Wednesday; August 12

          Several years ago I worked in a position where I was a part of a team that worked on writing Administrative Rules that governed hunting, fishing and boating regulations.  It didn’t take me long in that position to realize a couple of things.  First, words mean something.  Even simple words such as “shall” and “should” may sound similar; but they have a vastly different intent.  A second thing that I realized is how hard people will work to find loopholes in the regulations.  Those who hope to get away with something try to become masters at the letter of the law rather than focusing on the intent of the regulation.  They are more interested in finding a way to get their way than they were in doing what was designed to be in the best interest of the community as a whole.

I have thought about loophole lawyers quite a bit lately.  With more laws and rules being enacted to help deal with social health issues, it is becoming fashionable to try to find ways to get around what is intended to help keep a majority of people safe.  In an effort to maintain our freedom, we put on our thinking caps to try to work around the limitations.  This can become quite tempting, so maybe this serves as a good reminder to keep the big picture in mind.

Yet, the more important aspect of this temptation is when it comes to God.  You see, God will not be swayed by loopholes.  Sure, we might be able to convince ourselves of a technicality that might alleviate us from fulfilling a command, but we had better not fool ourselves into believing that God will be persuaded by our reasoning.

Let’s not look for loopholes, let’s do what is right.  When we do, we can be good citizens and godly people.

         Think About It!

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