Following the instructions

How many of you reading this, have ever assembled furniture from a flat pack?

How many of you have gotten into trouble as a result of either not reading, or missing one or maybe several steps in the instructions?

I have to admit that recently I assembled two large cupboards from Ikea. Having done this before, I knew that following the instructions closely, step by step is critical to success – so that’s what I did.

You can imagine my bewilderment then, when I hefted up one half of the wardrobe (to attach it to the other side) and I could see immediately that something wasn’t right and there were clearly a bunch of missing pieces!!

‘How could that be?’ I was saying to myself, when I had followed every step? After putting the half wardrobe down and consulting the instructions again, I found two pages that I had previously not seen – it appears that the fan I had blowing on me had sneakily skipped a couple of pages while I was distracted!

It actually didn’t take me too long to find the missing pieces, work out and put them where they were meant to go, and complete the assembly task successfully.

Life is a bit like a very complex flat pack… “Whatever” I imagine you thinking, “it’s nothing like it! For starters there are no instructions”!!!

In fact there are – the Bible contains a whole lot of very relevant instructions about our everyday lives and if followed step by step, they can really help us to work out where the various bits and pieces of our lives fit properly. There’s advice on how to deal with other people, moral standards, personal integrity and even a wonderful offer of hope for the future!

Be warned though, it doesn’t mean that life will be easy, but hopefully it will help you to understand yourself better, as well helping to put a host of other things into a better perspective.    

God left all the instructions we could need – all we have to do is start following them.