Guidance

by Charles R. Swindoll
Proverbs 16:9

God offers instruction, but then it's our move. We must accept His instruction and apply it to our lives. Then, and only then, can we expect to cash in on the benefits of His instruction. So you see, application is the essential link between instruction and change.

Imagine, if you will, that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad. So he says to you and the other trusted employees, "Look, I'm going to leave. And while I'm gone, I want you to pay close attention to the business. You manage things while I'm away. I will write you regularly. When I do, I will instruct you in what you should do from now until I return from this trip." Everyone agrees. He leaves and stays gone for a couple of years. During that time he writes often, communicating his desires and concerns. Finally he returns. He walks up to the front door of the company and immediately discovers everything is in a mess---weeds flourishing in the flower beds, windows broken across the front of the building, the gal at the front desk dozing, loud music roaring from several offices, two or three people engaged in horseplay in the back room. Instead of making a profit, the business has suffered a great loss. Without hesitation he calls everyone together and with a frown asks, "What happened? Didn't you get my letters?" You say, "Oh, yeah, sure. We got all your letters. We've even bound them in a book. And some of us have memorized them. In fact, we have 'letter study' every Sunday. You know, those were really great letters." I think the president would then ask, "But what did you do about my instructions?" And, no doubt, the employees would respond, "Do? Well, nothing. But we read every one!"

In the very same way, God has sent us His instruction. He has preserved every word of it in a Book, the Bible. It's all there, just as He communicated it to us. When He returns for His own, He is not going to ask us how much we memorized or how often we met for study. No, He will want to know, "What did you do about my instructions?"

Nails on the Fence

There was a boy who was always losing his temper. His father gave him a bag full of nails and said to him, "My son, I want you to hammer a nail into our garden fence every time you need to direct your anger against something and you lose your temper."

So the son started to follow his father's advice. On the first day he hammered in 37 nails, but getting the nails into the fence was not easy, so he started trying to control himself when he got . As the days went by, he was hammering in less nails, and within weeks he was able to control himself and was able to refrain from getting and from hammering nails. He came to his father and told him what he had achieved. His father was with his efforts and said to him: "But now, my son, you have to take out a nail for every day that you do not get ."

The son started to take out the nails for each day that he did not get , until there were no nails left in the fence. He came to his father and told him what he had achieved. His father took him to the fence and said, "My son, you have done well, but
look at these holes in the fence. This fence will never be the same again." Then he added: "When you say things in a state of anger, they leave marks like these holes on the hearts of others. You can stab a person and withdraw the knife but it doesn't matter how many times you say 'I'm sorry,' because the wound will remain.