Cheap Lesson

Charming words is likened to sweet melodies that plays all the right notes to the ear and heart. Inclusive of me, people like to hear sweet n pleasing things. Who doesn't? We like to choose and select what people say or think about us. However, there's always two side to the coin and not just one rosy side. Have you heard of the expression, "You want the truth, you can't handle the truth" ? Its true isn't it? When confronted with aspects of truth in relation to ourselves, we feel uneasy and don't want to hear it even though we know it is true. We want to hide or switch off cause its not the notes we want to hear. At other times, we can even add in our own notes, we can sometimes twist and distort the note (truth) to see fit to our ears. I remind myself, just as a music piece is played, there is the buildup, the slow parts, the reflecting parts and dramatic parts in the song. We need to listen to the whole original song to fully enjoy it shouldn't we?

Proverb 9:8 "The wise in heart accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin" and 12:15 "The way of a fool seems right to him but a wise man listens to advice"

Take a look at Isaiah 30:6-26 where the people of Judah was confronted by the prophet Isaiah who proclaimed destruction and repentance. Take a look at their response in verse 10 "They say to the seers, see no more visions and to the prophets, give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way get off this path and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel". Its funny in a way that history, mankind repeats itself. We have two extremes, one set of people would see the world as optimistic and the other pessimistic. Either case we fall in, we should look at the truth as a whole as these two are just glasses we wear, either one we wear, the TRUTH is still there, it doesn't change. What happened during the time of Isaiah is Judah, the people of God, they believed God and knew the truth, but they were double minded. They shun truth and sort after what was pleasant to the ears to feed their needs and egos. Eventually when they disobeyed God, when they turn to the worldly treasures and self understanding, destruction came. People suffered, people died, people were lost. But there's hope, when they repented and turn towards God.
Only when they repented and turned to God though the adversity and affliction, God led them through and they were blessed more than before because they listened and trusted in the truth of God. The goodness of God increased as shown in verse 26 where the sun and moon shone 7 times brighter. The encouragement is to listen to the correction, only then his goodness in our life increases when we walk with him. This is his promise to us. He has plans to prosper us and not harm us right!

Application wise, this week as I was collecting photos for sunday, I saw that there were no cars on both direction and it was a red light, so I quickly did a U-turn while putting on my seat belt and within that 4seconds a police car came out. Guess what happened? I was booked. The price was exactly the price of a guitar that I wanted to get but decided to save money for. So my pocket felt the pain but I learnt something. My first reaction is I am a good guy, why aren't you catching those drunkards or those speed racers who are worse offenders. My fault compared to them is smaller. You know, although I felt this way, I knew I was in the wrong because the law says before you drive off, you need to put on the seat belt. No matter how good of a driver I am and how I normally do this, I was still in the wrong. I didnt feel good about it, but the lesson is do we have small habits that we see are passable but deep down we know it isnt right? Because these small things can take root in our heart and it will trip us up in the future. We need to deal with every aspect of our life. We need to crucify it to Christ. Or else it will catch up to us and bite us in the behind one day. Another point is are we able to swallow and stand corrected before the law, and not only the law but Gods counsel?

So I thank God for this gentle reminder. Because it is true we need to follow authority, especially Gods authority. We should have a heart that is able to be corrected, listening and obeying. The policeman shared to me that he had accident before, within that 4seconds without seat belt his head hit through the window screen. So even though its small time frame, something can happen. Hence the law is there to protect us just as Gods word is there to guide us out of harms way.

Correction doesnt sound pleasant at times. But just as medicine when you are sick, you need to take your medicine no matter how bad it tastes. It will help you get better!