STEP BACK AND EVALUATE

It has been really long since I last posted here. I needed time to re evaluate my life and figure out what's really important. I have missed blogging and in my time away I have learned and grown a lot. I cant wait to share some of the articles I've been reading with you and some personal stories. I'm BACK!!! A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of(Luke 6:45, NIV). What is really inside will come spilling out for all to see when life puts the squeeze on us. My Mama often said, “What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.” In other words, a crisis will usually reveal what is r eally inside our hearts. It is easy to do and say the right things when life is calm and everything is going right, but what we say and do when chaos hits and the pressure is on tends to paint a more accurate picture of who we really are. But what is the real deal? Who are we really? It is kind of like what I call sponge theology. Suppose you have five sponges lying on your kitchen counter. Each member of your family has been using a sponge to clean a different area of your home, but the sponges all look the same. You are curious about what was cleaned, but you can’t tell just by looking at the sponges since they all look the same. So what do you do? You squeeze each sponge to see what happens. When you squeeze the first sponge, brown cola comes pouring out. Someone must have cleaned the spilled drink in the kitchen with that sponge. Upon squeezing the second sponge, you see blue tub and tile cleaner oozing out of the sponge. Hmmm … someone must have used that particular sponge to clean the bathroom. The third sponge is truly disgusting. When you squeeze it, dirty motor oil pours out. You determine that your husband probably used that sponge to clean the garage. The fourth sponge produces a puff of baby powder when it is squeezed. The baby’s nursery was obviously cleaned with that sponge. Finally, the last sponge is dripping with floor wax, which tells you someone used that particular sponge to clean the recently waxed hall floor. As you lay the last sponge down, you look again at their similarity. They all look pretty much the same - until they are squeezed. We are a lot like sponges when it comes to our faith in God. We look and act as if God is the Lord of our lives. We do and say all the right things in front of all the right people in an effort to prove we are right with God. But what is really inside? What do our hearts really look like? When a crisis comes, and the pressures of life squeeze us mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, what comes out? Do we respond to that difficult person in anger, or do our actions portray hearts filled with God’s patience and love? Does revenge spill out in ugly words to that person who has hurt us more times than we can count, or do we take a breath and remember how much God loves them and that hurt people really do tend to hurt people? Does the guilt of unresolved sin cause us to lash out in anger, or do we keep short books on our sin in order to keep the enemy from forming a toehold for anger in our own lives? Just like the sponge, we can only squeeze out what is put in. Fill your heart with the things of God. Stay in the Word each day. Read it … memorize it … share it. Saturate your life with His truths. Spend time with faith builders who will encourage you to be more like God and continually point you toward Him when you really want to walk in the opposite direction. Seek God and His plan for your life. Be willing to abandon your plan for His. And continually pray about everything – no matter how small the matter may be. If it is important to you, it is important to Him. Then … when life puts the squeeze on you … and it will, the very nature of God will come pouring out. Thank you for reading and I hope you are inspired to live your life as a witness.