Your life is a gift from God, and like any gift from a loving Father it is meant to be enjoyed.  God did not put us here and then abandon us to wander aimlessly through the world.   He gave us a road map, an owner’s manual, so we can find our way back to Him and live a healthy, happy and fruitful life while on this earth.  He gave us his Ten Commandments, “engraved” in stone (2), a beacon of light in a sea of darkness to illuminate the path which we should follow.

First we need to realize that there is only one God, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Once we have focused our lives on Him, we can begin to live our lives in the manner he wants us to.  Remember, God loves you as much as he loves your neighbor.  He loves your friends as much as your enemies and he wants us to treat each other with the same love and kindness that He has for us.

Every one of us has a choice to accept God and ask him to come into our lives or reject Him and live our lives as we see fit.  God wants all of us to be happy.  He wants us to enjoy the love, peace and joy that he has in store for us.  He also knows that by living together we have a direct influence on the people around us and we can add to or take from these gifts, which God wants all of us to enjoy.  As human beings we have the ability to add to someone’s joy, or take it away.  This is one reason why we need God’s word.

Many people today question God’s existence because they feel their prayers were not answered or they see all the bad things happening in the world around them.  One of the most tired lines these days is, “if there is a God, why did he let this happen?”  Just because evil people choose to do horrible things does not mean there is no God.  It just means that if man chooses to do bad things then other people will be hurt by them.

I have read through the Bible a few times now and I have yet to find where God promised us a perfect life on earth.  I did find in John 16:33 (1) Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  Jesus is telling us we will have problems in our lives so we should be prepared to meet them when they arrive.

If you are expecting heaven on earth then you will just have to wait until God brings it to us.  If you go to the last book of the Bible, Revelation, you will find what you are looking for.  Revelation 21:  1-4 (1a) states, “Then I saw the new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

So there you have it; Jesus told us there will be pain in our lives and Revelation tells us there will be no heaven on earth, until God brings it to us.  God is on the way, but until he gets here we will have to live with the pain that life hands us.  So if things go badly at times, don’t blame God, he is on the way, and Jesus told you to prepare yourself, because bad things will happen to all of us.

For everything that happens in the world there is a cause and an effect.  If someone steals your new bicycle, you become sad and cry.  Their action caused a negative effect on your life.  Did God steal your bike?  No, someone who does not live by the 8^th Commandment did.  So when we focus on the negative things of this world we begin to give up hope for a better place to live in.  Instead of asking, “where was God in all of this,” ask yourself why didn’t that person live his life by the Ten Commandments?  You will find in all cases the root of the problem is the actions of another person directed against you and not God.  You cannot control the other person, but you can control yourself, so if you want a better world to live in then start with yourself.

By following the Ten Commandments I feel we can bring a lot of joy into our lives.  Life is not all bad; much of life is what we make of it.  We can also bring joy into the lives of the people around us.  Our sphere of influence is really pretty small.  If we find happiness by following the word of God, then we can change our little world for the better as well.  This joy that you radiate will influence the people around you and come back as a blessing to you as well.

One of the most horrific crimes committed against the American people was when 19 hijackers crashed four commercial jets into the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and into the ground in Pennsylvania (9).  This one act has changed the life of just about everyone in America.  Instead of questioning God’s existence and mercy we should question the beliefs of the 19 men who committed these acts, because if they had lived their lives by the Ten Commandments of God, 9/11 would never have happened. 

They broke the 9^th Commandment when they lied to the ticket agent to get a boarding pass.  They had weapons and knew they should not take them on the plane.  They broke the 6^th Commandment when they murdered the flight attendants and the pilots.  They broke the 8^th Commandment when they took over the jets and stole them from the Airlines who owned them.  They broke the 6^th Commandment again when they flew the planes into the buildings and ground and in total killed 2974 people who were either in the planes or the buildings they crashed in to.

What is with all the violence in the public schools these days?  It used to be you threw a fire cracker into the boy’s room and had a fire drill.  Now students are coming to school and murdering people.  There is no place for guns in our schools.  A school is a place where children and adults go to better themselves mentally.  Whether you are entering the first grade or your first year of college people are there to better themselves and prepare for their future.  So what’s with all the killings?  The answer is simple; we have thrown God out of the public schools! 

In 1962 I was in the fifth grade and went to a public school in Metuchen, NJ.  Every morning we would start our day by saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag and we would read from the Bible.  Each student got to be the class monitor for a week and it was their job to lead the class in prayer and a pledge to our country. I don’t think this is being done anymore in our public schools and I don’t remember hearing about anyone getting shot at school back then either.

I know in our town we have winter break, not Christmas vacation, we have spring break, not Easter vacation and we have an “egg hunt” not an Easter egg hunt.  We are erasing God from the roles of the public school the same way the teacher erases the black board once she is done with the math lesson and ready to move on to the history lesson.  So is it any wonder why bad things are happening in our schools these days?

On the other hand, if you choose to do good things in your life instead of bad, then won’t others be affected by those acts as well?  The choice is yours; God gave us directions on how to live our lives and if you look at the Ten Commandments you can quickly see if we all lived our lives according to them then the world would be a much better place.

Would you like to change the world, but don’t know how?  Well, you can start by changing your immediate world, by changing yourself.  The Ten Commandments, which God gave Moses on Mount Sinai over 3400 years ago (3), are just as applicable today as they were back when God gave them to Moses. 

If everyone in the world followed the Ten Commandments the world would be a much better place to live in.  Well, not everyone does, but you can!  You can change yourself and change the lives of the people nearest and dearest to you.  You can change your world and in so doing have a positive effect on the people in it.  Forget about the entire world for a moment and look at your world.  How many people are in it?  How many people do you really care about?  Not that many, but everyone you thought of you love dearly and you would do anything in your power to fill their lives with love, peace and happiness.  Well you can make your life and theirs’ much better and God gave you His Word to help you do it.

I am writing about the Ten Commandments (1) because there are only ten of them and they are not that hard to understand or remember.  There is so much more in the Bible than just these Ten Commandments, but if you apply them to your life and the world at large you can see it would be a much better place to live in.  You cannot make your neighbor live by them, but you can live by them, and by doing so change yourself and change the world of the people closest to you.