Growing up is difficult. Learning lessons about who we truly are is painful. We can point fingers, stomp our feet and have a good cry, but when the crying's over we still have to decide what we are going to do. It seems I have a lot of this in my head, but how to get it to my heart?
The process of growth or should I say learning lessons can be comical. Thou shalt not kill. Easy one, right? One day you read it or heard it. It enters your brain through one of your senses. It pings around in your brain like a bee in a jar until it is finally absorbed. Murder is wrong. Then you have to get it to your heart. You swallow it. That was easy. No upset stomach. Then somehow it gets in your blood and is pumped by your heart throughout your body and it becomes a part of you. Every part of your being knows murder is wrong.
One day you're reading and you come up on a line in a book, "She murdered his character." Murdered character? Wow, never thought of it that way. Character assassination. Murder? It pings in your brain. It pings some more. You try to ignore it pinging around in there, because to admit it is true, is to admit guilt. I am a murderer. I haven't just murdered, but I have assassinated, annihilated, and on occasion hid in the trees until the right opportunity revealed itself and with the precision and accuracy of a well trained sniper, took my victim out with one speeding bullet, right to the heart. Our brain absorbs it. You try to swallow, but it gets stuck in your throat. You force it down to your stomach and it causes a little queasiness. It tries to come back up but you keep shoving it down there and before you know it, it passes right by your stomach and straight to your butt. You sit on it awhile. "Butt she deserved it." "Butt she talked about me." "But isn't the word murder a little harsh?" It's wrong. It's wrong! You can't deny it. Your chest hurts when your heart finally grabs onto it and some days you don't murder and other days you ask forgiveness.
This might make it a little easier to absorb. It does for me.
| No. | Exodus 20:2-17 | Ten Commandments For Kids |
| 1 | 2 I am the LORD your God, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 You shall have no other gods before me. | Put God first. |
| 2 | 4 You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 You shall not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my Commandments. | Worship God only. |
| 3 | 7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. | Use God's name with respect. |
| 4 | 8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shall you labour, and do all your work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. | Remember God's Sabbath. |
| 5 | 12 Honour your father and your mother: that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God giveth you. | Respect your parents. |
| 6 | 13 You shall not kill. | Do not hurt other people. |
| 7 | 14 You shall not commit adultery. | Be faithful in marriage. |
| 8 | 15 You shall not steal. | Do not steal. |
| 9 | 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. | Do not lie. |
| 10 | 17 You shall not covet your neighbour's house, you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is your neighbour's. | Do not be envious of others. |
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