I came across this scripture last night as I was cleaning out some of my saved links. Right now it is speaking volumes to my heart. I will just let it marinate until it is done.
1 Samuel 14:7.
NIV "Do all that you have in mind," his armor-bearer said. "Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul."
MSG His armor bearer said, "Go ahead. Do what you think best. I'm with you all the way."
NLT “Do what you think is best,” the armor bearer replied. “I’m with you completely, whatever you decide.”
NKJV So his armorbearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart.”
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Stupid Smart
Prov 12:1 (NKJV)
1 Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge,
But he who hates correction is stupid.
Prov 12:1 (NLT)
1To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction.
When I first started work in the retail industry, I decided right off that I would not be a sales clerk for long. To me the sales clerks seemed to be the drones of the industry. I wanted a position, a title. I wanted be needed to be useful and not seemingly expendable. In my first job, even at sixteen, I managed to do this. I had wiggled my way into a position where there were only two of us. What I didn’t learn was that once achieved, you need to continue to learn to maintain your position. And because of this I was laid off. When I took my second job while I was in college, I vowed to learn from my mistakes I had made in my first job. I learned everything I could about the position as a supervisor I wanted. I did most of it on my own time, and I volunteered to help out whenever I could. When I was promoted, I was promoted to a level above the one I was hoping for. I was unstoppable and I acted like it. When my manager tried to reign me in, or to help me hone my skills, I brushed him off. I knew how to do my job better than he did. I was convinced there was nothing he could teach me or correct me on. I was book smart, he was people smart. He had that to teach me, but I refused.
I came across this verse and it really hit home with me. We all love to succeed, we love to achieve, we love knowledge when it helps us become better. Once we have achieved what we wanted and have worked for, we take it as ours as if it was due us; we forget that we are new to our positions and need to be honed to fit it and to administer it well. The people that are truly successful in life are those who accept that extra knowledge and correction; the ones that fail or grow stagnate are the ones that refuse to be corrected. How often do we do this with God and what He has given us? I know in my life I have done it way to often.
Father let me always be open to correction and to knowledge to help me pursue the things You want for my life.
1 Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge,
But he who hates correction is stupid.
Prov 12:1 (NLT)
1To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction.
When I first started work in the retail industry, I decided right off that I would not be a sales clerk for long. To me the sales clerks seemed to be the drones of the industry. I wanted a position, a title. I wanted be needed to be useful and not seemingly expendable. In my first job, even at sixteen, I managed to do this. I had wiggled my way into a position where there were only two of us. What I didn’t learn was that once achieved, you need to continue to learn to maintain your position. And because of this I was laid off. When I took my second job while I was in college, I vowed to learn from my mistakes I had made in my first job. I learned everything I could about the position as a supervisor I wanted. I did most of it on my own time, and I volunteered to help out whenever I could. When I was promoted, I was promoted to a level above the one I was hoping for. I was unstoppable and I acted like it. When my manager tried to reign me in, or to help me hone my skills, I brushed him off. I knew how to do my job better than he did. I was convinced there was nothing he could teach me or correct me on. I was book smart, he was people smart. He had that to teach me, but I refused.
I came across this verse and it really hit home with me. We all love to succeed, we love to achieve, we love knowledge when it helps us become better. Once we have achieved what we wanted and have worked for, we take it as ours as if it was due us; we forget that we are new to our positions and need to be honed to fit it and to administer it well. The people that are truly successful in life are those who accept that extra knowledge and correction; the ones that fail or grow stagnate are the ones that refuse to be corrected. How often do we do this with God and what He has given us? I know in my life I have done it way to often.
Father let me always be open to correction and to knowledge to help me pursue the things You want for my life.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
God All The Time
Ecclesiastes 7:14 (NLT)
Enjoy prosperity while you can. But when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. That way you will realize that nothing is certain in this life.
