So You Want to Be Boss

Do you look forward to the time when you'll be sixteen and allowed to drive the family car? Or maybe you're waiting until you'll be eighteen and have your own car. Anyhow, when you are twenty-one you'll be "of age" and then you can do as you please!

But, do you want to know something interesting? You are about as free right now as you will ever be, for every time a new privilege is given to you a new responsibility is placed on your shoulders. To drive a car is a big responsibility and it is expensive, too. Having things of your own and using them as you please means added worries and new duties. So does being of age.

We can't stop time, though, can we? Some day the magic milestone will be reached, and we shall step across the line from one part of our life to another. But if we want all the good things to happen to us that we are hoping for today we must begin to prepare for them here and now. We start with being obedient.

When the centurion came to Jesus and wanted him to speak the word that would heal the Roman's servant he knew that Jesus could do it because he was obedient to God, his father (Luke 7:2-10). The Roman soldier knew that power comes through obedience. Only as we learn to obey those over us are we fit to give orders ourselves.

To own and drive a car we have to obey more laws than we do when we ride in the back seat. The greater the privileges the more the responsibilities. But the sooner we learn to obey, and the better we obey, the better we shall be able to do the things we want to do. If you live to be a hundred, you will never be entirely your own boss. But if you learn obedience those years will be happy ones.