Read the instructions

by Rev. Thomas R. Fuller

“As [Jesus] spoke, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that fed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!”

Most of us are not inclined to read the manual. We purchase appliances and electronic equipment and skip right over that thick booklet of instructions that came along with the product. Because that’s so true, there are now toll-free technical assistance hot-lines for consumers to call when they can’t get that new device to work.

The majority of problems received by help hot-lines aren’t really problems at all. For the most part, the calls are a result of the fact that the consumers never bothered to read the manual. The number one reason owners of new washing machines can’t get them to start is simply because they have the lid open, and those darned things just won’t run with the lid open. It’s automatic for washing machine help-line operators to first suggest that they close the lid. That normally does the trick.

Computer tech lines receive thousands of calls a day from new computer owners. In the majority of cases, the failure of a new computer to work is directly related to the failure of the consumer to plug something in. When printers fail, the number one cause is that they never removed the protective plastic tape from the ink cartridge, in spite of the bold faced type instructing them to do so that can easily be found in the manual. But, consumers don’t generally read the manual. By the way, the second most common cause for printer failure is that the printer has not been loaded with paper.

We all get to pay more for products so that the employees hired to tell consumers what they already should have known can be paid. We also pay higher costs due to the large number of perfectly good products that are returned because the people who bought them never took the time to read the instructions.

When we don’t read the manual, we pay the price. That’s particularly true when we don’t read God’s manual for living, the Bible. We just want to jerk life right out of the box and skip the instructions. Small wonder life is not working well for quite a few people. When it goes bad, we get the feeling we’ve been dealt a faulty product. Truth is, the life God gave us is just fine, but we never bothered to read the instructions.

Are you wondering about the why, when, where and how of your life? Do you think you have the gumption to plow through the manual so that you can get it right? It will take a little time and effort. God’s manual is pretty thick, and you’ll never get it all in just one read. But reading it won’t cost you near us much as not reading it. -Tom