A Father's Love

A great friend sent me this link to an incredible video today. As you watch the story unfold, notice how the people are so oblivious to the sacrifice that has been made for them. They of course don't realize the sacrifice that was made.

Are we that oblivious to the sacrifice God made for us? Do we walk around unchanged? Or do we honor that sacrifice and make noticeable changes in our lives that honor Him. These people may not realize the gift they've received, but we know the gift that was given to us. How do we choose to honor that gift. Thoughts to ponder...

Have a blessed day!

Click here to watch the video "A Father's Love".

Who Do You Choose to Hang Around...

The other day I found myself driving behind a trash truck. Driving behind a trash truck is not a very pleasant place to be. Even with your windows up sometimes the smell is just horrible. Something I noticed was how many little pieces of trash and junk flew out of that truck. Nothing very big, just little stuff flitting around. Most of it just sort of hits and flies on, but every once in a while something sticks to the windshield.

You know, life can sometimes be like following that trash truck depending on the things we do or the people we choose to hang around. Little bits of trash are flying all around us. How we live and how we react determine if any of it sticks to us; if we are changed by it. And I don't mean in a good way. If you're hanging around people all the time who are constantly throwing trash around, some of it is going to start sticking to you. Before you know it, you get caught up in the trash and suddenly you become something or someone you didn't want to become.

It's important that we choose Godly people to hang around. It's important to choose people who don't get caught up in the trash. It's important to look at things with the proper perspective. Because even in the best of situations some people can only see bad. No one is perfect. We all have days when we are tired of a situation or tired of someone's attitude or any number of things. But it's our perspective that decides how we will handle the situation. We can choose to trash everything we don't like or we can choose to see the good in it. We can choose to hang around people who are always doom and gloom or we can choose to hang around people who are striving to be the best they can be and trying to live their life the way God would want them to live it.

On that note, I love hanging out with our small group. We are not perfect. We have our times of griping just like anyone else does. But we always seem to bring things back to God. We try to see the good in the situation. We let people get things off their chest and we come back to why we are there. We are always there for each other. We laugh, we cry, we listen, we pray. We laugh a lot... we laugh a whole lot!!

I could not have chosen a better small group. In fact I didn't choose this one. God chose it for me. He knew exactly where we needed to be. It's like our whole group is soulmates. We are all within the same age group, we like a lot of the same things; 3 couples in our group were high school sweethearts and all 5 couples anniversaries are within a couple of weeks of each other! Pretty weird! And 3 years ago none of us knew each other! God is amazing!!

I say all of that to say, be aware of who God puts in your life. God can surround you with amazing friends if you pay attention. Satan can also surround you with people to bring you down. So if you find yourself getting caught behind that trash truck and you notice you are starting to smell a little like the trash, step back and make sure the people you are surrounding yourself with are the people God has chosen for you.

Blessings!

Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."
1 Corinthians 15:33

The Sound of God

The sound of God is not something you really think about; at least I hadn't until recently. I was reading in Genesis 3 and right after Eve has been deceived by the serpent it says,

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden."

We've all read those scriptures about a million times. Every time I've read it I've always thought about the verses that come after it where it says they were afraid because they were naked so they hid. But this time when I read it, what stuck out to me was "they heard the sound of the Lord". I started thinking, what is the "sound" of the Lord? The rest of that phrase says as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. That for me sounds like a great word picture of God. There is something so peaceful, so soothing, so calming about walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And as I thinking about walking in that type of setting, it immediately makes me think about God. When I'm walking in nature in the cool of the day is one of the times I feel the closest to God.

But what is the sound of Lord? Would I know it if I heard God walking beside me? I know we hear God in all types of ways. Through the music we listen to, through something a friend may say to us, through a sermon, etc. But Adam and Eve "heard God" walking in the garden.

Am I walking close enough to the Lord that I can actually hear Him when He's walking with me? What would it sound like to actually hear God walking with me? I know that God walks with us every day, but to think about actually hearing God puts things in a different perspective for me. We may not always hear God walking with us as Adam and Eve did, but He is still there. What are we subjecting him to as He walks with us. Would He be proud to walk along side of us? Or would he be embarrassed or ashamed?

As I walk through my life and begin to think more about God walking along side of me and more about what God sounds like when He walks with me, I hope that the places I choose to walk, will make Him proud to walk along beside me.

Blessings!

Called to be a Servant

As I have mentioned recently, I feel God is calling me to new places in my life. A couple of weeks ago we sang the song "Make Me a Servant" in our Sunday morning worship. It's a song most all of us are familiar with. We sang a second verse to it that has really been on my mind. The verse is...

Open my hand Lord, and teach me to share
Open my heart Lord, and teach me to care
Service to others is service to You
So make me a servant Lord make me like you

That verse has really caused me to think about a lot of different things.

We are all taught as children to share. We have the me and mine syndrome and learn how to share with others. I think as adults we sometimes forget that; at least I sometimes do. We are so blessed in this life and while I do try to do what I can for others I sometimes get caught up in keeping things to myself and not always sharing what I have. It's not that I want to keep it for myself, it's that I sometimes don't want to take the time it sometimes takes to share. Sharing doesn't always mean sharing things, it means sharing of ourselves and of our time... Lord, teach me to share.

The next line open my heart Lord, and teach me to care. That really is bothersome to me. I have always thought of myself as a caring person. But if I am not reaching out to others and sharing what I have with them, does it mean that deep down I don't care? Does it mean that my heart is not open to God's people around me? Lord, teach me to care.

I so want to be more like God. Lord mold me into who you want me to be... Lord make me like you.

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter,
we are all the work of your hand.

Isaiah 64:8

Blessings!