Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Another day with my brother-in-law, who's visiting this weekend. He and my nephew straightened up the garage for us...again. I was concerned that I couldn't pull my car all the way in last night when they were predicting hailstorms, so they worked hard to condense things and throw away some more items. There must be something in all that "stuff" in the garage that's reproducing, because it seems to grow every time we turn our backs.

Rees suggested a clever item that would prevent me from driving in too far and hitting some of that precious "stuff" we're talking about. He's seen people hang a ball on a string from the garage ceiling so when the ball touches the front window of your car, you know to stop. We couldn't find a ball that would work, so we made a ball out of Playdoh. I can't wait to go somewhere and try it out.

Isn't that the way the Ten Commandments work? They tell us when to stop our behavior, before we crash and make a mess of our lives. As I've been instructed to keep my eye on the ball, the Playdoh ball, we need to keep our eye on the Ten Commandments. That ball isn't strong enough to make me stop the car though. I still have to apply the brakes. And that's how it is with the Ten Commandments. They won't make me stop; they'll just tell me when to.

All the commandments but two begin with "Thou shalt not". A definite indicator to stop doing something. The fourth and fifth commandments, on the other hand, begin with something to do--first to remember to honor God on His Sabbath and also to honor our parents all our lives. They are the heart of God's law. They are the "ball" we are to keep our eye on, in order to have the strength, the brakes, to keep the rest of the commandments.

God knows how to keep us from crashing.