Words to Live By

“It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”  Matthew 4:4

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Words to live by”.  Besides attempting to live daily by the words of the Bible, I have several old clichés that I have found to be rather good ideas to follow.  The first one is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  I have found through personal experience that it is better to leave something alone if it’s working well rather than trying to tweak it to make it better.  After I tinker with it, it usually doesn’t work as well.  The second helpful platitude is to “not try to fit a square peg into a round hole”.  This idea reinforces the fact that one cannot make someone else into something that they are not.  We need to let the Lord deal with those who need to make some positive changes in their lives.  We can’t bribe, coerce, intimidate, shame, or put a guilt trip on someone in order to make them into what we think they should be.  Even if those tactics work, the results won’t be honest or long lasting.  One has to really want to change for the better before they can actually be successful.

The third slogan is “don’t sweat the small stuff”.  Don’t worry and fret over something that has no eternal significance.  Save your worrying for the big stuff.  On second thought, don’t worry about the big stuff either because most of the things we worry about never happen, and even if they do, worrying can’t change anything.  Jesus asked those to whom He was speaking if they could make themselves taller just by thinking about it (Luke 12:25).  Obviously not.  He said rather than fretting over so many things, instead seek the kingdom of God and everything will work out (Luke 12:31).

Life is too short to get all bent out of shape about things over which we have no control.  The thing is that we have very little control over anything.  I think that I have my day planned out and within the first hour of the day, something likely will happen that changes my whole plan.  The car won’t start, my back goes out, a major appliance breaks down, or the phone rings, and it is very bad news.  I’ve experienced all of these, and every one of them is a “game changer” from just an inconvenience to a devastating impact on my life.  The word of God is really the only thing that can be trusted to never fail.

Jesus had a saying for Peter in John 21:22 when Peter was a little too nosy about John’s future endeavors.  Jesus told Peter to basically mind his own business.  That’s another axiom of which we could all benefit.