Missed Lesson

Micah 6:8 English Standard Version (ESV) He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Once the bible stopped being used as primer in school, what taught us to be good? Who asked us to be good? What made us feel good about ourselves? It fell back on the family to show us our place and how to feel about ourselves. If negative reinforcements were used, children grew up feeling like they were bad and that led to bad behavior because the truth still applies even in the absence of education.

Proverbs 23:6-8 English Standard Version (ESV)

Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies,
for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.“Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words.

Lessons of man’s fallen nature will not be taught. We learn about bad behavior by succumbing to our base nature and if we are told to enjoy life without understanding that life without justice, mercy and humility leads to a cycle of disappointments.

Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

A life lived to learn this lesson is a life wasted.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *