Drop the BALL!!!

A person's wisdom yields patience; it is to one's glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11 NIV

Years ago I read a devotional that talked about offense and how it’s like catching a ball you don’t have to catch.  Things come at you, but it’s a choice to “catch” them or to just let them drop to the ground.  I’ve been thinking about this lately because I realized that I had been juggling balls of offense that I had “caught.

While getting ready this morning, I remembered a movie I about a group of people who decided to enter a dodge ball tournament in order to raise some money.  One of the more memorable lines from the movie is “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball,” as the actor lobbed a pipe wrench at a young man that laid him out flat.  This image showed me just how weighty offense can be and that it had waylaid me to such a degree that I was considering walking away from the place that had been the source of my offense.

I no sooner had this revelation when another childhood game came to mind — Hot Potato.  Rather than keeping the hurt to myself, I passed it around like a hot potato, not realizing that it burned everyone it touched.  I had failed to remember that the object of the game was to “drop it like it’s hot” and to not hold onto it because the one who holds onto it, LOSES.

We are in the season that tends to be the perfect opportunity for the enemy to lob his fiery balls of offense to distract from the reason that we celebrate.

Maybe we are gathering with family that we haven’t seen since last year because of what they may have done or said in the past, or maybe we have purged our Christmas card list of all the people who didn’t send us a card last year…or EVER!  We often venture out in the spirit of giving, only to find ourselves miffed at some harried salesclerk because what we intended to give was “out of stock.”  

I have been reminded — reprimanded actually, that the season should be a time of GRACE and GIVING.   The greatest gift ever given is the reason why we celebrate.  It was a gift given without any expectation of return to an undeserving and fallen world, freely and with great JOY!

We‘ve heard that iron sharpens iron, and when it does, sparks fly.  When I am around those people, who “sharpen my iron” so to speak, I am choosing to let GRACE be the extinguisher that puts out the sparks before they blaze into offense.

I am quick to cry out for mercy whenever I make a mistake, but when others have done the same, I have tended to demand swift justice.   To be honest, what I actually wanted was vengeance.  Like the little child whose sibling was in trouble for hurting them telling my daddy to “spank ‘em, spank ‘em hard!  He gently reminded me that He is a Loving Father who metes out mercy and grace, not vengeance; the same grace and mercy available to me every morning is available to others as well.

The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Lamentations 3:22 NLT

As we go through this season, let's endeavor to dodge those balls of offense and to drop them like they're hot if we do catch them.  Can you imagine how wonderful next year will be if we did???

R-E-J-E-C-T-I-O-N...find out what it means to me

I'm humming the old school song "RESPECT" as I type this...sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me...that's what Rejection feels like. Like a punch to the gut.  We’ve all faced it at one time or another in our life and on occasion, we are the rejecter.

To be blunt, rejection hurts.  It makes us question our value and whether or not we are qualified. However, over the years I have learned that sometimes what we perceive as rejection is actually not rejection at all.

Sometimes, what feels like rejection is actually protection. In my life there were many occasions where I had asked God for something or someone and when I was presented with a closed door, I would perceive it as rejection. 

Later I would discover, that had I gotten MY way, it could have meant my destruction at worst and at the very least a broken heart.

Other times, a door may not stay closed forever, it is just the wrong time.  For example, parents often put up baby gates to keep their little ones from harm.  The baby sees something on the other side of the gate and wants to explore, but is hindered, so they become upset not realizing the danger down that path.  Eventually, as the child grows and learns how to walk and navigate, the baby gates come down.  They weren't placed there to hinder the child’s growth, but rather to protect the child until they were ready to walk the path.

When a door is closed we need to stop staring at it or trying to kick it down and trust that the reason it is closed is to protect us from the consequences.

Occasionally what feels like rejection is actually correction; and it’s an expression of Love.  The Bible tells us that God corrects those He loves:

Proverbs 3:12 NKJV For whom the Lord loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights.

It hurts to receive correction because generally we attempt to do our best and want to please God and others. So when we fall short and have to be corrected it hurts at first.  But if we take it and make the changes needed we find that in the end it works out better than we expected:

Proverbs 13:18 NKJV Poverty and shame will come to him who disdains correction, But he who regards a rebuke will be honored.

A practical example is driving a car.   We constantly make minor adjustments along the way to avoid ending up in a ditch or missing our exit.  It is much better to make the minor adjustment along the way and make it to our destination than ending up in a wreck.

Rejection feels like isolation.  When it happens, we feel like we are the only one who has to endure it.  But the Word clearly tells us that Jesus is well acquainted with rejection.

Isaiah 53:3 NKJV He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Imagine his last week on this earth, even though he started it with a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he ended up in a borrowed grave after dying a criminal’s death.  The Word tells us  that it PLEASED the Father that He paid our price, why?  Because the Father and Son both understood that was His whole purpose...to pay the price to redeem us all.

Isaiah 53: 10-12 NKJV Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.

And finally, some of the rejection we face is the price we have to pay to blaze the trail for others, so that ALL may benefit.  I have gladly faced the rejection of this world in order to stand for Righteousness and draw others into the Kingdom. 

How about you?

Signs, Signs, Everywhere are Signs!

This morning I had a dream that woke me up.  It's been my experience, when I dream and remember it upon awakening, it is something the LORD is trying to tell me.  So I prayed and asked what it meant and the Holy Spirit revealed to me something so simple, yet so profound.
You're probably wondering what my dream was. so I'll share.

I dreamed that my Dad had a trophy that was very dear to him and it somehow had gotten broken.  I told him that I knew how to fix it and I would take it with me to repair. 

However, as soon as I looked for the glue to repair the trophy, I found the glue was all dried up, so I kept searching until I found NEW glue that hadn't been opened. 

I began to glue the broken piece on and the piece I had been touching started to crumble in my hands.  So I had to glue that piece back on, and then another piece began to crumble.  It seemed that each piece I touched to secure the broken piece would begin to disintegrate and I realized I was running out of glue.

As I said, I prayed and asked the LORD to help me to understand.  He stated, "the past is gone, even if there are broken pieces in your past, you can not fix them by holding on to them, you have to let them go.  Also, stop building trophies to the past, it can not be undone. New glue on old pieces won't hold; the integrity has already been compromised."
I decided to study it out and I found in the Word, several scriptures that show us that the NEW and OLD don't mix.  In fact, if we focus too hard on the old, we may be in danger of  not recognizing the new when it comes.  In Isaiah 43:19 AMP we see:

Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

In Matthew 9:17 AMP we see that NEW wine is so potent that it will destroy OLD wineskins:

Neither is new wine put in old wineskins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

In my study I also found that there are 32 scriptures speaking of NEW WINE.  I found that interesting and I don't know about you, but I am sensing that the LORD is getting ready to do something NEW and it is something that we have NEVER seen before.  There is a sense of urgency to be prepared and ready to receive what the LORD is getting ready to pour out.  I don't want to be caught up in the past and the ways things were done and miss out on what the LORD wants to do TODAY! 

How about you?