COMMANDING REVERENCE

Introduction Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. —Psalm 119:97–98 We have all broken all of the Ten Commandments; yes all of us, all of them. You may be thinking that isn’t true; you’ve not committed adultery, used the name of the Lord in vain, or committed murder. Or have you? After rediscovering the Ten Commandments, I realized that not only had I broken some of the commandments—I had broken all ten. The good news is that having broken them; I later understood how better to follow them. Through my breaking them, God helped me understand how much I still need them. We all need them for joy and abundance, so why do we often forget their relevance and reverence in our daily lives? Becoming obedient to His commandments led me to peace, joy, and an abundant life and will do the same for you. I invite you into a conversation with me as we journey through the relevance, mysteries, and reverence of the Ten Commandments… 1 God’s Guardrails You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess. —Deuteronomy 5:33 For years when I thought about the Ten Commandments, two memories always came to mind. One was of me, nervously standing in front of our minister in his office at Christ Episcopal Church, Little Rock. I was like all the other sixth graders preparing for confirmation (my public affirmation of faith recommitting baptism). It was now my turn to recite the Ten Commandments from memory in order to complete my confirmation requirements and successfully pass. To this day I can see my twelve-year-old self worried that I would miss a word or worse, blank on one of the Commandments. I had a strong short-term memory, so it worked out in my favor to recall them for the test. However, over time they became easier to skew and forget. Easy to forget, until the time of year when I was reminded of them again; enter my second vivid memory of the Ten Commandments. Actor Charlton Heston and the highly acclaimed movie The Ten Commandments should receive dual credit for my remembering them. Who can forget the dramatic scene of Moses standing, overcome and exhilarated from just speaking with God as the Commandments were spoken to him? Charlton Heston, playing Moses, cued my memory of the important rules God had written for us through this nugget of cinema, His commands to His people portrayed on the big screen; there was Moses, wind in his hair, clouds swirling on a mountaintop, holding the sacred two tablets over his head while the light of God shone down on him. This had an impact on me year after year. The Academy Award–winning movie aired on our local channel reminding us of all the grandeur of the Ten Commandments. In my young mind, I knew they mattered, and I knew they were important, but there seemed to be a disconnect between hearing of them a little and living them out a lot. Why did they matter? Were they relevant? Understood? We knew God wrote them in the Old Testament, so did they still apply in the New Testament? All these years later, thousands actually, it seems to me that many of the same questions could be asked. Misunderstanding them or questioning their full relevance are just a couple of questions that come to mind, particularly when observing how society can disregard them as sacred, if regarding them at all. When I began writing, the Holy Spirit led me to interview my children and a few of my mentors for content. What I found interesting is that, whatever their age or theological knowledge of the Bible, they all paused to recite all Ten Commandments … accurately. There are only ten, and many of us have known of them more than fifty years, so why are they hard to remember? Why can’t some of us remember them all? Are they still relevant? What happened to the Ten Commandments? These are some of the many questions I started contemplating a few years ago. I started to notice when people would gossip, and then in the next breath they were swearing, but through it all they called themselves Christians. I began processing a disconnect between my observations and what my biblical foundation taught me. My guardrails for truth were now in question, so I started paying more attention to these behaviors, particularly my own… …The Ten Commandments are spoken specifically in Exodus and then again in Deuteronomy. God, His prophets, and His disciples talk about them many more times throughout both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible in multiple ways. To me this deems them important. I wonder why did He write them? Why did He choose the specific time to write them, and why is it important that we follow them? On this journey, possible answers will be revealed and possibly more questions evolve. My prayer is for you to experience both. With more questions of the Ten Commandments may come more understanding and perspective! 1. I am the Lord thy God; You shall have no other gods before me. 2. You shall not make for yourself carved images… 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. 4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery 8. You shall not steal 9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 10. You shall not covet… (Exodus 20:2–4, 7–8, 12–17)