Did I Do Something Wrong?

“Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong” Job 6:24

    It seemed much had been going wrong over several months. Then one day my wife woke me up to tell me the furnace was broken. And then I discovered my phone had been disconnected, both on the same day. She asked me: “Are we doing something wrong?” I knew what she meant.

    It is a natural reaction for the Christian to examine their lives regularly, and especially in times of trouble. I told my wife: “No, sometimes things just happen.”

    Yet it is no fun to be on the receiving end of trouble and unwanted challenges. We can begin to develop a “persecution complex” after problems grow and mount in our lives, especially when it seems everyone around us has managed to avoid those same problems and challenges.

    God blesses His children, and while it is true that He sometimes chastens us when we go astray, He has also chosen us. God is never “out to get us”.

    God makes a way through everything life throws at us when we rely upon Him. Sometimes that way is into His arms as we leave this world and its tasks behind, and at other times it is battling through to the other side of trouble with another victory under our belt thanks to Him.

    Troubles come, they always will. But so does victory, so does experience as we overcome trouble through the One who has called us.

    Perhaps the problems coming into your life are not because you have done anything wrong, but because you are a child of God living in a hostile environment on your way to your true home.

    Fulfill your purpose as Christ’s faithful representative in good times and bad.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, sometimes life is hard, terrible, and frustrating. But sometimes life is good, and that is because of Your presence. Thank you Lord. Amen.

Is Your Mind Too Cluttered?

“All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless” Ecclesiastes 2:23

   Years ago I found myself in an office where the walls were cluttered with signs.

    Everywhere you looked, large, small, even tiny signs could be found with a wide variety of sayings and quotes. But the sign that stuck out from the rest, paradoxically, was the sign that said: Simplify.

   That office and its multitude of signs struck me as a metaphor for my own mind. It is too often cluttered with thoughts and ideas going this way and that. I am being pulled in one direction and then another just as my eyes bounced from one sign and its message to the next in that office.

   How easy it is to let our minds get cluttered with thoughts, ideas, fears, anxieties, and doubts. How much better it would be to quiet our busy minds and focus instead on God.

   When we turn our minds toward God rather than chasing after endless ideas and thoughts that carry us away from what is most important, we remove the endless clutter that weakens our focus and fruitlessly scatters our thoughts.

   I think if that had been my office I would have removed every sign and added only one in their place: Trust in God. This is the sign every Christian should have foremost in their thoughts.

    When all of our gimmicks and ideas fall flat, when all the best plans we can come up with fall short of our needs, it is then time to turn to God and fill our minds with Him instead.

    When you live with illness your life can quickly fill up with worries and cares, leaving you with scattered thoughts instead of focusing upon the one important thought: JESUS.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, still our busy thoughts and free our cluttered minds. Fill our hearts and minds instead with You. Amen.