Insight

Last Friday I was putting a pencil up and it slipped and made a hole in my right hand. I am truly not a person who endures pain well. I was thinking... wow this pain in the middle of my hand from this small hole hurts and is sore. I began to think of how Jesus endured the pain from the thick nail that went through His right hand. By choice! Jesus knows all and He spoke to Judas at the last supper, "What you do, do quickly." (John 13:27). Thus proving He KNEW it was coming and He was following through with the crucifixion. How much more are we willing to endure for His sake? Such as through this scripture, we like the first part of it but would prefer to leave the second half out, "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death" (Philippians 3:10). We want the power but would rather push away the ‘confronting sufferings’ part. Our Savior suffered for us… we need to do the same for Him THEN the resurrection power will come.

 

Dan and I went on a run a few weeks back. Once on our run we turned a corner and spotted out a brown bird that was lying in the grass. Of course that is not usual for a bird so immediately I went to it and wanted to figure out what was wrong. Its eyes were blinking but it was not moving at all. I pushed Dan to pray for it to see what would happen. Once Dan and I heard a man named 'Bob Griffin' who gave a testimony that the Lord spoke to him that He could save the dead bird on Bob's porch if Bob had faith to pick it up and trust the Lord to "wake" it up. So Bob did as the Lord instructed and sure enough, the Lord revived the bird and it flew. The faith stirred in me with the fact that the Lord can restore all things and that there was no reason for that bird to die at the time so why not pray for it? Dan prayed for it and nothing... come to find out it was bleeding under its wing (supposing it ran into one of the pointy poles surrounding our apartment complex.) Dan told me to pray for it and once I got the courage to, I did. It moved some and I was in awe. But that was all. Sometimes I don't always understand why God doesn't do some things we think are right but we aren't supposed to understand. God is God and there are no questions. On another note with that situation... Dan ran back to the house to wash his hands. While he was gone, I couldn't just leave the bird... I stood there and watched it. I watched every person that walked by and didn't even NOTICE the bird lying down in the grass in the evening. It's not a usual thing! Most didn't notice and the one's that did, kept running. How many times do we do this in other situations? Someone we overlook because they blend in with their surroundings when they are actually hurting and need help. Yet we fail to actually just look around; we keep going on our way. Then other times we see a person who we wouldn't assume to be hurt and don't bother to check. We just continue to move on. So let's take a challenge and ask the Lord for a sensitive heart and discernment. Try to become unselfish in all areas and realize we are recreated in God to help HIS people. We are to love His people and creations. So next time simply check and ask how others are doing and don't assume everyone is always okay. Don't walk on by anymore.

 

Dan said about this, “It’s cool how small things that happen through a day that don’t seem significant end up giving revelation. Shows how most things that happen throughout a day really do have a purpose.”