Living on the Edge. Amos 6:12.

Posted bySteven WalesPosted inholiness, Turn Away from Evil: FleeTags:, , , , ,

If you’ve stood on the edge of a cliff, you understand the expression.  We all talk about edges, about pushing things to the limit.  In the book RANGER CONFIDENTIAL, Andrea Lankford reports on the deadly falls each year at the Grand Canyon and the rangers’ struggle to retrieve the bodies.  Eleven fell from the edge in 2022, slightly fewer than the annual average of twelve.  Fighter pilots coined the phrase “push the envelope” to explain that there is an envelope in which the physics of lift will support the heavier-than-air flight of a steel airplane. But if you leave the envelope, the plane will crash.  Naturally, pilots wanted to push the envelope.  In other words, fighter pilots enjoy “living on the edge.” Aerosmith, a band famous for its struggles with drug addiction, wrote the dark hit: “Living on the Edge.” 

We get it.  Edges are like the cliffs at the Grand Canyon: attractive because of the views, but dangerous because you may fall.

We know it is dangerous, but we always want to get so close!  Some of us find heights intoxicating in spite of the obvious danger. We wander closer and closer. You know what else we do that with? Sin.  Often we try to respect some rule—yet we get as close as we possibly can to breaking that rule.  Closer and closer and closer.  And what happens?  Eventually you fall.  It is human nature.

Consider the prophet’s rhetorical questions:

“Do horses gallop on the cliffs?  Does anyone plow there with oxen?” Amos 6:12.

You’ve seen the cliffs 60 feet above the Brazos River near Hempstead.  Farmers like Larry Cooper might walk that edge, but you won’t see him tractoring around up there baling hay.  The cliffs can fall away at any time—it’s far too dangerous.  So he avoids it.  Why is it that we have more respect for ACTUAL cliffs than for cliffs that will drop us into the abyss of sin and judgment? 

Don’t flirt with sin!  Don’t get so close!  How does living on the edge help you?  Back away from the edge and embrace the God who only wants to bless you when He puts limitations on you.  He loves you.  Live to please Him—don’t live on the edge.

ΑΩ

P.S. I love this crazy moment at the Moab Rope Swing. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BDbRbentj/

Published by Steven Wales

Dad's Daily Devotional began as text messages to my family. I wanted my teenagers to know their father was reading the Bible. But they were at school by then. Initially, I sent them a favorite verse or an insight based on what I read each day. That grew into drafting a devotional readng which I would send them via text. I work as an attorney and an adjunct professor, and recently wrote a book called HOW TO MAKE A'S.

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