A Lasting Impression

7

08 East Main Street was my address growing up.  Everything that mattered happened here and some of the greatest lessons in my life I learned in our house or in our back yard.  Like all the other houses on Main Street, we had a driveway.  Our driveway was a little different than most others because it sloped, creating a nice hill from street level at the top to our garage at the bottom.  Many Saturday afternoons found my friends and me riding bikes, skateboards, or anything else we could find down that hill. 

Just outside and to the left of our garage was a drain.  This drain caught water cascading down the hill or off the garage and ferried it to a ditch which separated our back yard from our neighbors.  One day, I came out of the house to find my dad with a wheelbarrow, a shovel, and some concrete mix working on that drain.  The garage had been torn down and daddy decided to close up that drain with cement.  When I arrived, he was almost finished with the last shovel full.  He smoothed it out and then he invited my brother and me to put our hands into the wet cement and write our initials and our birth dates.  He explained that when the cement dried our hand prints, initials, and birth dates would leave a lasting impression in the cement so everyone would know exactly who had been there.

I remember thinking what a neat idea that was!  As I grew older, I paid less and less attention to that piece of cement but every time I saw it I remembered that day and the lesson I had learned.  Remembering the past is important especially when we learn from our experiences and use that knowledge to remind us of how we should act in the future.  This was something the Old Testament writers understood very well and it is a lesson God wanted Israel’s kings to remember for all time.

In Deuteronomy 17:18-20 we read “When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites.  It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.”

These requirements were written specifically for the king.  At this point Israel had no king but God knew the people and He knew that one day they would want a king to rule over them.  God wanted His words and commands to make a lasting impression on the king and the Lord also wanted the king to put these laws into practice on a daily basis.  The king was to take the law and make a copy for himself.  In essence, he was pressing this onto parchment and into his mind as an everlasting marker of what God commanded.  The king was to remember God’s law and was not to think of himself more highly than his people because both the king and his people were subject to the same law and the same God.

God wants to make a lasting impression in our lives.  He wants us to take His word with us everywhere we go and to apply it on a daily basis.  We have copies of His word all around us.  There are probably several copies of it in your home or perhaps you have a copy with you at your place of work.  It is this word that reminds us and teaches us about our Heavenly Father.  We are to read it and to share it with others thereby making a lasting impression in their lives as well.

When my mom and dad moved from Main Street, they took that piece of concrete with them.  They still have it, and although the years have worn it and it is now in a few pieces, those hand prints, initials, and birthdates are still visible.  Won’t you let God make a lasting impression in your life today?