December 15, 2011
Curfew
While she was in high school my daughter Leslie wanted to be like her friends
and she was especially bummed because everyone in her peer group had a curfew
and she didn’t. We now laugh at the fact that she even went so far as to plead
with me to give her one that would match her friend’s. Because I trusted
Leslie, I simply required that she call and check-in with me around 10:00 pm. I
thought if she were having a bad time and wanted to get out of an uncomfortable
situation, she could use me as an excuse by saying, ‘My mom just told me I have to come home’. If on the other hand if I
knew who she was with and that she was having a good time, she could stay as
long as she liked. As believers one of the hardest things we have to do it to take
ownership of our freedom in Christ. I can hear myself saying, ‘Lord just please give me a curfew and tell
me what time you want me home!’
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Curfews are interesting. It isn’t that either the person or the place where a person is is wrong. It is that the time for a person’s being there has passed. They are the change of propriety about a situation, and if you think about it, social life is full of them. One simple example that catches me every time is the dinner speech. I enjoy eating, especially when I’m having a good time. And the more I am enjoying it the slower I do it. So it always seems that while I am only half way through my chow, waiters have picked up everyone else’s empty plates, the speaker is tapping the mic, and I’m being the distraction shoveling food into its mouth whose dirty plate will sit amongst all its neighbors throughout the rest of the speech. Oh boy!
-----I don’t know why Leslie wanted a curfew. I would hope because she understood the dynamics of changing proprieties. But even at that, understanding becomes curfews unto herself, her maturity having come early to give you rejoicing. A well social skilled individual by nature tends all the curfews of life and predominantly gets them right. Their lives go well and they prosper. Even those with whom they interact prosper by the nature of the way they simply do things right. Of course, the Bible calls such curfews “righteousness“, but we tend to miss this simple connotation of the word. People who want to operate naturally within all of life’s curfews are the righteous. “[The Lord] blesses the abode of the righteous.” (Prov 3:33b) “[Their] path is like the light of dawn.” (Prov 4:18a) “[Their] mouth is a fountain of life,” (Prov 10:11) because “[their] thoughts are just.” (Prov 12:5b) “The desire of the righteous will be granted,” (Prov 10:24b) and, “when it goes well with [them], the city rejoices,” (Prov 11:10a), for “[their] fruit is a tree of life,” (Prov 11:31a) as, “[their] desire ends only in good,” (Prov 11:23a) and, “prosperity rewards [them].” (Prov 13:21b).
-----Understanding social curfews and abiding in them is systemic of humility, integrity, and love for one another. But if any one of these three is replaced with its counterpart, understanding will crumble and the individual will seek abandon. As more individuals of a society fall into abandon, the more important it becomes for what had been personally observed curfews to become politically imposed regulations. The more necessary it is for order to be kept by regulation, the less the people understand. The less they understand, the more they are controllable. The more they are controllable the more the regulations serve the regulators, and the more that happens the more the regulators become the unrighteous.
-----Finally we stand prepared to be slaves without being called slaves. Good pastors helped atheists buck honor for God in public schools, fearing encroachment upon their precious doctrines. Little did they know how important to a society’s freedom were the simple traits of humility, integrity, and love for one another which God wants instilled in the children. Their precious doctrines were totally irrelevant to that situation, just the honoring of God and the teaching of life’s curfews would have done. Too bad. Too late now.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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