In the Long Run
My Son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. – Proverbs 4:20-22.
Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil. – Proverbs 4:26-27.
In 1967, Bo Black was a 21-year-old cheerleader at the University of Wisconsin. Playboy magazine came to the Madison campus that year to photograph women of the Big Ten Conference. Bo Black was on the cover of the magazine for that issue. Thirty-three years later Bo Black was the director of Milwaukee’s Summerfest music festival when Kellyn, Bo’s 20-year-old daughter, was out shopping and was shocked to see her mother’s photo (the same one that was on the cover of the 1967 Playboy magazine) on a shower curtain. She bought the curtain and counted her mother’s picture on it twenty-two times.
Stephanie is Bo’s oldest daughter, and she was looking through a Playboy catalog at a friend’s when she saw her mother’s photo on a shirt. A Playboy magazine spokesman said that Bo Black had most likely signed away any of her rights to the photo. The spokesman made this statement: “For the most part, Playboy retains all the rights to the photos it uses. We can use the photos in any way we want.”
Now about nine years after Kellyn’s discovery of her mother’s Playboy photos she is following in her mother’s footsteps and has auditioned for the 55th edition of Playboy’s centerfold. A decision more than 40 years ago still affects and in a way overshadows the life of Bo Black. What a lesson to all of us about the long lasting consequences of the decisions we make today.
Far more shocking is the decision by Natalie Dylan to auction off her virginity. She has appeared on CNN and her sister is a prostitute at a brothel in Nevada. It appears that the decision of her sister to be a prostitute has led Natalie also into prostitution. Of course, it is said that the money will be used to pay for further education and financial stability. However, you have to wonder what effect it will have on any children that Natalie may one day have and grandchildren when they learn about what their mother or grandmother did. Will it lead them to do something even more shocking and degenerate?
The writer of Proverbs was so very right because each step, we make along the path of life is important. We should consider carefully whether our decisions are being made according to the Word of God. The only way to really do that is to so imbed God’s Word into our hearts and lives that we automatically do what is right. We are told in Proverbs to keep His Word before our eyes and in the midst of our hearts.
In the long run, what all of your friends are doing or all of your friends (or even family members) are saying you should do may not be the best option. In the long run, removing your feet from evil will bring blessing, joy, and life to you and very possibly to your descendants as well.
(Our decisions have an impact far beyond our own lives and times.)