January, 2019 | Courage For Today

The Door to Christ is Never Locked

As a child, our trips to my grandmother’s house were always exciting. She lived in a small town that was about two hours drive-time from where my family lived so we weren’t able to visit very often. I think the fact that we weren’t able to visit as often as I had wanted added to the mystery of each visit. My brothers and I always looked forward with anticipation when we knew we were driving to see her.

Her home was small and there wasn’t really much to do there when we arrived. But, there was just something wonderful about the atmosphere and the surroundings. When we visited, my grandmother always welcomed us with open arms. She always made us feel like we were the most important people in her life at that time and that just had a way of making us feel special. Quite honestly, I think she was probably as excited to see us as we were in seeing her but I just knew that we couldn’t wait for that long drive to be over and we finally arrived at her house.

When we arrived, our routine was always the same. We parked the car on her small dirt driveway. We walked up to the screened-in front porch, which was never locked, and entered the main door to the house which, likewise, was never locked. We would meander through the bedroom and the family room and head toward the kitchen where she would always be cooking and preparing something for our lunch or dinner that day. It didn’t matter if we drove up early in the morning or late at night, after dark; the doors to the house would always be open and she would always be preparing something for us.

Those of us that have a close relationship with Christ know that feeling. I know in my own life, before I had accepted Christ, I had reached a very low point in my life. I didn’t feel like anyone cared. I felt depressed. I really didn’t feel like I had a purpose. That all changed when I reached out to Christ. I soon realized that His door had always been open for me. His door was never locked; I just refused to try and open it or (worse) went to the wrong door. Once I opened His door, and allowed Christ in my heart, His Heavenly Feast was there waiting for me. The day that I accepted Christ was as real as one of my visits to my grandmother’s house. Christ was as excited to welcome me as I was to welcome Him and He was already preparing great things for me.

How is your relationship with God today? Remember that Christ’s door is never locked. All you have to do is enter.

Hatred That Erodes

Seek Forgiveness

We just moved to our new house about a year ago. We decided to move from the big city life to a smaller town with a more country setting and, I have to say, it has been a nice change of pace. If you have ever moved, you know what a chore it can sometimes be. In our case, we moved from a small condo to a much larger home. So, we had the opposite problem of most people in that we don’t have enough furniture to fill up all of the rooms at our new place. While that sounds like it would make for an easier move, it seems my to-do list of things to do at the new house never gets any shorter.

Recently, I have been in the process of cleaning out my tool shed out in our back yard. When we moved, it basically become a storage unit for our belongings until we could get fully settled. Now that the new place is livable, my duty now is to go through all the years worth of accumulated “stuff” and decide whether or not to keep the items or store them somewhere in a better location. I probably won’t totally finish the project until the weather warms up this Spring, but I thought I would get a head start at least.

As I was moving some old items out of the tool shed, I noticed a couple of old plastic 5-gallon paint buckets that had been left there by the former owner. The buckets were dry and cracked and filled with what looked and smelled like some chemical cleanser or paint thinner or, heaven forbid, something even more toxic. Whatever liquid was in the buckets had partially eaten through the plastic buckets and created small holes. It appeared that the liquid partially leaked out the holes but then later gummed up and gelled into some material foreign to this Earth. It didn’t take me long to decide to add these disgusting, leaky, gummy buckets to the pile of items going to the landfill never to be used again.

As a Christian, this got me thinking about how easily it is for us to harbor hatred in our hearts for others. Maybe it was someone who offended you or said something hateful to a loved one. Perhaps it was someone who mistreated you or treated your family wrong in some way. Lord as my witness, I have been down that path so many times I can’t even keep count. Even church members or Christian friends have said and done things to me and my family that have hurt more than you could even imagine. But, it’s at that point I learned that I had a decision to make. Either I could let that hatred of what happened or what was said eat away at me forever, or I could let it go and stop controlling my life.

There were times when I found myself holding on to the hurt and the pain so much that it just ate away at me. In fact, the pain was so much at times that it created “holes” in my life just like the toxic material that I had found in my old paint buckets. You see, holding on the pain didn’t hurt anyone but me. I thought holding on would make things better because it gave me an opportunity to keep telling myself how wrong those people were with what they had done and said. Unfortunately, all the holding on to past grudges didn’t accomplish anything but simply making my “vessel” or my life weaker and it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

Eventually, I prayed to God that HE would give me the strength I needed to forgive those that had hurt me. I certainly couldn’t have done it alone. It didn’t mean I liked what they did or even forgot what had happened. It simply meant that I wasn’t allowing those events to rule my life any more and eat away at my peace.

Over time, my life has healed. My life’s “bucket” is no longer filled with toxic material escaping through holes that I allowed to occur in my life. I can honestly say that with God’s help, I kicked the bucket of hatred. My prayer is that you will too.

Do You Find Yourself Running From God

Encouragement, Life's Priorities

I have to admit that there are some ridiculous horror movies out today. Everything from the classics of old to the modern day slasher films. I don’t watch them very often because I just really don’t like horror flicks. To be honest, watching these movies makes me tired. It seems like someone is always running from someone or something and trying to avoid getting caught.

Just think about it for a moment. Either someone is running from a person about to slash them or trying to get away from some killer zombie. Or, better yet, trying to get away in their car that suddenly won’t start. Or, they get locked in some creepy motel room and they are being stalked by the sadistic motel clerk. I could go on and on but you get the picture. And, you’ve probably seen a lot of these movies. For once, I wish these folks in the movies would just lead a normal life and stop running into and from these killers. It sure would make their lives a lot easier.

