Complaining about our wants,
while we overlook others’ needs,
is not “patiently waiting on God’s provision”.
#HitMyToesFirst
Last night I posted this privately instead of publicly because I needed to think about it closely. I then commented on it with my thoughts about it before heading off to sleep:
And I’m not just talking about stuff.
If my wanting or expecting someone to be a different way so that they are easier for me to deal with — is greater than my seeing their need for someone to love, encourage, and help them — where does that leave me?
Lord, teach us to walk in your way. Teach us to see things from that new, right perspective of love that has no agenda and is not self serving.
Then I woke up to our morning routine as a family.
Proverbs 11:17 was Mia’s morning devotional and ours was Phillipines 4:6-7,11-13 this morning. Pretty cool when you wake up to confirmation to what you were contemplating and chewing on before going to sleep.
When you’re kind to others, you help yourself; when you’re cruel to others, you hurt yourself.
Proverbs 11:17 MSG
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:6-7, 11-13 NLT
And I’m reminded that whether or not we receive the truth and allow it to work it’s way down into our hearts and be planted, applied, and lived out in our lives should serve as a testimony as to the true state of our faith, of our relationship with Christy who is meant to live in us and through us, child of God. (Mark 4) We should examine ourselves and fall broken and repentant in the hands of the potter to be renewed in our minds, changed in our hearts, touched by the hands of His powerful grace and His Holy Spirit that is alive in the heart of a believer. This Word of God is sharp and should cut deep and do its work firmly and surely — as He proves us more and more, from grace to grace, as His new creation.
Let’s not let the enemy steal away this Word, let’s guard our hearts. Let’s not get excited about it only to fall away under heavy burdens and obligation, let’s respond in gratitude to this gift of grace. Let’s not get distracted by the world and the flesh, but let’s walk in the spirit and in fellowship with other believers. Let’s put our hands to this wondrous plow that tills up the soil of our hearts and turns hard packed, rocky, and weed riddled lives into fertile, fruitful lives because of His touch, His guidance, His love that is the strength pushing that plow forward in our lives today and forever more. Amen.
Harold J. Ballinger 