Do you know someone who just won’t shut up? I
mean, no matter what topic or when a conversation starts, they have to be the
one doing the talking. The faucet gets turned on and there is no stopping it.
People even leave the room and the chatter continues. They seem to have a
compulsion to fill empty auditory space with the sound of their voice.
Or perhaps the conversation always turns to
them. They make it about themselves, even though the situation warrants the conversation
being allowed to center somewhere else. You could be talking about just about
anything and they have a story about that subject. Sometime the stories fit,
but many times they are sidetracking topics.
Sometime people who are this way have a very
difficult time accepting what other people have to say. It is almost as if
their brains only work in one direction. They seem to be able to give it out,
but they can’t take it in. They are often very poor listeners.
One of the essential lessons of childhood is
learning to follow directions. Kids need to learn that they are not in charge
of their world. Parents are the first teachers of this lesson. It doesn’t make
us tyrants if we make rules and enforce them. In fact, it makes us a better
reflection of our Creator.
Some rules are just meant to be obeyed. We
can try all we want to disobey the rule of gravity, but it will win. What goes
up, must come down. If we try to ignore the rule, we will just end up falling. We
can temporarily experience what it feels like to be in a no gravity situation,
but this only happens when the plane is falling at the same speed as we are
falling. Gravity still wins.
Commands are meant to be obeyed. If we obey
quickly, there are better results than if we delay obedience. Quitting smoking
one day before we die of lung cancer is not as helpful as quitting after only
one day of smoking.
When we really obey a command we take the
truth contained in the command and make it a part of who we are. It becomes part
of the fabric of our being. Then we don’t even have to think about obeying, obedience
is just the way we live.
People say it takes several weeks to
establish a new habit or break and old one. Is there a habit you would like to
replace with another habit? Now is as good a time to start as any. Start
obeying.