dar334

My thoughts over the past couple days have caused a lot of pondering on my part.  One of the biggest challenges I face would fall under the heading ‘Old Testament Civil Laws’, with the subheading of ‘ To Follow or Not To Follow?”.  As I pondered the three main Biblical laws, civil, ceremonial and moral, and how the New Testament negated several of them, I still struggle with wanting to demonstrate ‘An eye for an eye’.  I’ve pondered over the parable found in Matthew 20:1-16 and have even written down part of it to assure that I don’t forget the face value.  In this parable, Jesus tells of a vineyard owner who made several trips in to town throughout the day to find people to work in his vineyard.  When evening came and it was time to pay the workers, the ones hired at the end of the day received the same pay as the ones hired late in the afternoon.  Now mind you, we all would have a problem with being paid the same amount for 10 hours of work when someone else got paid the same for only working 1 hour.  The moral of the story is the vineyard owner had the right to pay what he wanted whether you thought it was fair or not.  After all, even though you worked 10 hours, you agreed to do that for a set amount of money, in this case a denarius, so the vineyard owner kept up his part of the agreement, he could also give a denarius to the late arrival if he wanted to, it was his money. Case closed.

Now mind you, the meaning of the parable was that even if you have followed the laws of the Lord for the 90 years of your life, walking in complete obedience, you can not rightfully be angry at the Lord for allowing another who accepted Jesus as his savior and repented his sins at the very end of his 90 years of life, even though 89 years of his life he did everything completely the opposite of what the Lord required …… he gets a place in heaven the same as you.  God is gracious and forgiving.

With that said, I have noticed a few instances over the last few months where I would like to pay only 1/10 of a danerius to the late arriver and 12 danerius (is that a correct placement of a  ‘  Tonya?) to the loyal follower of God.  Now in regards to ‘An eye for an eye’, I have had several instances where I would like that to come in to play.  I have had to put myself in time-out several times while I thought about the actions of my mind in regards to paybacks.

My problem today lies with punctuality.  I am completely annoyed by tardiness and what makes it even worse is when I want to ‘pay back’ the annoyance I have felt.  I have had several instances where there was a mutual agreement to meet, at let’s say 3:00.  Now in reality, if the agreement is to meet at 3:00, then at 3:00 both parties should be at the agreed upon location.  (At least that’s how I roll.  In fact, I will be there at 2:50 just in case you arrive early, but I won’t start being annoyed until 3:01.)  Now the devil on my left shoulder wants me to tell you 2:30 and then arrive at 3:00 so you know how it feels to wait.  But then the angel on my right shoulder says to wait there patiently because you may have a valid reason for your tardiness.  At which point the devil on the left whispers that at 3:00 you decided it was time to get your shoes on, use the bathroom, then head out to door to meet me, hence arriving late.

Now the same situation can be used a work.  Start time at work is, let’s say 9:00.  (You have bankers’ hours)  This does not mean you go through the ritual mentioned above and arrive at 9:10, considering your shoes are slip on and you live 5 minutes from work.  Now let’s say the employee manual says 9:00 is start time, and if you are late 3x you will be fired.  Now another problem surfaces.  You arrive late 4x and you are not fired.  As with parenting when you do not get punished for negative behavior, all the other kids are going to arrive at their own sweet time too and you can’t do anything about it because you didn’t punish the first instance but allowed it to repeat.

Now as for ‘An eye for an eye’, I have to remember that book I spoke of the other day.  So I will arrive on time for our meeting, or arrive on time to start my workday, when in fact I want to go all Old Testament on you and start slinging stones.   But instead I smile and give you a friendly greeting and move on with my day.

The need to write this started with my morning reading which had a study that said:
By doing what is right, you will be pleasing God, whose opinion matters most.

It’s hard work to please God, but in the end it will be worth it.  Can I get an “AMEN!” ?

Always pondering,

dar