When our children hear and see our teaching and adopt the truth as their own, God’s success follows. The challenge with success is not the desire to be successful but the paths we take to reach the desired destination.
Daily Devotion
Daily Devotion
Road Rules: Lazy Desires
The sluggard has desires, but they are unwilling to put in the work to make them happen. They are too lazy to get the education, training, and experience to achieve what they want, so they look for shortcuts.
Road Rules: Excuses. Excuses. Excuses
Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. The sluggard is full of them. “I am overqualified.” “I am underqualified.” “That’s too challenging.” “That’s not challenging enough.” “I am waiting for the perfect job that fits my gifts and training perfectly.”
Road Rules: Smoke in Your Eyes
The sluggard’s failure not only leaves a sour taste in our mouths; they also paralyze our progress. Ever get a face full of smoke? You are blinded until the smoke goes away and your eyes stop burning.
Road Rules: Go to the Ant
Laziness puts a person and all their dependents at risk. Idleness will not provide for the needs of today. Working half-heartedly will jeopardize the wherewithal to meet the needs of tomorrow.
Road Rules: Laziness
Laziness produces poverty—in all areas of life. It keeps us from being all God intended us to be, whether at home, work, or worship. Laziness is a lack of discipline that will keep us out of shape physically and spiritually. Poverty, in all forms, will come upon us “like a robber” and steal the blessings of God.
Road Rules: Stiff-Necked
Scripture describes those who refuse repeated warnings as “stiff-necked.” Their pride will not allow them to “bend” to others. They will live life in their time frame and on their terms. It will seem to them, for a while at least, that they were right and everybody else was wrong.
Road Rules: Prudence
We can’t always control how our children will respond. Sometimes they will need to learn life’s lessons through their own failures. But, parents, never give up on them even when it seems like they are not listening. The older they get, the smarter you get.
Road Rules: Decision of Confrontation
We are all “prone to wander,” and the decision we make when confronted is multi-layered. The decision not only impacts us but those around us. When we heed instruction, we show the “path to life” for others. When we ignore reproof, we lead “others astray.” It’s a pretty big decision, isn’t it?
Road Rules: Listen to Wisdom
In today’s passage, wisdom (personified) cries out in the noisy streets and reminds all who will listen that she is willing and ready to pour out her spirit to all who will listen and respond to her correction. But to those who reject her, terror will strike them “like a storm” and calamity will sweep over them “like a whirlwind” (Proverbs 1:27).
Road Rules: Reproof
So, for all those who “know it all,” there is still a lot of learning to do. When you desire obedience, you will love attaining knowledge even when the truth hurts and demands a change in your life.
Road Rules: Ditch the Angry Person
A “man of wrath” is controlled by anger. You know the type. They are constantly railing about something. The government. The educational system. Their business partners. The neighbors. How someone treated them at a particular restaurant.