Where Honor Is Due (Day 1)
In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. ––1 Corinthians 12:22-24, NLT
hon·or ˈä-nər
1 a : good name or public esteem : REPUTATION
b : a showing of usually merited respect : RECOGNITION
pay honor to our founder
The cliché is that when things dissipate or disappear in our culture, they’ve “gone the way of the dodo bird.” According to the American Museum of Natural History, “The dodo is a lesson in extinction. Found by Dutch soldiers around 1600 on the island [of Mauritius] in the Indian Ocean, the Dodo became extinct less than 80 years later because of deforestation, hunting, and destruction of their nests by animals brought to the island by the Dutch.”
“Survival of the fittest” aside, we can all learn a lesson from the dodo’s demise: When the natural order is disturbed, things often go afoul. I was just reading this morning that the snow crab population in Alaska plummeted by billions in 2022 due to warmer water, which kicked the crabs’ metabolism into overdrive. Basically, there simply wasn’t enough food to support their amped up appetites and they starved to death.
What does this have to do with honor, the topic of the next few days’ readings? A lot, actually. Consider your social sphere, news cycle, and the basic tone of our nation today. Do you see a lot of honor taking place? Oh, it’s there if you dig for it, but you have to jackhammer through several layers of vitriol, name-calling, one-upmanship, and dirty dealing.
As God’s men, we need to consciously fight for honor—the honor of those under our protection, starting with our families—and give honor often and freely. Compliment those you love; talk up your fellow employees at work; give a kind word to the elderly gentleman you see on your daily walk, and a particularly good tip to your favorite barista.
Honor doesn’t happen by accident—in a world where honor is endangered, God’s men are called to bring the biblical precept back from the brink of modern cultural extinction.
Lord, help me honor at least one person today with a compliment or kind word or action.
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https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/biodiversity/dodo-bird#:~:text=The%20Dodo%20is%20a%20lesson,not%20always%20have%20been%20flightless.