Someone shared this with my mom on Facebook. I thought it was cute and fairly relevant! Meme courtesy of The Bible Is Funny. 🙂
“Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer, but whoever refuses to shake hands in pledge is safe.” Proverbs 11:15 (NIV)
My family recently took our first ski trip. My husband, Eric, had skied before when he was growing up, but the kids and I had never skied. This was new territory for us. To be very honest, my first experience with skiing was not fabulous. Consequently the majority of my frustrations didn’t even come from the dislike of skiing, but from the pressure and insistence of others who seemingly found it impossible for anyone to dislike skiing. During this whole ordeal I started seeing a biblical parallel…stay in your lane, and I’m not talking about a physical skiing lane although that’s probably a relevant lesson also! 😉
I’ll admit that I was a bit apprehensive from the start. Although I love the mountains, I’m not a big fan of cold weather. I’m also not very athletic. Coordination is not a particular skill of mine. For some reason my head knows what to do but my arms, legs, hands, and feet don’t always cooperate. I’m also not particularly fond of falling or getting hurt, which I knew would be inevitable when learning to ski in my mid-40s. I’m not quite as physically resilient as my kiddos.
This was my last time on skis
Nevertheless, I’m a brave soul, so I proceeded with a fairly open mind. My daughter and I signed up for ski lessons (ignoring my husband’s advice to “just watch YouTube videos”). I knew about an hour into our 3 hour lesson that skiing was NOT for me. However, I pressed on with the lesson. After all, what kind of message would I be sending to my daughter to start something and not finish it? I’m not a quitter, and I don’t like to be defeated. That being said though, I typically know my boundaries and my personal preferences. I quickly learned that I did not like skiing, no matter how hard I tried to master the skill.
I opted not to ski the rest of day. Instead, I just enjoyed observing. The next day, I attempted the bunny slopes again. Then, against my better judgement, I allowed my husband to convince me to graduate up to the next size slope. Let’s just say a crash was involved, which resulted in a hurt elbow and knee and me removing my skis and marching the rest of the way down instead. That ended my attempts at skiing for the rest of the trip, even though in hindsight it’s kind of a funny memory now.
The main problem I encountered though was not my inability to ski or my lack of love for it but instead the confrontations of people who insisted on my love and appreciation of skiing. It seemed unfathomable to some people that I just didn’t like it. I was consistently being pressured to keep trying, don’t give up, you’ll get the hang of it, you’ll like it if you just keep trying, you just need to overcome your fear, and on and on. I felt like people were trying to force me to do something that I KNEW internally was just not me, not in my wheelhouse, and not a part of my preferences. Why couldn’t people just understand that?!
To me it’s kind of like eating salmon. I don’t care how many times I try it (and believe me I keep trying it over and over…for years) or how it’s prepared, I hate salmon. It triggers my gag reflex. Bleh! Or…like running. You know those people that live for the next 5K or marathon? I’m not one of those either. I love walking. Running…not so much….unless something is chasing me. But then again, you have those people who insist on running being the best, most exhilarating form of exercise, and they want everyone else to love it just as much as they do. Have you ever met those people?
Maybe not everyone is a skier. Maybe some people are skiers, and some are runners, and maybe some are just observers or hikers or fisherman (another situation where I’d rather just sit and observe or ride along and read a book). Could it possibly be that maybe, just maybe, everyone can have different preferences, and hobbies, and roles? Might it not work out even better if people were different and had different tastes and different talents? Wouldn’t it be HORRIBLE if everyone were exactly the same?!
Gotta love some Christian meme humor. When the Holy Spirit has given you everything you need but you still try to do it alone.
“You provided for them in the desert for 40 years, and they had everything they needed…” Nehemiah 9:21a (GWT)
When my kids were quite a bit younger in church they were taught the lesson “I obey right away”. A friend of mine who taught kindergarten later told me, “We add to that…Slow obey is no obey.” I’ve heard others say “Slow obedience is no obedience.” Personally, I prefer the catchy sing-song rhyme version. I loved both “obey” sayings together, so we’ve adopted them and used them quite a bit in our home. “I obey right away. Slow obey is no obey.” I usually only had to say the first two words of each phrase, and then the kids would finish the remainder, often with a pitiful sigh.
Sometimes it’s hard for kids to recognize these stalling tactics as disobedience. After all, they’re not giving an outright “no”. Therefore it appears less defiant on the surface.
