Monday meditation: Timeless guardrails for how to stay steady

Most readers of this meditation don’t need any teaching about the Ten Commandments.

We know the Ten Commandments.

We memorized them as children. We put placards containing them on our walls, and we fought (largely in vain) to keep them displayed in court houses or public school buildings.

We love the Ten Commandments.

We realize, of course, some ignore the Ten Commandments. They’ve decided all these rules seem so negative, largely out-of-sync with contemporary sensibilities. “Let’s talk about a God of love,” they propose, “not a God meddling with what I say or what I have or how I handle my marriage.”

Even more discouraging, though, are those who saw the picture accompanying this meditation and thought, Hmmm, that’s nice, but that’s all. It’s not that they’re rejecting these guardrails from God they first learned long ago. They just don’t think much about them anymore.

Many of us can relate. We’d never say the Ten Commandments aren’t true. But caregivers, especially, are just too busy or burdened to meditate long on a list of thou-shalt-nots. There’s a bathroom to clean and pills to dispense and laundry, always laundry. I have no opportunity to steal anything, some are thinking. Or anyone who’d listen if I did tell a lie. And don’t talk to me about adultery! Who has the energy for adultery?

But if we’ll take five minutes slowly and soberly to read these Commandments again, we might be surprised at how relevant they still are.

We see their breach in every headline.

And, even for us older readers, even for those who feel several of these issues are no longer our issues, we’ll probably find at least one that pinches at least a little.

Meanwhile, if we’re seeking a more positive way to look at life, we can find it in the summary of the Commandments Jesus quoted. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. . . . Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

It’s easy to love someone or something more than God: My preferences about how to spend my day. My feelings. My time.

And my neighbor? No one’s a closer neighbor than the afflicted person sitting in the next room. Love her as I love myself? Now, there’s a goal worthy of a placard!

Again and again, the psalmist proclaimed how he felt about the Commandments. He saw value we tend to forget. “Great peace have those who love your law,” he prayed to God, “and nothing can make them stumble.”

If we can’t relate to commandments, we can certainly identify with stumbling. If we’d like to do less of it, maybe we’d be well served to look again at these rules for steady living. And even though they were first heard by ancients so long, long ago, maybe we can admit how we still need them today.

Read: Exodus 24:12; Deuteronomy 5:7-21

Pray: Thank you, Lord, for telling us the very best way to live. Help us to see in your Word direction for how to keep my life on sound footing.