Right back at you! Respect or not?

When we were little people our parents tried to teach us to respect our elders, right? Well, isn't it just like tossing a rock in the water and the water comes back to hit you, doesn't our actions do the same thing?

I was reminded in today's reading with Rehoboam that he forgot to respect his elders. He did ask their opinion about what he should do in respect to the workers, but he didn't listen. It tells us he rejected the advice of the older men and instead ask for the opinion of the young men he had grown up with and were now his advisers. Well, I see a couple of problems right off with this picture. The young men were his buddies and they were feeling pretty good about themselves right at this point. They were now elevated to the role of being pretty important in their own little mind not to mention those around them. They were walking high and forgot the men that had walked this path before them.

How often do we do the same thing? We have folks around us that have walked this path have some many wise things to share, but they are older and they just don't know as much as I do. After all, times have changed and what could that older person teach me? A lot!!!!

Ecclesiastes 12:11 put it great ~ The words of the wise are like cattle-prods-painful but helpful. Isn't this the truth? Oh it is hard to admit they know more than we do, but it would help us so much if we realized it and learned! Rehoboam didn't learn this, it tells us that the king paid no attention to the people. It tells us the Rehoboam told the people that his father beat them with whips and that he would beat them with scorpions! Do you know what a scorpion was? It was a metal spiked leather lash. He certainly wasn't going to be nicer, was he? So, the kingdom was divided and it fulfilled the Lord's message, but what if Rehoboam would have listened and learned? Would it have changed things? Maybe, only God knows.

Instead, they got the most evil king in a long line of evil kings for the northern kingdom and Rehoboam had to jump quickly on his chariot and run back to Jerusalem. He didn't display the power and might of David's kingdom, did he? He didn't show the respect that his grandfather David showed the man that tried to kill him over and over, did he? Oh, what he could have learned just by looking back at the life of his grandfather or the other older men that God placed in his path.

Who are you going to learn from today? Learn from your elders and be nice to them today. They have a lot to offer all of us and don't be guilty of forgetting it!

Learning,