break or make…

you choose to rejoice in the situation.  psalm 34.1 (nkjv), i will bless the LORD at all times.  HIS praise shall continually be in my mouth.  even when i don’t feel like it, even when things aren’t going right.

listen.  problems do not automatically produce blessings.  for some people, problems destroy them.  you will either be bitter or better.  the difference between bitter and better is the letter “i”.  i make the difference – my attitude.  problems break some people, make some people brittle, it's how you choose to respond.  choose to rejoice.

here, from strange and unusual events of 1982 from the encyclopedia yearbook:

brian hise had more than his share of bad luck in july.  his apartment in provo, utah became flooded from a broken pipe in the upstairs apartment.  the manager told him to go out and rent a water vacuum.  that’s when he discovered that his car had a flat tire.  he changed it and went inside again and called a friend for help.  from the electric shock he got from the phone, he inadvertently ripped the instrument from the wall.  before he could leave the apartment a second time a neighbor had to kick the door down because water damage had jammed it tight.  while all this was going on, someone stole hise’s car.  but it was almost out of gas so he found the car a few blocks away, but had to push it to a gas station where he filled the tank.  that evening hise attended a military ceremony at his university.  he injured himself severely when he somehow sat on his bayonet which had been tossed in the front seat of the car.  doctors were able to stitch up the wound but no one was able to resuscitate four of his canaries who were crushed to death from falling plaster.  after hise slipped on the wet carpet and badly injured his tailbone, he said he wondered if “GOD wanted me dead but kept missing.”

that’s what i call a good attitude!

Just a thought from the front porch…

everything that HE made is good…

an exciting truth here in genesis chapter one is that GOD was joyful at the end of each day of creation.

the words it was good, genesis 1.4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31 (nkjv), impacts our purpose in powerful ways still today. when GOD looks at HIS creation and says, “good!” that means something. that means material things aren’t evil in and of themselves.

there’s some people that believe that way. just because it’s material, because it’s money, because it’s a house, because it’s a car, because it’s a church building, or just because it’s a human body, just because it’s material it has to be evil. that powerfully impacts you and your purpose.

if you believed that deep down, you end up one of two ways. you end up as a puritan or a playboy. if you think everything around you is evil, you think, “i can’t touch anything because it’s all evil. i’ve got to become a monk and go up in the mountains somewhere. i’ve got to get away from everything.” or you think, “i'm living in an evil world. i'm already corrupted. so why not? i may as well go and do everything i want to do.”

but if i begin to see that everything GOD made is good and useful for his purposes, instead of saying, “i want to stay away from these things,” we start to think, i want to use these things for the good that HE created them for. has evil come into this world? yes. are there evil things in this world? yes. but everything that GOD created is good and i want to use it for HIS glory.

another truth is, GOD rejoices in what HE made. HE gets to the end of each day and takes a minute to step back and look at what HIS word created. HE rejoices in what HE made.

i know some believers who feel they can’t enjoy anything until they get to heaven. they go around with a spiritual frown on their face and don’t enjoy anything. listen, don’t wait until you get to heaven. start practicing now telling GOD how grateful you are, and telling GOD what good things HE’s done in your life.

just a thought from the front porch…

if you respond in the right way…

another benefit of failure GOD uses it to cultivate me. it can actually cultivate my character, can help me grow in my character. romans 5.3-4 (lb), we can rejoice when we run into problems and trials for we know that they are good for us. they develop strength of character.

it says we can rejoice. now is that your typical reaction when you’re in pain? i doubt it. when you’re at the point of failure you don’t usually rejoice. it says, we can rejoice when we run into problems and trials for we know… what do we know? it’s what we know that makes us be able to rejoice. it’s not the problems that we rejoice over, it’s what we know that we rejoice over. we rejoice over the fact that GOD uses problems to cultivate our character. failure has a way of softening our hearts. it makes us sensitive to others. it makes us less judgmental. it makes us more sympathetic.

if you had an unbroken string of successes, if you never failed in life, if everything you did turned to gold, if every game you played you won, if the career you had always succeeded, if every investment you made, made millions of dollars, you had the midas touch, do you realize how difficult you would be to live with? you would be a pompous person. you would have an ego a mile wide. you would have so much pride, so much arrogance, ego in your life you would be impossible to live with. so GOD just makes sure all of us have a little bit of failure in our lives so we’re not so arrogant. GOD says, “i can use it to cultivate you.”

