s character—he’s faithful and just in all his ways.
“The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.”
-Psalm 145:17 (ESV)
Honouring God is simple—place Christ at the center of everything we do, if we think it will please him, do it. If not, dump it. I know this isn’t easy, but we need to begin somewhere. Whatever we do, we need to remember we can’t con God so it’s best not to waste our time trying. By adding rituals and rules that God never asked of us, we tend to make things much more complicated than they need to be. It’s his grace, and his grace alone that enables us to do what we can’t do on our own strength. The amazing thing is that we can’t out honour God! His blessings on our lives are unceasing.
And just a thought—if you have children and they’re not honouring or respecting you, consider this: Children will do what you do, not what you tell them to do. Sometimes it just might be because they don’t see you honouring anyone.
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