When in doubt, read the instructions!

I've usually tried to be a cautious driver.  You know, obey the speed limit, give others the right of way, yield to pedestrians, that sort of thing.  It just works so much better that way. 

(On a side note, that might be why I tend to frustrate some people when I drive.  If you go the speed limit in New Jersey, you'd better expect to be honked at.)

Can you imagine what this world would be like if nobody obeyed the rules of traffic?  If people went whatever speed they wanted whereever they wanted?  It would be utter chaos.  There would be people going a hundred and fifty miles an hour down neighborhood streets, cars weaving in and out of traffic, driving the wrong way.  Accident reports would skyrocket.  People would die left and right because of people assuming that another person wouldn't go when they did.  Just imagine a major intersection, and imagine what would happen if there were no stoplight.  I wouldn't expect there to be less than one accident per day at that intersection.

You see, we human beings are kind of stupid.  Myself included.  On our own, we want what we want, and we want it now.  We do whatever pleases us, and hang the consequences.  That's why God gives us commandments.

Just like traffic rules help us stay safe, the commandments aren't meant to limit us or make us suffer; rather, they are to help us stay free from the paralyzing influences of sin.  No matter how fun the sin may appear, it is always more enjoyable in the end to obey the commandments.  Having experienced it, the fun of speeding into the triple digits is more than matched by the misery of sitting in that car as the cop writes you a ticket.

Can you imagine the peace that would envelope the world if everyone were to keep the ten commandments? 

• There would be no crime, because noone would steal. 
• The number of illegitemate children and divorced families would drop to almost nil. 
• Loving our neighbor would be more important than keeping up with the Joneses. 
• We could take the 4.8 billion dollars that are annually spent on crime prevention and put them to a much better use.  Add to that the 2.5 billion that the defense department recieves, and we're up to more than seven billion dollars, free to be used by the government as needed. 
• Contention and domestic violence would all but disappear.

This is all if people only kept half of the Ten Commandments.  What would happen if people kept all of them?

Of course, while we are in the flesh we will not achieve such lofty perfection.  However, that should not impede us from striving for excellence.

In this blog, I know that I've looked and sounded a bit like a hippy dreamer, with shouts of "Give peace a chance!"  Is that so bad?  It's better than the alternative.  God loves us.  He wants us to be happy.  If that means that I have to give up certain things, so be it.