failure in your life does not automatically grow character. just because you have problems doesn’t automatically mean you’ll grow character. you only grow in character if you respond in the right way.

i know a lot of people who have been through problem after problem and they’re still jerks. they’ve had crisis after crisis, failure after failure, and they’re still idiots. why? they’ve never responded in the right way. they haven’t responded in the way GOD wanted them to so GOD couldn’t use it to educate them, motivate them, and cultivate them.

just a thought from the front porch…

it’s in the focus...

envy is a choice. i can choose to rejoice, or i can choose to resent. those are the options. the good news is if you learn to rejoice at GOD’s goodness to others, you’ll have a lot more to be happy about.

we all need to have the attitude of grandparents. you can brag to them, and they don’t think you’re bragging. you can say, “you wouldn’t believe what the kids did this week!” and they’d say, “that’s great!” you tell somebody else and they’d go, “but my kids…” like, “my kid was inmate of the month in prison.” they have to one-up you every time. there’s no guile in grandparents.

but eventually your grandparents die off. so we need to be grandparents to each other. and we all need a place where we not only share our hurts, but we also share our successes and everybody goes, “that is great!” when a sorrow is shared, it is cut in half. when a joy is shared, it’s doubled. that’s very important. that’s what we do in our life groups at our church or we should do.

another antidote to envy is to be grateful for what you have. instead of focusing so much on what you don’t have and what didn’t happen, be grateful for what you do have. this also has to be learned. the apostle paul wrote, i have learned to be content. it was a learning process.

so instead of complaining like these workers did about what wasn’t happening, what they didn’t get, you learn to realize that you’d have nothing without GOD, without HIS goodness and what HE’s given to you.

1 corinthians 4.7b-8a (msg) says, isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from GOD? so what’s the point of all this comparing and competing? you already have all you need.

envy is based on a myth. the myth is i have to have more to be happy. i have to have something i don’t have now to be happy. and you get caught up in this myth and focused on everyone else. envy always looks at others and asks, “why them? but gratitude says, “why me? why did i get this? i don’t deserve what i have.” it totally flips around the perspective of our mind.

the truth is although we all struggle with envy, it’s hard to admit it. one of the reasons why is because it is such an ugly feeling toward others. when you’re envious of others, you really want them to fail. you don’t tell anyone else, but it really makes your day when they have a bad day because you feel better because they don’t have something. when you think about that, that’s pretty crazy, isn’t it?

just a thought from the front porch…

learn to enjoy it rather than resent it…

do you want to get envy out of your life? if you want to be a genuinely loving person, you’ve got to stop comparing yourself to other people and you have to start enjoying GOD’s grace to other people.

when you see GOD being kind, good, gracious to others, learn to enjoy it rather than resent it. you need to be happy when GOD is blessing somebody else. now this does not come naturally. you have to learn it. when GOD has been good to others, you need to learn to enjoy watching GOD do that to them.

this is the exact opposite of what these workers did. they went out and the guys who worked all day, they were paid exactly what they contracted for. they weren’t cheated. they just resented other people being given just as much. and instead of enjoying it, the workers resented it.

matthew 20.10-11,15b (cev/niv) says, the workers who had been hired first thought that they would be given more than the others, but when they were given the same, they began complaining to the owner of the vineyard. and he said, “are you envious because i am generous to them?” they resented it.

romans 12.15 (niv) says, rejoice with those who rejoice. earlier we looked at the second half of that verse, which says, and weep with those who weep. the second half of the verse is much easier to do than the first half. it’s easy when someone is down, they’re hard up on their luck, they’ve had a tough time, it’s easy to be sympathetic. that is an element of kindness. that you share the hurts and the pains and the sorrows of other people. that’s the easy part.

but it’s much more difficult to rejoice when they have a success. we don’t handle the success of other people very well. in fact, we’re threatened by it. we resent it. because somehow in our minds we think the world is some big giant apple pie and it’s all divided up into slices. and if somebody’s slice gets a little bit bigger, then that must mean my slice is going to get smaller.

but you’re wrong. because GOD’s got all the pie filling in the world. HE doesn’t run out of blessings. HE doesn’t run out of grace. there’s more than enough to go around for everybody, and because GOD blesses somebody else does not mean there is not enough blessings for you. HE just wants to do it in different ways.

HE does not bless us all the same. some have good health, others don’t have good health. some have good achievements, others don’t have good achievements. some have real good family relationships, others have difficult family relationships. we’re blessed in different ways. and we need to learn to rejoice in the joy of other people.

just a thought from the front porch…