Rules???? Those don't apply to me & my family....Or do they??

I am a mom of 4 children. I have raised 3 & I was blessed with finding Sweet Hubby's daughter, big girl in the last several years. So I know a thing or 2 about just how far all kids like to push the boundaries. Mine, seem like they lived on the edge of right & wrong. I could've sworn they enjoyed being punished?!

This brings me to today's subject, it should have been written last night, but I went to bed with a major sinus headache. The subject is this.....Rules??? Which ones do we follow, others follow, or which ones can we just leave for others to follow????


Yesterday afternoon, I was blessed beyond measure with a gift of picking up Sweet Hubby from work, to return something.....ALONE, yes just me driving the hour to pick him up.......ahhhh, that's all I can think about is the calm I was blessed with to enjoy time singing worship to God, out of tune, but belting it out. After returning his item, we headed off to a home improvement store to pick up a couple of "things" Sweet Hubby needed. While we were walking down every aisle to get those "things" we hear the soft, calm, pleasing voice of a woman reciting "rules" for EVERYONE shopping in their store. The rules seem pretty common sense to me, after all we ARE in a store who keeps extra stock, stacked pretty high, so it's a safety issue thing. As a mom I hear the usual requests for parents who've brought their children.......keep you children with you at all times, don't let them run in the store, be watchful of the items they are handling.....just common sense for ANY parent, Right??!!
Then the sweet voice clearly states a "rule" that was almost funny to me, in fact I say to Sweet Hubby, who has now caught up with me.....or me with him, whichever, I ask him "who do you think that wouldn't know that??? You'd think that'd be a given, common sense even for the kids!!!!" he mumbles something about "you'd think......"

You'd think.......but just after the announcement "no rollerblading, skating, skateboarding, or using the wheels on the shoe skates" had been made, wwwhhooooshhhh goes a young man, right across the aisle in front of us, with those shoes with the wheels, wheels out & he's at top speed!! I look at my Sweet Hubby & he looks at me........of course I'm still a work in progress, this is I'm sure, pretty evident to you by now, if you've read my blogs.....so I say "I guess that rule doesn't apply to him. Who lets their children do something sooooo dangerous??" About that time, the mother & her younger child come walking across the aisle in front of us.......her I guess is what I thought.

So, in my life, I really feel like the LORD above is doing some major reconstruction on me & who I am lately. I also recognize that the enemy is in full play trying to keep my focus off of God. I feel like if I can't follow some simple rules, for my safety, at a store, how can I follow His Laws, which are for my eternal life? Rules that don't interfere with God's Law, are rules which God expects us to follow. I found this passage of Scriptures this morning while I was in prayer, about this blog. I think it explains God's point on the subject of breaking rules, sin.

Romans 2:12-16

New International Version (NIV)

 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.  For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.  (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.  They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)  This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

Now, I don't really have a Message Bible, though sometimes I do search my Verses on a popular Bible website, in the Message version as well to see what it says. I think in this situation, it kinda explained it in details I understood completely.....perfectly.

Romans 2:12-16

The Message (MSG)

^12-13 If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.
^14-16 When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.

It basically tells me what I already knew, God meets us where we are, even when we don't know it is God. But it goes deeper, saying that God put the instinct to obey "rules" in us.....we are the ones who make the choice to either listen, or not to listen. Some people think that "rules" aren't meant for them, or their kids....so they ignore that instinct, to fulfill a worldly life.

So, are you a law keeper???? Or do you think.......

Rules??? Those don't apply to me & my family......Or do they??