Just wondering … could it possibly be true?

"Faith is reason grown courageous." - Sherwood Eddy

For the last 5 days we have been iced and snowed in here in Dallas. It was fun at first but then the bad stuff started to take place; like frozen pipes and no hot water. It even got a little scary when the rolling blackouts started to take place. Then it hit me how blessed I am to have the things I usually take for granted.

What are you taking for granted? Is it your health, warm food, clean drinking water, shelter, a steady job; we all take something for granted until we lose it. And here is the saddest part; we moan about so many little inconveniences that are really not basic to the good life we are leading. For example did you realize that if you make at least $47,500 a year, you are in the top 1% of the wealthiest people on the earth? Most of us don’t feel so privileged do we?

How much money would you need to be happy? Or put another way, “How much is enough?” For me it is really about security. How much money do I need to feel safe and secure? Then we have to ask, if we are putting our confidence in wealth, “How do we protect our wealth, so it cannot be lost once we get it?”

Jesus said that we should put our confidence in our Heavenly Father’s ability to care for us and not in material possessions. How are you doing with that concept? One test of that philosophy is alluded to in the so called “Lord’s Prayer” where Jesus says, “And give us this day our daily bread...” Do you trust God to provide as He taught the Israelites to do in the wilderness through His daily provision of manna?

How do we get our mind into the right zone to live as He proscribed? How can we learn to live day by day in dependence on Him and not our own power to provide? Is that even realistic? We have been taught from the cradle that we need to work hard to provide for our family and our self. Can a Christ-follower be expected to literally follow God in this way or are we responsible for our own needs? Can we train our self to be completely reliant on God for everything? Probably not … but it sounds like a great philosophy doesn’t it?

I wish it was true, but I doubt God wants me to be so dependent on Him or so stupid as to take that Jesus stuff literally. Jesus must have been exaggerating God’s ability to do for us what we really can’t do for our self; wasn’t He? Well most of us will never know, because we will never try it or anything close to it in our whole life until the snow and ice fall and the pipes freeze and the power fails. Then we may just have to trust Him because we have no other choice. I wonder if He will be there in that day ... at that time ... and in that circumstance?

"If you want to live a genuine life of faith, start when you don't need anything."

Open for Business?

“Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practiced for a good many years.” – Prince Phillip Windsor

What is the difference between telling the truth and being honest? Let me put it to you this way: I always tell the truth, but I don’t always say everything on my mind. We live in a world populated by other individuals and need to consider their reactions to the things we say and do. If we are not careful, we can needlessly hurt people by saying that which is better left unsaid. When we open our mouth is there a good reason behind it or is it just business as usual without much thought?

I work with other people for a living and often my success is based on their performance even more than my own. So I have made a science out of trying to think things through from the other guy’s perspective. Now admittedly, that is when I have my thinking cap on and am not just operating out of instinct. I make plenty of mistakes on this score, so don’t throw this in my face later. But I know that if I am wise in my interactions with others, I can accomplish far more than if I alienate those around me.

So what am I trying to say? Well, it’s really just a principal: “just because something is true, it does not always follow that we need to say it.” You can be an honest individual and still be tactful and considerate of the feelings of those around you. A corollary to that concept is that “if the person is not able to receive your thoughts, you may as well keep them to yourself.” We do not always need to say what comes to mind.

Sadly, some of us are almost compulsive when it comes to our interaction with others and we leave a lot of wreckage in our path. I have been guilty of that carelessness far too often. So I am learning to think before I speak. I ask myself if it really needs to be said and then ask a second question. "Will saying it make things better or just make me feel better by getting it off my chest?" These two steps have taken me a long way toward being more effective in my work with others. I hope they will help you too.

“Be sure your brain is in motion before you put your mouth in gear.”