Establishing Your Values? Choose Wisely - Part 3

I was privileged to spend my adolescent years growing up in a small Texas town and county where alcoholic beverages were prohibited by law. However, most teenagers knew where to get bootlegged alcohol, and like today, these teens experimented with alcohol at some level. For two close friends, alcohol became a serious problem.

The big event of the week in this little Texas town was hanging out at Audrey's café on Saturday afternoons listening to music, drinking cokes, and eating the best hamburgers ever. Thirty years later a party was given to honor Audrey for being a good role model, a surrogate mother, and a good friend to these young people.

Jesus said we are to love God with our entire beings and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. How you apply these commandments to your daily life determines the kind of role model you are to others. God will bless you with perfect peace as you trust Christ Jesus completely and keep your mind tuned to his purposes for you.  

Focus on Your Values - Part 3

Big city life is a marked contrast to the seemingly simple life I knew as a child. Don't get the wrong idea. Stress and worries always were associated with farming, but there were the exciting days. At harvest time in late summer and fall, neighbors and family helped each other gather in crops.

These were the days before big combine machines replaced those neighbors and friends. While the men worked in the fields, women prepared lunch. I begged to stay home from school, but my dad insisted that I go to school because there wasn't much I could do as a young child.

Although these people were far from perfect, their values bonded them together. It isn't that the big city lacks values, but in the confines of a fast-paced, hurried life, values may become blurred. God’s word from Luke 10:27 helps to clarify where values should be anchored. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” Do these words identify where your values begin and end?