Cheap Lessons

I am, at heart, a bargain hunter. I love to find the lowest prices for the best quality. There is just something about the thrill of finding a service or product for a reduced price. Its a sense of victory and accomplishment for me. I bring my conquests home and lay it out for my husband to see. Explaining how each and every item was obtained at a low price.

In the same light, life lessons can also come cheap, in the fact that they can cost little or nothing by the way of negative consequences. I have found, as the youngest of six, the cheapest life lessons can come by simply watching and noting the results in the lives of others. My siblings have made many painful, life-altering choices. I hesitate to say that these lessons came cheap for me, it was heart-wrenching watching them go through the consequences of their choices. At the same time, I did sit up and take notice of how their choices have impacted their lives. Very much of who I am and the choices I've made in my own life, were based upon "second-hand" life lessons. It has also shaped my parenting and teaching of my children.

In my studying of the Bible, I found this precious gem. A life-lesson that is FREE to all who apply it.

"For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." 1 Corinthians 11: 31-32

Self-examination is the most cheapest life lesson one can receive. I have found myself many times thinking about someone else, and the way they live their lives, I would wonder about that person to the point of examining who I thought they were.

But how much more can I do, with how I know I am? That was a question that would pop up in my mind when I found myself in that state of thought. God, who as a Father, chastens us in order to fashion us like our Brother. How many painful mistakes and negative consequences can we avoid, if we focus on judging ourselves rather than judging others? How much more blessings can we receive if we took the Word of God upon ourselves and apply it to our daily lives?

"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed" James 1:22-25

What is the Bible, but a free life lesson? May you be blessed this day in the Lord.