If Only it Were That Easy

And he said, "Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  Matthew 18:3

Oh, to be a child again! When life was not to complicated. When the most difficult decision of the day would be which color crayon to use. When you trusted what was told to you especially if your parents told you.

For most of my life I believed what my dad told me: after I was born in the army hospital I had green formula and green diapers. It seemed like a true enough story, the fatigues he owned were green and the army had a lot of green.  So why wouldn't I believe him.

Most of us are told about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy. It seemed like a pretty true story after all presents arrived on Christmas, eggs were hidden at Easter along with a basket full of goodies, and the tooth fairy would leave a quarter under my pillow. Even after knowing the truth, my first Christmas as a married woman I expected somehow Santa would show up and bring me a gift.

One of the most important things I learned as a child was about God and Jesus. I trusted what I was told and learned that I needed to claim Jesus for myself which I did at the back of a small sanctuary. Jesus became my Savior. Somehow I knew the difference between the stories I was told and the truth about God. I believe we are all given a knowledge that there is something more to this life.

So why is it the older we get and the busier we get the harder it is to keep that childlike trust? Why do we question our belief? Why do we try to fit God into our way of thinking instead of His truth?

Could it be we've lost that connection?

When life doesn't go our way, we would rather turn away then turn back to the One we know can make it all better. It really is that easy: we need to take a break, step back into that childlike trust, and talk with our heavenly Father. He's waiting to embrace each of us in His protective arms and make the chaos less chaotic, the stresses into blessings, and the uncertainties into certainties.

Who Do You Let Win?

"He makes my lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me." Psalm 23:2-4

How do you go about making big decisions? Do you go to your friends? Do you make a list of pros and cons? Do you pray about it?

Several years ago my husband had an opportunity to change his job. His rate of pay was going to be higher per hour and he would be closer to home. We thought it was a great opportunity, but we wanted to be sure. After praying about it, we made a list of pros and cons. One of the things we discovered even though his pay rate was higher the amount to be taken out for health insurance was more. He would have brought home a much smaller paycheck, so we decided this was not for him. A few years later it turns out that other job had a lot of lay offs. We were very grateful for the decision we made. We knew God had his hand in this and He won!

There are times though when we've made a decision based on what everyone else was doing. We decided to not do something because we might see someone we were mad at. Maybe we didn't go because we were scared. Turns out we missed out on a wonderful opportunity a God ordained blessing we didn't get. After hearing about the event from others we were disappointed we didn't go, we felt like we had let God down. Letting Him down made us feel like we let the devil win.

Everyday we have choices to make, sometimes we chose God and we receive a blessing. Other times we chose not to follow Him and we miss out on the blessing. When we chose God's path, He will guide us on the right path and then God wins every time!