As a parent, there are some words I dread hearing more than others. If you have children, you know the words I’m talking about. They are words that can make you break out in a cold sweat just thinking about them. Just knowing I will hear those words makes me almost terrified to face the reality of the situation. You know those words… “some assembly required.” I am not the most mechanically inclined person. I do some things well, but I struggle with things mechanical.
It could be anything requiring assembling. Toys (especially toys), furniture… you name it, and I was able to make sure the pieces didn’t fit. I remember bringing a bookshelf home in a box to be put together. Now, how hard can it be to assemble a bookshelf? After opening the box, I discovered how foolish my assumption had been. It took over two hours of tedious work before it even resembled the picture on the box, much less became operational. I could never had done it without the instruction manual.
Our lives are that way. We start off trying to assemble our life on our own. After all, how hard can it be to assemble our lives? But we soon learn it is not that easy. Life is tough. Many people I have encountered seem to be wandering through life with no idea how to fit the pieces of life together. There are people who have broken lives, marriages torn apart, family relationships that have become far less than they could have been, relationships with others that have shattered. And we cry out wishing for an instruction manual, because we soon realize how complicated that “some assembly required” really is. So we go off looking for books (bookstores and the internet are filled with them) that tell us how we should assemble ourselves while not paying attention to the Book that tells us how we should assemble ourselves so that we function at our greatest capacity.
We look at our children in frustration because we don’t always know just how to respond in a crisis situation. We sit in despair because we don’t know what to say when we are having a problem relating to our spouse. And we wish we had a manual that would tell us just what to do.
The good news is we have such an instruction manual. It is one that tells us how to relate to our family members, co-workers, our neighbors and even our enemies. It tells us where we can draw comfort in times of sadness and hope from despair. It tells us how we can cope when we are lonely and how to find true joy. This is not some new self-help or psychology book. You won’t find it in the self-help section of the bookstore. Chances are, you already have a copy of it. That’s right, it’s the Bible.
Unfortunately, too many of us fail to realize just what a valuable resource we have right at our fingertips. And so I ask, when was the last time you went to it and God for help? Like any instruction manual, it works best if you do not wait to turn to it after messing up the assembly. You need to be following it all along. It is never too late to start.
You can maximize your performance, function at your greatest capacity and effectiveness as a human being if you will just follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Proverbs 21:11 says “When a wise person is instructed, they get knowledge.”
