S.T.A.B.O.
Soul Snack 146/11 ... S.T.A.B.O.
A kind hearted soul is difficult to find, a faithful one even harder.
S.T.A.B.O. is now life's path across all generations in varying degrees.
S.T.A.B.O. expresses the indulgent value -- Subject To A Better Offer that frequently inhabits much contemporary decision making. A promise is only as good as the next offer is better.
Let me tell you a brief story about a man who knew not S.T.A.B.O.
Married to a cross and daily pierced by nails of resentful anger he still saw no impediment to the goal of kept promises. He was raised in poverty and raised a troubled family, but the troubles were not of his own doing. Amidst great financial distress and constantly repeated relational disasters he neither fled nor ever uttered a word of complaint. His yes remained yes and his no remained no to his grave. His word was his bond.
His professional years were pock-marked by various assaults and his twilight years robbed through a living death.
Yet amidst the changes and chances of his enduring life, this boy born during a world war who had crafted his future from the Great Depression had not learned bitterness, resentment, self-serving or especially faithlessness.
His headstone remains to this day a sentinel to a faithless generation:
Faithfulness has its own rewards.
He now knows this.
Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. (Matt 5:37)
Today's Soul Snippet:
The heart is first power to the soul and then to the feet.