Your Life: a guidebook

I saw a sign outside a church the other day that said, "Our lives are a guidebook for our children." Go ahead, take a minute to panic and freak out. But you know it's true. You already know you're an example living out in front of your children. You are also very aware that you're not always a good one.

Have you ever said, "I wish my child came with an instruction manual"? Whether you are the parent of a crying baby at 2:00am or locked in a struggle over veggies or a parent whose child has not returned home yet, and it's 2:00am, and she's not answering her cell, and you don't know if she's in trouble, ignoring you, or the phone just died, and you don't know if you will kill her when you finally see her (what page of the manual addresses this???)...I digress. We parents don't always know what to do, and there are so many times we want an easy answer.

You don't have a manual for your kids. You never received a manual for your own life. I could get religious here and tell you that the Bible is our manual, but I want to talk about those decisions that you don't know how to handle. The ones where there is no chapter and verse that states, "Take away her cell phone and ground her from all media for one week, thus saith the Lord." Or what about your own life? Why isn't there a book with your name that says in chapter 3 who you should marry? Or chapter 4, yes, take that job.

Now let's go back to the guidebook idea. You are listening for God's voice and doing your very best, and you still mess up. How can this be a guidebook? But it is. The Lord does not desire us to be perfect. In fact, He knows we can't be. When we're taken up to heaven, our character issues will be settled. Until then, He has left us here with our own flaws and hangups. Are we supposed to be diligently correcting those?

The real answer doesn't always match the questions we ask: we are supposed to live out the gospel. We are supposed to wrestle with our sin, seek the Spirit so that His fruit bears out in our lives, ask forgiveness, repent, do hard things, serve others, love our enemies. We, as failed people, empty ourselves before a holy God. In doing so, we write a guidebook for anyone watching--not easy answers, not a quick reference list, but a living example of who God is, how He provides in amazing ways, and how He doesn't give up on us.

Do you see a way to do that today? Good job. Keep going.