September 18, 2010 at 11:12 am · Filed under Devotional, Family
I love our family tradition of sitting around the breakfast table talking, drinking coffee, and opening the Word.
Read Colossians 3:2 together this morning. A fantastic guide to successful prayer time. 2 key components: Thanksgiving & Praying for others. Giving thanks helps us to keep one foot in the future and the other grounded in today. Thanksgiving keeps you mindful of the future in a positive way – dreaming of good things to come, while addressing our present reality in a practical way. Then the clincher is moving from thanksgiving about our needs to praying for others, so that we focus less on ourselves and more on others, forgetting about our own troubles.
Then Kristen gave me some tips for my message tomorrow. What a great speaking coach! I really have some awesome people surrounding me, helping me to focus and improve.
“None of us is as smart as all of us”
Dr. Ken Blanchard
September 3, 2010 at 8:07 am · Filed under Devotional
Come on. Admit it. You love it when smart people get it wrong. I’m not talking about out loud gloating necessarily, but definitely a smile on the inside when it happens. We’re all human, and we like to be reminded everybody else is, too.
In 2 Samuel 7 David decides to build God a house. Nathan the prophet thinks that is a great idea, too, but then God weighs in, saying,
“Have I ever said a word to anyone
… why have you not built me a house of cedar?”
2 Samuel 7:7
God then proceeds to lay out his love and care for David, and the people of Israel, for David’s son after him, and for those in subsequent generations who will believe. How He longs for them to enjoy the world of His creation. God’s house isn’t built of cedar, it’s made of people, and even David got it wrong.
So after explaining thoroughly what His house is and isn’t, God says that David’s son will build it. Solomon is recorded as one of the smartest people who ever lived, but he proceeds to begin a temple construction project that Muslims and Jews are still fighting over to this day. You see it’s much easier to build things than people. People can be messy, frustrating, unpredictable. But God is interested in building a giant house of people, and that includes you and me.
I guess the moral of the story is, not to get too smart for our own good. By staying close to God’s Word, we can learn from the mistakes of others who have gone before us, and catch glimpses of God’s heart. When I think back on ministry I’ve done, it is the people who’s lives I’ve been a part of helping that I remember most. Today let God build you up, and then follow His example by finding somebody you can encourage.
