My wife is weird. So am I, so we match. When she’s feeding our dog, Stitches, she talks to him in “baby talk.” She says things like, “Oh, it’s time for some treaty-wheaties.” Some might find that irritating, but I choose to find it endearing.
One day I was reminded of the movie, Princess Bride. At the beginning there’s the “farm boy” who is basically a handyman for . . . we’re never really told. At the very least there’s this girl. She loved ordering him around, and did so endlessly. The farm boy always responded with, “As you wish.”
The narrator of the movie, Peter Falk (plays Fred Savage’s grandfather), tells us something like, “One day she was amazed to realize that when he was saying ‘As you wish,’ what he really meant was, ‘I love you.’”
So Linda saying things like “treaty-wheaties” is really telling the dog “I love you.” Then I took it one step further.
Most of God’s commandments are “Thou shalt not.” Sure, there’s “Honor your father and mother,” but most of them start with “Thou shalt not.”
What He’s really saying is, “I love you.”
Think about parents trying to raise a child. “Don’t touch a hot stove. Don’t cross the road without looking both ways. Don’t steal your sister’s chocolate.” Maybe that last one was only me. I don’t know. Someone else might have been told that.
The parent only tells things like that to keep the child from getting hurt. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Look what happens every time the chosen people of God start worshiping other gods. The same could be said about the rest of the Ten Commandments.
People say they don’t want to be Christian because of all the things they can’t do. “I don’t like anyone telling me I can’t do [this].” Whatever “this” is. But the reality is God’s only telling you not to do [this] because He loves you.
Even a cursory reading of the so-called “minor” prophets show that God loved His people. He gave them every chance He could, called them to turn away from their wicked ways, and only after repeated efforts did He allow the foreign powers to take over.
He’s doing the same to us now. America is becoming more secular, chasing after other gods (money, entertainment, self-sufficiency, political parties). He warned us not to do that. It’s all over the Bible. “Thou shalt not.”
One day people who don’t follow God might realize, “What he really means is ‘I love you.’”
In the meantime, don’t run with scissors.
And enjoy your treaty-wheaties.
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