food for thought

"Who art Thou Lord?" Acts 26:15

Have you ever set out with joy to help someone just to find negativity or disappointment in others' response to your good deed?  Oswald Chambers said we wear ourselves out in how WE determine to serve the Lord.  Could it be that our good deeds are filled with our own motives or shortcomings?  Are we willing to go there, be analyzed, so the Holy Spirit can reveal any unclean thing that is in us?  "No good deed goes unpunished."  A curse, one would think, without spiritual vision.  So let's put on our spiritual eyes and get ready to see our own shortcomings.  Disheartening as it may seem, we cannot grow without spiritual self- examination.  This may seem clear as mud because the truth is we do not want to see our faults, we want to complain and be vindicated. It is a personal journey, one God has to teach each one of us, but do we have the courage to let God examine our hearts?  No use in hiding, God knows where we are on this road to sanctification.  "You can run but you can not hide."  Movies and t.v. shows all have examples of good deeds being punished and we all have opinions of them. Some are pretty black and white, those are the easy ones but what about all the shades of gray in between?  It is here the mud thickens.  Just look at the presidential race and for the lack of paper, time, and God's mercy on my soul I will not dive into particulars on that one.  We all have our reasons for liking or disliking what candidates stand for and want to do, but the truth is, there are pros and cons to all of them and after whomever is elected one thing is for sure, we will hear mostly cons about them for the next four years. 

The question is: are we willing to quit complaining and being upset about the way things go in ours or others' lives, whatever the case may be, and pray and seek God's truth in the matter? Seeking God's truth isn't going to change our thinking to another's point of view or vise versa, but it will help open our eyes to God's truth.  If we are willing to seek, we will find, but so often we are so focused on the injustice we feel that we never see what God has for us to learn. When we are willing to be examined by God, we all will most likely see faults in ourselves which we have pushed into our subconscious in order not to deal with them.  The injustice we often feel put on us by others always has two sides, the person who wronged us and our reaction to it.  It is our demand to be justified that must be rooted out. It is always ugly and we may even have supporters but do we realize we are dragging them down with us in our complaining of the offense? Elisabeth Eliott said  "The Throne before the phone." and we would be wise to heed that advice.  If we indeed want to live a humble life, following after Christ in His image, there simply is no other way.

"The Throne before the phone." Elizabeth Elliott.

Heavenly Father draw us closer to You so we will desire only Your will for our lives.  Examine our hearts, Lord, make us aware of any unclean thing in us so it may be rooted out for Your glory alone.  In your Son Jesus' name I pray. Amen

Love to all in Christ Jesus C:)