Good times in life are great. No worries, no cares, just sailing through enjoying times as it passes by. Good times are the easiest ones to have faith in. That is when we can hear “my God shall supply all my needs…” and be able to respond with a big “AMEN!” Good times are great because as we walk through our day and people ask us how we are doing we get to say “BLESSED!” Good times also provide us with the opportunities to tell people whose walk isn’t as easy as ours “that things will get better” or “just give it to God, He knows what’s going on.” The best part about saying those kinds of things in the good times in our lives is that we can actually believe them. We see the good things in our lives and they are easy to attribute to the goodness of God. But times in our lives aren’t always good.
Rough times in our lives are bound to occur at some point or another in our walk with Christ. These are the times when our faith is challenged and what we have been taught and what we claim to believe in is put to the test. It is hard enough for us to say things will get better, let alone believe that they actually will. When people ask us how we are doing it is barely all we can to do to mutter something without telling them that we have been beat up, battered, bruised and we don’t know how we are hanging on. When we walk through these hard times it is hard to look at them and not wonder where God is in all of this. Where are all of His promises and His provision? It is hard for us to see it, but the truth is that his promises and His provision are just as present in our lives in the hard times as they are in the good times.
In the Book of Daniel God uses an evil king to accomplish His plan for His people. He did not love His children any less when they were in captivity than when they were free. He wasn’t any less of God than He was when he wasn’t using Nebuchadnezzar in His plan. In all of the trials that Daniel and his people went through in captivity it would have been easy to question God and his motives; Daniel knew however that to do so would be foolish. He had accepted that God was sovereign all the time—even in the rough times. That is a lesson that we all need to learn—God is God all the time. When we are walking out the hard times in life, we need to cling to our faith and not abandon it; we need to not ask “why I am going through this mess” but rather we should ask “what is God trying to do through this time in my life?” We need to know and accept that God is good when He gives us the good times and when He allows us to walk the rough times.
Enjoy prosperity while you can. But when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. That way you will realize that nothing is certain in this life.
Good times in life are great. No worries, no cares, just sailing through enjoying times as it passes by. Good times are the easiest ones to have faith in. That is when we can hear “my God shall supply all my needs…” and be able to respond with a big “AMEN!” Good times are great because as we walk through our day and people ask us how we are doing we get to say “BLESSED!” Good times also provide us with the opportunities to tell people whose walk isn’t as easy as ours “that things will get better” or “just give it to God, He knows what’s going on.” The best part about saying those kinds of things in the good times in our lives is that we can actually believe them. We see the good things in our lives and they are easy to attribute to the goodness of God. But times in our lives aren’t always good.
Rough times in our lives are bound to occur at some point or another in our walk with Christ. These are the times when our faith is challenged and what we have been taught and what we claim to believe in is put to the test. It is hard enough for us to say things will get better, let alone believe that they actually will. When people ask us how we are doing it is barely all we can to do to mutter something without telling them that we have been beat up, battered, bruised and we don’t know how we are hanging on. When we walk through these hard times it is hard to look at them and not wonder where God is in all of this. Where are all of His promises and His provision? It is hard for us to see it, but the truth is that his promises and His provision are just as present in our lives in the hard times as they are in the good times.
In the Book of Daniel God uses an evil king to accomplish His plan for His people. He did not love His children any less when they were in captivity than when they were free. He wasn’t any less of God than He was when he wasn’t using Nebuchadnezzar in His plan. In all of the trials that Daniel and his people went through in captivity it would have been easy to question God and his motives; Daniel knew however that to do so would be foolish. He had accepted that God was sovereign all the time—even in the rough times. That is a lesson that we all need to learn—God is God all the time. When we are walking out the hard times in life, we need to cling to our faith and not abandon it; we need to not ask “why I am going through this mess” but rather we should ask “what is God trying to do through this time in my life?” We need to know and accept that God is good when He gives us the good times and when He allows us to walk the rough times.
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