Command: “Go clean your room.” Slow obey: “I will after I finish this video game.”
Command: “Finish your homework.” Slow obey: “I want to get a snack first.”
Command: “Eat your vegetables.” Slow obey: “I’m going to save them for last.”
Regardless though delayed obedience is still disobedience. Stalled obedience is still a form of rebellion. Postponing obedience is disregarding and challenging authority all the same. Thus, slow obey is no obey.
It struck me one day that this isn’t just a lesson for kids obeying their parents. Delayed obedience (thus disobedience) is not limited just to kids. Not at all. In fact, adults are just as guilty, myself included. One of the biggest areas we are at fault is avoiding or stalling on instructions from God. We KNOW he’s asked us to do something, but we continue to put it off, sometimes indefinitely.
We, all of us, need to be reminded of this lesson when obeying God.
Why do we postpone obedience? Most of the time it’s because we just flat out don’t want to do whatever it is that has been asked of us. It’s potentially undesirable, or we want to avoid some kind of discomfort or inconvenience. Sometimes, we avoid obeying right away because we don’t understand the reason behind the request or directive. It may not make any sense to us, or it might even seem counterintuitive.
My sister sent this to me the other day and said, “I feel like this could be you telling the kids.” That’s so true! Anyone else relate??
“…The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17b (ESV)
Failures are a common cause of insecurity. Sometimes these insecurities stem from a fear of failure. Maybe it’s from previous failures, maybe even a series of them. Occasionally they may come from failures consisting of bad decisions, wrong living, intentional or even unintentional mistakes, etc. We occasionally have the misbelief that our failures define us. They don’t! Our failures can hinder us and hold us back if we let them, but they don’t have to. We can learn to overcome them and even use them as a springboard to launch us even further into success.
Failures can teach us.
King David’s sin and failures (adultery and murder) haunted him: “For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.” Psalm 51:3 (NLT) Our failures often haunt us. In fact, the devil loves to keep us in this exact position. Another word for it is self-condemnation. The devil wants us to believe that we ARE a failure because we have failed. He loves to keep us in torment over our mistakes. He wants us to believe that we will never be enough because of what we have done. The good news is that God says the complete opposite…
“… And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”” John 8:11 (ESV)
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17 (NIV)
“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 (NLT)
God won’t write us off. He didn’t write David off, even though he was an adulterer and murderer.
He didn’t write Paul off, even though he was a sworn enemy of Jesus and murderer of Christians.
God won’t write YOU off, regardless of your failures!
God is omniscient (all-knowing). He already knew Continue reading
Happy Valentine’s Day! 🙂
“And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test…” Luke 10:25a (ESV)
Recently I received an email from a reader questioning some strong emotions they have been experiencing even though they do not currently have an active relationship with God, nor are they involved in church or prayer. The reader expressed feeling an emotional draw and pull towards church. They communicated that they cry every time they hear a Christian or gospel song, in addition to experiencing overwhelming and even exhausting tears during the couple of times they have attended church as an adult. Their question was to ask how they could be experiencing such emotions and a draw to something with which they are not even that involved. My short answer: Our soul longs for God.
Deep down in our innermost being, our souls long for God. There are numerous scriptures in the Bible that talk about this.
“He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 (AMP)
“Through the night my soul longs for you. Deep from within me my spirit reaches out to you…” Isaiah 26:9a (MSG)
“O God, you are my God, and I long for you. My whole being desires you; like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land, my soul is thirsty for you.” Psalm 63:1 (GNT)
“My soul (my life, my inner self) thirsts for God, for the living God. When will I come and see the face of God?” Psalm 42:2 (AMP)
“My soul (my life, my inner self) longs for and greatly desires the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” Psalm 84:2 (AMP)
“I stretch out my hands to You; My soul longs for You, as a parched land. Selah.” Psalm 143:6 (NASB)
“My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word.” Psalm 119:81 (ESV)
“My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning; more than watchmen for the morning.” Psalm 130:6 (WEB)
“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” Philippians 2:13 (NLT)
“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “When I will send hunger over the land, Not hunger for bread or a thirst for water, But rather [a hunger] for hearing the words of the Lord.” Amos 8:11 (AMP)
Something is missing without Jesus. Deep down something inside of us feels incomplete without him. Only Jesus can complete us. We have a hunger or thirst for something inside of us, and Jesus is the only one that can satisfy that hunger/thirst. Continue reading
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