Unfortunately, I think back in my own Christian life and, if I am honest, I have found my self doing the same thing. I don’t mean running from zombies. It’s even worse. I find myself running from God. There have been times God has clearly told me to do something or not to do something but, instead, of following his lead I run from those instructions like I am part of one of those horror movies. Why would I run from God? Why would I not want to do what he is directing me to do?

In looking back on some of those occasions when I was running from God, it really always boiled down to one thing: I thought that I was a better judge for my life than God. I felt like I knew a thing or two about what direction I should go and I didn’t really need God’s input. Call it arrogance or stupidity or anything else, but it’s wrong regardless. Even though it hurts sometimes and contradicts what I sometimes think is right, I have learned over the years to trust that sweet voice of God and trust that feeling of peace I always get when following God.

If your life seems a little out of sorts now and you just don’t have that feeling of peace that you think you should have, ask yourself a very simple question: Am I running from God? If you honestly answer “yes,” I would encourage you to try changing directions. Start running toward God instead of away from God. Embrace what HE has in store for you and your life instead of fighting it.

You’ll realize that HE has been there all along waiting for you with open arms.

Lift Your Burdens

Encouragement, God's Strength

I was watching an old Western movie the other day, which tells you that my day was not very exciting. The story involved a family of cowboys making the long trek over the mountains to get to their new homestead. As was often the case in those days, the family made the decision to leave their current home and travel to unknown places in search for a better life. I am not sure I would have the courage to make that leap of faith but it was always admirable to watch others make those journeys.

If you think about it, the journey was pretty remarkable. Just traveling by horseback for that many miles would be tough enough. The danger of climbing rocks and cliffs along with the possibilities of running into predators such as bears and cougars. Not to mention, the constant search for food and water along the way. Not fun by any stretch of the imagination.

One thing that caught my eye as I was watching this movie was that everything this family owned was basically packed on the backs of pack mules meandering down and around those winding trails. The mules carried those tremendous weights and burdens of the family’s belongings through the entire journey. Finally, at the end of each day, the packages and boxes were lifted off the backs of the mules so that they could rest for the night. It had not really hit me before watching this movie that the burdens of those mules could only be lifted by someone else.

What a wonderful analogy of our own life’s burdens and our relationship with Christ. How many times do we go through life carrying weight after weight and burden after burden. Unfortunately, we carry those burdens until we seemingly collapse and never realize that it is Christ who can remove those burdens from our life.

The next time you are feeling overwhelmed and over-burdened, just ask yourself: Are you carrying too much of a burden yourself? Try letting Christ lighten your load and your path will be much easier.

Your Road Map for Loving Others

Life's Priorities

I remember one particular occasion when my best friend and I were driving down the main highway on the way to Florida. In those days, there were no GPS Navigational systems. We were armed with an old fashioned paper road map of Georgia and Florida. Off we went on our great adventure. For the most part, we followed the map and stayed on the main Interstates and highways. At one particular point in our journey, we both spotted what appeared to be an interesting dirt road. Being the adventurous souls we were, we decided to take the dirt road and see where it led. We calculated that we were a little ahead of schedule, time-wise, so why not? We didn’t see this particular local, small road on the map so we were just curious enough to want to check it out. We drove over holes and ditches and rounded curves sliding from side to side. It was a blast—-until we drove over a ditch that was just a little too deep for our wheels. We hit the ditch and the bottom of the car slammed into the ground and shook the tailpipe lose on the car. Luckily, the car was still driveable. Somehow, we managed to move the car from the ditch and quickly drove back to the main highway, continuing on to Florida without a muffler and sounding like an old Logging Truck. I don’t know how we made it without annoying the police, but somehow we did. We managed to have the muffler and tailpipe repaired while we vacationed in Florida. It would have been much easier had we just stayed on the main highway, but we couldn’t resist the temptation to take the road less traveled. Even though we had a Map showing the correct route and path we should have taken, we couldn’t resist the urge to be adventurous. It was a choice we made and, unfortunately, we made the wrong choice and paid a price.

I think we would all agree that the Bible is our road map for Life. Speaking for myself, I wish I followed the map more often. The other day I was reading a passage in 1st Peter which gives us one of those clear road maps we all need. 1st Peter Chapter 4, verses 7-12 says to be of sound judgment and keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. Sometimes, having a fervent love is fairly easy and sometimes it’s extremely difficult, depending upon the person and the situation. Choosing to fervently love others is a choice, just like when we chose the wrong road to travel. Making the wrong choice in how we love others often leads to bad consequences just as our road trip did many years ago.

Here are 4 things that I try to remember to strive for that have helped me over the years when dealing with others, especially those that may mistreat me. You could say that this is my road map for loving others:

A Sound Mind: We must show patience and love when dealing with others, especially those that mistreat us. We all expect others to rise to our level. We must be willing to meet others where they are and that takes patience.
A Submissive Prayer Life: We must have a personal prayer life and also pray for others, submitting our Will to God’s Will. If we’re honest, we’re all selfish looking out for ourselves. It’s amazing how much stronger your prayer life becomes when you pray for others needs instead of just your own.
A Selfless Love: We should all have a passion for helping others based on our gifts, abilities, and resources. Again, selfishness comes into play here. Don’t be afraid to get involved with others and help them meet their needs. You’ll be blessed and others will too.
A Spoken Witness: We must allow Jesus to speak through us and work through our lives. It doesn’t do any good for God to speak to us if we don’t act. Have courage to be the witness and example to others that you know you should.

We’re all faced with roads to travel and forks in the road to take, especially when dealing with others. Make sure you follow God’s Map and take the right course so that your love for others will be strong.

“Lord, thank you for reminding me today of the importance of following your direction. Thank you for reminding me to be of Sound Mind; have a Submissive prayer life; have a Selfless love for others; and a Spoken Witness for You.”

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