The Psalmist could have inserted my picture as the headline to this
Psalm. He was being kind and discreet,
but this has me written all over it. The
evidence is overwhelming, but one incident, in particular, gives the overall
sense of stubbornness lodged deep in my soul.
It happened on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon drive. There wasn’t much money in our household
budget, so a family drive was a major tool to combat hot summer boredom. This was long before the price of gas reached
a zillion dollars a gallon, back when air-conditioning in cars was for the
rich. To keep cool we had “450
air-conditioning” – you opened the car’s 4 windows and drove 50-miles-per-hour! But, I digress.
On one of those drives down the country lanes and backroads my Dad
favored, he half-turned to us boys in the back seat and told us to close our
eyes. Russell did the 10-year-old thing
every parent has heard: Why? Dad replied:
Just close ‘em; you’ll see. Russell:
But how can I ‘SEE’ with my eyes closed? Dad: Russell Jay
Brownworth…just close your eyes. Russell, (rolling eyes and
sighing rather dramatically) But, what if I don’t want to? Dad: It’s too late now –
just forget it.
Later that day my older brother, Thom informed me the moment I trashed
with my attitude was Dad’s attempt to add just a little more excitement to the
ride. He was coming to the “dip” in the
road, and was speeding up to get us airborne.
It’s one of those weightless instants when you’re suspended between going
up, and then down. It’s the apex of a
hill’s up-and-down that makes your stomach do a loop-de-loop. We couldn’t afford to go to the carnival
rides, so Dad was trying to bring the roller coaster to us. I wonder how often Dad whispered to himself: Will he never learn?
That incident always turns my mind to how my Heavenly Father may have the
same thought…not just about Russell – about God’s entire family. Sometimes our foolish ways are beyond
understanding. We steal moments of
selfish pleasure, thinking to enhance our lives and self-esteem, only to find
ourselves crumbling on the inside in shame and emptiness. We kill each other with amazing regularity, playing
out Cane’s hatred. We mock God with our
little sand castles of empires and imperialism, and find them washed away with
the next tide. Nothing we build lasts,
and little is our self-agrandizement recognized for the childish illusion of
life we claim. In short, like a
10-year-old stuffed with pride, we won’t listen to a single bit of helpful
joy. And God says: Will they never learn?
For You Today
Willfulness and
pride aren’t hard to hold-onto, but they’re the devil to let-go-of. And their results are harder to swallow than just
one spoiled moment on the roller coaster; failing to let go of self, to find
oneself wrapped in the everlasting arms of love from Father, is the most costly
of all our obtuse ways. This begs the
question unendingly: Will we never learn?
There
are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library. To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some
of these:
When Mercy Outweighs Justice and In the Beginning
[1] Images: Bing Images (Royalty Free) Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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