Love you all, praying for you,
I just love God’s Word. It protects you. Have you been struck by how much you can learn from a two-year-old? I’m learning that lately. And it’s amazing how much they resemble you. Or more accurately, I guess, how much I resemble a two-year-old. Sometimes they have incredible moments of selfless kindness, delightful inspiration, and mature conversation and responses. Other times they act like, well… a two-year-old. “But I just need it.” Whether a toy, or a show or something they want, their own way, at their own time. They don’t like naps, they prefer desert before the meal, they would watch cartoons all day if you let them, and eat all the cookies, leave every toy laying around the entire house, change their outfit as many times as you let them. I’m so much like that (not the change my outfit part, but the other parts). I tend to want something – and like a two-year-old I do everything in my power to get it, and I can pout when I don’t get my way, or get what I want. Of course I don’t call it pouting, that would be childish, but it’s really what it is. My stuff might be on a larger scale than a two-year-old but the principle and actions are the same. Have you ever got caught in a “want-something” rabbit hole? It’s so easy to fall into the black hole of facebook marketplace or Let Go, or IKEA, or the local car dealership, or Zillow. And the more you shop the more you want. And the more that toy looks better than the toy you have, and before you know it – you can’t remember where you left your contentment – it’s gone. It’s so easy to get consumed with what you don’t have – rather than being thankful for what you do have. But God doesn’t really want us thinking of either that much, not what we have or don’t have. It’s great to be thankful – but God didn’t create you to sit around all day being thankful. He wants us to be thankful on the way. He’s got a way for you! A path to take, a mission to accomplish, a vision to fulfill. His yoke is easy and His burden is light – but it’s going somewhere – He’s got something for you to do, and in doing it He’s got something for you to become. It will make His Name greater, and your joy deeper, your character stronger, and it will be more about Him and His plans, and others and their needs, than it is about our own. No matter what you want – it will soon join the “old toys pile.” It always does. Praying that God will help you catch yourself – so you don’t get distracted with what God hasn’t called you to do right now… what won’t satisfy you, and what could prevent you from doing what He told you! Which is getting to where He’s leading you, and walking in the blessing that He longs to give you. Nothing wrong with facebook marketplace if God tells you to go there to get something. But that will be occasional, not often, and the best things God has for us – aren’t the things we pursue. They’re the things He gives us – along the way. As we’re seeking Him and just doing what He tells us to do next. That’s where the blessing comes, that’s where your contentment catches up with you. Contentment is not complacent, no more than complacent is contentment. Complacent is lazy – lacking the initiative and the fire to overcome inertia. But it doesn’t mean you’re content – complacent people are miserable. Contentment is found when you delight in the right thing. Psalms 37:3-4 - Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. What do you want? Are you getting it? Have you forgotten to delight yourself in Him? If you delight in the LORD – He becomes your delight, not other things – they won’t satisfy anyway. Delight in Him and you will be truly delighted. And what you need, He will bring when the time is perfect. And He’ll give you more than you need – enough to share… He always does. If you are after things – like a two-year-old wants toys – you’re not after Him, and if you’re after Him, you’re not after things. Things don’t make you happy – God does. Praying that you will delight yourself in the LORD. Sometimes just a refocus back on Him, and the next thing He’s calling you to do will help. Set any other pursuit – especially of those things you think you need – to the side for a while. One of the things we learned a long time ago – is a 30 Day List. List the top 5 things you want to buy (beyond regular monthly expenses) and rank them in priority order. Wait 30 Days before you buy the first thing. In that time, you’ll be shocked at how God changes your desire, or provides for it in an even better way than you could have imagined. If you decide to do it on your own – you’re stuck with what you can come up with. You get what you get. – what you can do, not what God can do. You’ll never know… you get the Yugo, not the Ferrari. But if you wait on Him, by delighting in Him - not in what you need, He will give you a delight that surpasses any - thing. And He will surely give you the thing you need at the perfect time. Sometimes it will be the thing you really need most, not the thing you thought you needed. Contentment is practical. Kinda like patience – the key to getting it is not thinking about it. It’s delighting yourself in the LORD, and focusing on what He wants, and what He has for you to do. It’s how joy comes, and contentment, and patience starts to work it’s complete work in you. So what are you delighting in? What’s consuming your thoughts and time right now? Praying that you will delight yourself in Him, that you will turn from anything else, and fully do with joy what He sets your hand to do. Love you all, dad
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April 2021
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