Share your Best Seeds

"There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

So is with our lives... Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches.

Prayer - Submitting to God's Will

I had to talk to God this morning about a hope that had not yet materialized.   As I prayed God's presence came in and flooded my soul....... This was my prayer: 

"God, I know that trials are painful circumstances allowed by you to change my conduct and my character.

So, God, I am going to submit to it.  I am going to accept it.  I am going to embrace it. You are a good and loving God.  You have allowed this for a purpose.  You are using it to refine me.  Your work is not finished yet.  My prayer will be answered according to your will.  I will not resist, rebel or resent.  I will not become bitter.

Forgive me God.  Forgive me for thinking I know better than you.  Forgive me for thinking I could have made a better plan, that I could have got there a better way.  Forgive me for my stubbornness.  I love you and I want to be in submission to you.  I want to embrace what you allow.

I fear this spiraling road.  So I stop here and now.  I hate the bitterness in myself.  Cleanse my heart of that resistance and stubbornness. Lord, I lift the hands that hang down.

Help me as I submit to you.  You are all that I need.  You are all that I want.  Nothing else really matters.  Help me as I draw close to you.  I choose to accept what you allow."

Forgiveness - One thing evil cannot stand

In the book, The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers, Amy Hollingsworth relates a story Mr. Rogers told her about one of his professors, Dr. William Orr. 

Fred Rogers had gone to see Dr. Orr, toward the end of his life after a stroke left him partially paralyzed, but his professor was still bright in mind and spirit. Mr. Rogers asked Dr. Orr about something that was on his mind from the Sunday morning worship service he and his wife had attended earlier that day. One of the hymns had been Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. What puzzled Mr. Rogers was the verse that says:

         
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;

his rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure, 
one little word shall fell him.  

 “Dr. Orr,” Fred Rogers asked, “what is the one little word that will fell the prince of darkness?" After a quiet moment, the professor answered “Forgiveness.  You know, Fred, there is one thing that evil cannot stand, and that's forgiveness.”

Forgive. It is one little word, but it turns out to be the gift to you, not so much a gift to the person you are forgiving. Forgiveness reaches to both people.  In forgiveness, there is the absence of all evil. Because there is one thing evil cannot stand, and that's forgiveness. 

Guilt - Even a Child Can Suffer From Guilt

My eleven year old niece was riding to church with me and asked, "Aunt Paula, can I ask you a question? What do you do when you have done something wrong and have asked forgiveness but the memory of it keeps coming to your mind?"  Her question rocked me. At the time I was going through my own struggle with guilt, but she is not even a teenager yet. It showed me the enemy does not wait until we are adults to start tormenting us with guilt and shame. He tries to get his ugly tormenting thoughts into our mind as soon as he can.

I explained through my own experience that condemnation was one of Satan's greatest tools he uses against us. It is an attack on our mind. Although we wish many times we could go back and change some things, some of the choices we make do have consequences, but if you have done all you can do to make it right, then you have to believe that what the devil would like to use to destroy us God will turn it for our good, whether it be a lesson learned, or to lead us toward a different path, or make new friends. The Bible tells to cast down every thought that is not from God as it comes into our mind. Even if we have to physically take our hand and pretend to pull something out of our head. We have to do whatever it takes to tear down those thoughts that try to destroy our peace of mind.

2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

Why do you think God wants us to be new creations? Because He does not want your past to be a part of you anymore!

Psalms 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us."

Now that our past failures have been forgiven, we need to leave them there and press forward towards the things God has for us:

Philippines 3:13, "...this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before."

A Hole In My Sidewalk

I came across this poem by Portia Nelson, "An Autobiography In Five Chapters" . It describes so well my own journey in life. No matter how much you may feel like you will always keep making the same mistakes over and over again there is hope. The ability to change old patterns lies within you.  It is ultimately up to you to see the hole, to make a change, and walk down a different path ......


‘I walk down the street. There’s a hole in the pavement and I fall in. I’m lost; it isn’t my fault. It takes forever to get out. 


I walk down the street again. There’s a hole in the pavement but I pretend I don’t see it, so I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place; still, it isn’t my fault. 


I walk down the street again. There’s a hole in the pavement. I see it, but I still fall in – it’s a habit. But now my eyes are open and I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately. 


I walk down the street. There’s a hole in the pavement. I walk around it. 


Finally, I walk down a different street.’