Receive Instruction

April 8

Kids avoid correction. There is something about youth that has the notion of its own infallibility and the belief extrapolated from that perception seems to be, ‘If I already know everything, there’s nothing I possibly need to learn from anyone.’ Parents are ‘tuned out’ because of this train of logic.

We who are of a certain age, who have been there and done that, recognize the syndrome when we see it in our youth, but we know they are not interested in hearing counsel from us that would prevent their fall into the pit of delusion and disappointment this perception digs for them.

The Lord knows there is a remnant of the child in us, even when we are well beyond the adolescent stage of defiance toward parental authority. As loving natural parents and teachers strive to steer young people away from the negative attitude that we know will be their undoing, so God tries to reveal the harm of that attitude if we continue to indulge it regarding His instruction.

In Proverbs 3:11, 12, we are admonished, “Do not despise the Lord’s instruction for the Lord disciplines the one He loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” Rather than resist the correction of the Lord, we should open ourselves to appropriate and apply it so we will be able to glean the blessings beyond our grasp.