Eliminating the "Yeah, but" from our lives

I remember when I was a kid, my mother would tell me to do something and the first words out of my mouth were "Yeah, but..." and then go on to list all the reasons why her request would be impossible for me to fulfil.  I don't have time.  That's my brother's chore.  Tomorrow would be better.  Eventually before I even got "Yeah, but..." out of my mouth she'd look at me and say, "Yabut, Yabut, Yabut." and I knew at that point the conversation was over.  If this was English class, we'd just replace everything after Yeah But with a period, because that would be the end of the sentence.

The same thing is true of God.  When He tells me to go talk to that stranger, He's not interested in my, "Yeah, but what if they don't want to be bothered?"  When He tells me to do that favor, He's not interested in my "Yeah, but they won't appreciate it."  When He tells me to extend a kindness, He's not interested in "Yeah, but they treat me poorly."  He's no more interested in my Yeah Buts than my mother was.  Might as well end that sentence right there.

The Fine Line Between Helping and Hijacking

Subtitled: "My Nose Always Knows (Where It Doesn't Belong)"

My friend TJ had some great words of wisdom regarding our innate desire to want to "fix" everyone's everything for them: "I have a relatively small nose but it is always where it doesn't belong with the best of intentions."

There's a fine line between helping someone and completely taking over their situation and "fixing" it for them.

Sometimes God just wants to get someone's attention directly, without anyone inserting themselves in between.  That's a hard one to remember.

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Image used from Pixabay according to their Content License

Today's Random Thought: Does God Have a Better Plan?

Sometimes our plans may not work out to be in our best interest. We can't possibly see all the repercussions of getting what we want, but God can.  When what we desperately want doesn't happen, we need to trust that a perfect God who loves us more than we can possibly imagine is carving out a path that is exactly what we need, when we need it.

Today's Random Thought - Why Isn't God Doing Anything??

We pray for what we want.  It’s frustrating when we pray and pray and God doesn’t appear to be doing anything. But God has a plan for every single situation, and a perfect timeline for that plan.  And His plan is always the best.  He puts others with needs in our paths for a reason; sometimes we are the ones with needs and we're put in others' paths.  He could just meet those needs directly, but there's blessing and learning and growing when He puts people with needs in front of people who can meet those.

Be Ready. Now.

 A few days ago a friend of ours passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.  He sat down in his chair, and he died.  No doubt when he sat down he fully expected he'd be getting back up again, but he didn't.  I thank God he had a close relationship with Him and was ready, in the only really important way there is.  No doubt he left things undone, but not the one thing with vitally important eternal consequences.

Are you ready?  Do you have a saving relationship with your Savior?  This is nothing to put off for another day.  Stop thinking about it and do something about it.  Right now.

The Rock

One thing that never changes is that things will change. Sometimes it's a sudden change.  Sometimes it's slow rolling changes.  If you look back at your life 20 years ago, all of the cumulative changes, large and small, add up.

No - wait a minute - there's something else that never changes... something vastly more important.  That is God.  

If He changes, how can we count on Him?  We can't.  But He is "the same yesterday and today, and forever" [Hebrews 13:8].  Our Lord is a solid rock, an ever-present help in times of trouble [Psalm 46:1].  If God continually changed, how could we count on any of His promises?  We couldn't.  If God can change, so can His promises, and so can His reliability.  But Thank God, He doesn't change.

He has given us unchanging truths to live by in the Bible.  His love for us doesn't change.  His promises don't change. His definition of sin does not change. His patience and forgiveness don't change.  The Great Commission doesn't change. He is the rock.

How wonderful it is to have this solid rock when things around us are changing faster than we can take it all in.  We have a reliable, unchanging anchor.

Today’s Random Thought: When It Doesn’t Go Like You Want, Is God Still Good?

We all see prayer requests on Facebook and other social media. And when things turn out well, there are invariably comments such as, “God is Good!”  It heavily implies that God is only good when He averts the disaster.  Is He less good when He does not avert the disaster?  When things do not go as hoped for, I’d love to see someone acknowledge that God is still good… and He’s especially good when the bottom falls out of life.  He upholds, He comforts, He provides.  You have a much better idea of just how good God is when things don’t go well.