Diligence Revisited

Have you ever had a time in your life when the same topic or idea keeps coming up over and over again and you finally clue in that God is trying to get your attention?

I can point back to numerous times in my life when that has been my experience.  It usually means that God wants my obedience in a certain area that is lacking.  I can specifically remember the way the idea of adoption kept falling in my lap out of nowhere, or so it seemed, until I finally got the message.  Keith was a part of that one, too, of course.  God worked on both of our hearts for some time before we finally submitted to His will for us.  Little did we know the countless lessons and blessings that would be ours through the awesome adventure that awaited us.

There have been other times as well.  I can be a little slow when it comes to seeing the obvious.

Yesterday I posted some verses that God had impressed upon my heart about the need for me to be diligent in teaching my kids and others about the goodness of God.  It was the idea of diligence that struck me.

Today, I was studying the beginning of Psalm 119 and this verse jumped out like it was in bold print.

"You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently."  ~ Psalm 119:4 

So, not only does God tell us to diligently teach His precepts to those following behind us, but He has commanded us to diligently keep those very precepts ourselves.

What exactly does it mean to be diligent?

"Diligence:  constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken; persistent exertion of body or mind."      ~ Dictionary.com 

Constant...really?  Earnest...really?  All the time and with real effort.  That's what it means.  Not a haphazard attempt to throw it in here and there as you go through your day with your kids, or at work, or wherever.  Not a life of obedience when it's convenient for us or when it's easy.  It is a purposed, concentrated, "persistent exertion of body or mind."  I would go so far as to say body and mind since we fight daily battles in both arenas.

The psalmist was obviously struck with this idea of diligence, too, as he followed that statement with this one.

"Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes!"  ~Psalm 119:5

As I purpose to teach my kids each day, I must remember the importance, the necessity, of keeping God's statutes faithfully and living them out in front of others.  Otherwise, my words mean nothing.  My prayer is that those following after me will see someone that preaches what they practice.  That I may, in all honesty, tell them to follow me as I follow Christ.

As I've thought on this today, I've really been astounded at the depth of this one word that God has impressed upon my heart.  If one word of His can have so much impact, it is easy to see how we will be able to study and dwell on the Bible for all eternity without exhausting it's depths.

Diligence

In my quiet time this morning I was reminded of the importance, actually the absolute necessity, of being diligent in passing on the ways of the Lord to our children and the generations that follow after us.  

Moses communicated God's message to His people in the book of Deuteronomy.  

"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up."  ~ Deut. 6: 5-7

Most of us are familiar with this passage in Deuteronomy but the thing that really spoke to me this morning came from a couple of follow on passages.

"Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, and had known all the deeds of the LORD which He had done for Israel."  ~ Joshua 24:31

Obviously the people were following God's command up to this point.  However, by the time Joshua died, someone--many actually--had dropped the ball.

"Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of one hundred and ten...All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel."  ~ Judges 2:8 & 10

I would contend that they didn't know the LORD or what He had done because no one told them.  The really disturbing part is what immediately follows those verses in Judges.

"Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals, and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who where around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the LORD to anger."  ~ Judges 2:11-12

In one generation, the elders had failed to pass on their knowledge of God and the consequences were devastating.  The people did evil in God's sight, served the Baals, forsook the LORD, followed other gods, bowed down to them, ultimately provoking the LORD to anger.  We see this playing out all around us, and I have to wonder at what point God will say "enough".

Although our culture looks like the people of Israel who did not know the LORD, I don't want that to be said of my family.  My prayer this morning is that I will be diligent about sharing with them all that God has written on my heart and done in my life and that has to start with me knowing those things myself.

"Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil."  ~ Ephesians 5: 15-16