Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A Really Difficult Morning

This mornining started out like any other morning for my daughter. She got up and got herself ready for her classes at MSU. Everything moved along as it normally does, until she walked out of the door of the house. That's when her morning changed from routine to the unexpected.

She realized we had frost in the night and her car needed cleaning. She tried to open the trunk of her car for the ice scraper, but the trunk was frozen shut. So she ran to the house and asked if we had an ice scraper. After checking in my husband's car and not finding one, I ran upstairs and asked my husband if he knew where it was. He did and we found it. At this point, Amanda was running late.

She finally got her car clean enough to drive and took off. After a 15-minute commute, she parked the car in the commuter lot and was running towards the bus that would take her to the building where her class was, when it took off. She felt certain the bus driver had seen her running, but took off anyway. The next bus wouldn't be there for another ten minutes, which would really make her late for class, so she got back in the car and began driving to the meter parking ramp. As she got closer to the ramp, she got behind a bus that was moving at a snail's pace. There was such heavy traffic that she couldn't get around the bus. At this point, she called me to tell me she can't believe how bad her morning has gone. No sooner did she tell me that when her trunk that wouldn't open at home suddenly popped open in the middle of traffic.

What else could possibly go wrong?! I suggested she look for a place to move over and put the trunk down again. Amanda said, "I can't! I'm in the middle of traffic and there is no place to pull over." She kept crawling along in traffic with an open trunk, feeling like every eye was watching her. This is one of those moments when you wish the earth would open up and just swallow you (or perhaps a good time for the rapture). As she kept moving along at a snail's pace, someone who must have assessed Amanda's predicament correctly walked behind her car and put her trunk down. She had no idea who this person was, be it angel or human; she was just so glad they had reached out their hand to help her. By the time she got in front of the parking ramp, Amanda was so late for class that she felt too embarrassed show up.

Have you ever complained about the routine of your life? Everything is the same day in and day out. Well, after the morning Amanda had, I imagine she is longing for a routine morning tomorrow.

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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Can You See Him in the Crowd?

When I first fell in love with Curt, I loved to think about him all the time. I wondered if the next phone call would be from him. When we had a date planned, I spent much time deciding what I would wear. When I walked into a crowded room where I knew he would be, I searched through the crowd until my eyes fell on him. Everyone else was a blur; my eyes were searching for the one I loved most.

Are you really in love with God? This world is so crowded with things that would distract us from God, but are you searching for Him in the midst of the crowd? The tendency of our flesh is to do the opposite. Instead of the world being a blur to us until we lay our eyes on Jesus, in actuality God is a blur to us because there are so many other things to take our minds off of Him. God knows how vulnerable we are. God knows that most of the world does not follow Him, so most of the influence around us tends to distract us away from Him. No wonder God inspired the Apostle Paul to write to the church "pray continually" (1 Thes. 5:17). That means we should always be talking to God and making Him a part of our entire day, i.e. while your driving or working or shopping, etc. When other thoughts want to distract you, turn your thoughts back on Jesus. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Mat. 22:37)

Love doesn’t stay strong on it’s own. It needs to be nurtured. You must nurture the love you have for God or the flame will die down and eventually be extinguished completely. God’s love for you will never die, but His love means nothing to you unless you love Him too. If I loved Curt, but he didn’t love me, our marriage would fall apart. We could still share a house, but there would not be a real marriage. In the same way, you can still attend church, but only you and God know if you are really in love with Him or if the love is just one-sided. "Come near to God and He will come near to you." (James 4:8)

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