What Does God's Word Say?

I grew up a "pk" – translation:  preacher’s kid – in a rural area of Texas just east of Dallas.  My dad did not come to have a personal relationship with the Lord God until he was in his late thirties.  He was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and was of French, Italian, and Irish ethnicity.  He was a part of a formal religion, knowing about Jesus, but without knowing Jesus as His own Lord and Savior.  My grandfather, his father, was a hard-working man who was also an alcoholic.  When my dad was nineteen, his dad hemorrhaged to death in his arms, as a result of severe cirrhosis of the liver.  For years, my dad grieved over the loss of his father and the relationship that might have been but never was.

In his thirties, my dad moved to a rural homestead, just outside of Dallas, Texas.  Late one evening, a pastor of a small, country church knocked at the door, introduced himself to my dad, who was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic, and a miracle took place.  This pastor told my dad about a Heavenly Father who loved my dad so much that He allowed His only Son to die for him and his sins, so that my dad could have a personal relationship with the Lord God Himself.  My dad was wondrously, gloriously changed that night.  He never got over having a Father who, according to Jeremiah 31:3, loved him with an everlasting love.  He was always amazed that God chooses to love us unconditionally and that there is nothing we can do to make Him stop loving us.  We can break His heart, we can disappoint Him, but we are not powerful enough to make Him stop loving us.

As a result of my dad’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ, my brother, sisters, and I grew up keenly aware of the presence of God not only in our parents’ lives, but also in the very practical functioning of our home.  Our parents took God’s commandments to them in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 very seriously.  They talked about Jesus when we woke up, when we went to sleep, when we ate, when we were disciplined, when we were leaving the house, and when we came home.  Even as a pre-teen, I learned that there was one standard for behavior in our home:  What does God’s Word say about it?

When my younger brother was about six, he came to me one Sunday afternoon and asked me what the Bible said about Walt Disney.  At that time, the Walt Disney show came on for one wonderful hour a week, only on Sunday night.  All week long, the television had shown ads for a wonderful Disney program to be shown that Sunday evening.  Because we attended church on Sunday evening, we, sadly, knew we would be unable to watch.  So, when my brother asked about Walt Disney, I, from the lofty and far more mature vantage point of eight, scathingly replied that Walt Disney was nowhere to be found in the Bible.    

Later that afternoon, my dad told all of us children to go and get dressed for church.  My brother boldly stood up and said, “Daddy, I don’t think I’m going tonight.”  

Dad asked, “Are you not feeling well?”

John replied, “No, I just really want to watch Walt Disney tonight.”

My dad asked him, “Son, what do you think God’s Word says about that?”

My brother replied, “I already asked Gerry.  She said it’s not in there.”  You can imagine my concern, as my dad glanced at me.

Dad then said, “John, that’s true.  However, God will always answer us through His Word and through prayer.  Why don’t you go into your room and just ask the Lord if it’s okay for you to stay home from His house tonight and watch Walt Disney?”

John retreated to his room, where we could all hear him, loudly making his case for Walt Disney before the Lord.  Soon, John came walking out of his room, tucking his shirt into his pants, as he dressed for church. 

Dad asked him, “John, what did the Lord say?”

My brother’s response?  “He didn’t say anything.  I think that means I better go.”

That sense of God’s presence and His clear will for the lives of each of His children has been a guiding force in each of the lives of my brother, my sisters, and me.  My brother is now the pastor of the church where my dad pastored for twenty-three years until his homegoing in 1973.  My middle sister teaches four and five year olds in Idaho.  My younger sister and her husband teach the children’s church on Sunday and Wednesday nights at the church where my brother pastors, and I have been on a church staff for more than twenty years.

Certainly, each of us has had struggles as we resisted and, sometimes, even resented the apparent will of God in our lives.  However, the guiding precept for each of us, even in the darkest moments, has been that simple question that we still, even after nearly four decades, can hear Dad ask us during the questions, the difficulties, the confusion, and the pain:  What does God’s Word say about it?

No matter what decision may loom before you, no matter how conflicted you may be, no matter how unfair a situation may be, don’t let your desires, your emotions, or your logic guide your behavior.  Instead, through prayer and searching the Scriptures, what does God’s Word say about it?  He loves it when His children come to Him for answers:  In Jeremiah 33:3, He says to call unto Him, and He will show you great and mighty things.  In II Chronicles 16:9, God says His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is turned totally to Him.  In Isaiah 65:24, God says that He will answer before we even finish calling to Him. 

The New Testament teaches, repeatedly, that, through Jesus Christ, we have access to the Father and are encouraged to ask Him everything.  For the next answer in your life, be sure to find out what God and His Word have to say about it.  

© 2010 Gerry Sisk

(03/07/10)