10 Rules For Being Human.

I. Introductory Comments:

From this scripture, we can see that King David marvels at the handy work of God. He sees God’s wonderful creation and asks the question what is man that God is mindful of him. Although this Psalm does not provide us with the answer to the question, the answer is made very clear throughout the Bible. Humanity is God’s most precious creation. In our creation, God provided ten written rules (which you might know as the Ten Commandments) and ten unwritten rules. These unwritten rules apply to everyone, not just the person who has faith. It is these ten rules that I would like to breifly examine.

II. Ten Rules For Being Human

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for your entire time here on earth.

a. the body each of us receives is a gift from God and is intended to be used.

- the ability to eat chocolate chip cookies and drink ice cold milk.

- we need to take care of our bodies, but not worship them.

- God give us a body to be used wisely while we are waiting for his return.

b. regardless if we like our bodies or not they are only temporary.

- else where in the Bible we are told that we have body a physical and a spiritual body. Although our physical body my not be perfect our spiritual body will be

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

- this is a scary thought… everything in life is a lesson.

a. your marriage

b. your children

c. your finances

d. your friends

e. your job

f. your mother-in-law

g. field exercises

h. everything is a lesson

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error. Experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that “works”

- a. the only time a person truly fails at anything is when they stop trying.

b. when we are going through life we may experience setbacks, but God will always give us another chance, after all we are God’s most prized creation.

- no matter what setback you may experience, be it:

- losing control of your temper

- over eating

- use of foul language

- watching moves of television programs that are inappropriate.

- whatever your setbacks may be

God, loves you and will give you another chance if you ask for it.

4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned.

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then move on to the next lesson.

- I am sure that many of you have heard of remedial classes. You know those classes that are intended for individuals that have difficulty learning for whatever reasons. Well God also offers remedial classes, and all of us, myself included have had to take some of God’s classes over and over again weather we realize it or not. Some of God’s classes include: remedial humility, remedial love, remedial compassion, remedial faith and on and on the list could go.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive there are still lessons to be learned.

When I think about this 5th rule of being human, I am remedied of the poem All I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten. The author of this poem says:

Most of what I really needed to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not found at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox.

Here are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don’t hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess

Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

Say your sorry when you hurt someone.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush

Warm cookies and ice cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life.

Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play a work every day…some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.

Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots goe down that the plant goes us and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.