One of the beneficial things about being married to my wife is that she is such picky salad eater. When she gets a salad she basically wants lettuce (has to be bib and ice berg lettuce, everything else is "stuff they got in the back yard" - I love field greens she hates them), carrots, cheese, and maybe few other things. Tomatoes, never, cucumbers, absolutely not. Thus the situation that I am going to tell you about today.
Upgrading my salad. My wife’s picky-ness insures that I will always get a better salad then I ordered, as she will begin throwing stuff off the salad as it hits the table. All the stuff she gets rid off, I get. After almost 11 years together she even orders dressing on the side where her dressing does not get on the stuff that will be going on my salad. Typically my salad increases by 30 to 40% in volume because of all the stuff she dumps.
God is the same way. He is always taking my plain and boring life and adding value with things that I love. He does not give me the stuff that He does not want, like my wife does off her salad. No, He gives me the stuff that helps me, and He gives it too me abundantly. It does not come with a string of guilt, or an assumption of required service. It comes out of His love and His care.
God wants me to enjoy my life as much as possible, now it may not look exciting from a worldly perspective, but it is meant for my enjoyment. That is a true sign of a relationship between two people. How many times do we go - Why is so in so with so in so? The answer is that one person makes the other one happy. No one else may understand it, but each of the involved parties do.
For too long we have tired to explain to the world how much God loves us. This falls into an area of concern that has always been on my heart - Christians talking to lost people about ideas and concepts that they do not understand with words that mean nothing to them. How can you explain the creator the world loving a filthy sinner like me. You can not, and no lost person is going to see it until they begin to look for God in their lives and find a God sized hole. We must stop trying to explain God, and begin rejoicing in God. He will open the doors and create the holes, then you can explain God to the lost, but talking to them in terms they do not understand and about concepts that are foreign will accomplish little.
The crux of our relationship with God can be summed up in a few lines from a song. -
Jesus Christ is the lover of my soul, and He wants to give me all I need, .....
Christ is the lover of your soul, and He wants to give you all you need.
Why do we spend so much time worrying about the things of this world, and trying to explain our decisions to a lost world. God is abundantly blessing and moving. Daily, He is taking the lost and saving them. He is giving them hope. These things occurred in our lives and change our lives, but they appear less then exciting to those that are lost and have yet to see any problems with their own conditions.
Until you realize that you have no hope alone, you can not appreciate the improvements that God brings too your life. Those are the upgrades that He brings too us. They may not seem great too the outsider, like my wife giving me her cucumbers, but they are the things that make our life wonderful and blessed. The little small blessings that carry us until the larger blessings become apparent.
The problem is that many times the Devil convinces us that God does not really loving us, or that He is ignoring us. Some how when things are not popping quickly we begin to think God is sleeping or otherwise detained, but in reality God is just training and preparing us for the next round of growth.
I am really trying to learn just how God is preparing me for the future, and appreciate the improvements to my life that He is sending me now. This is in contrast with focusing on what I think He should be doing in my life, or what I think He is planning to do in my life in the future. God is always taking my boring life and adding spice too it and making it more exciting. Sometimes I just have too pay more attention to see those little blessings.
Why do we always find something to complain about - i.e. sure God blessed me with a large family but my house is too small, instead of appreciating what He has done. I think it is human nature. We are by nature unthankful and selfish, it is the sin nature in us, no more no less. I do not say that as a excuse because we can easily become guilty of saying - "Well I am the way I am because of my fallen nature and there is nothing I can do about it." Sure there is something we can do about it, sure there is, but it requires change and change is the one thing that scares us more then death.
Daily, we have to position ourselves where we are enjoying the little blessings. That way when the big blessings come then we are ready. Begin thanking God today for taking your life and making it better, even if it is not in the ways that you expect or want. God as a plan, and He is working. He knows what is best for you, trust Him, and allow Him too work.
Have a great day enjoying the small and large blessings of God as He upgrades your life daily with His presence and His works.
Please view the Team Swap Prayer Page for a list of prayer and praise opportunites if you doubt the blessings and protection that God provides daily - Click here
