What to Do When the Cross Gets Heavy

Today this keeps running around in my head.  Now earlier this week it was for me but I sense it's for someone else today.  I posted this on the Minion Facebook page and on my personal Facebook page at different times this week.  It's the lyrics to a song called "Through the Fire" and it's performed by a group called The Crabb Family.

The lyrics that keep impacting me are these - "He never promised that the cross would not get heavy or the hill would not get hard to climb.  He never offered our victory without our fighting but He said help would always come in time.  Just remember when your standing in the Valley of Decision and the adversary says give in, just hold on.  My God will show up and He will take you through the fire again."  Those words are so true and they have impacted me greatly several times in my life.  This past week I went through a bit of a fire of my own making.  I'm thankful for friends and a wonderful woman who helped me see it for what it was.  I also gave myself permission to not be perfect this week.  Thank God for His grace.

Now I want you to think about something for a minute.  Put yourself in a room that is on fire.  You are standing in the middle of the room and everywhere you turn there is fire.  You can't see windows through the smoke and the flames.  What are you thinking about at this moment.  Chances are you see and think nothing but smoke and flames.  You're in a bad spot and there doesn't seem any way out of it.  What do you do?  There is no way to put out the flames so you will either go through or get burned.

Obviously this exact situation doesn't happen to many of us.  But what about when you are up against a school project that's due tomorrow?  Or maybe you are in a relationship that doesn't work right.  Maybe your financial picture is all messed up and you don't see any way out.  The list of possible bad situations could go on and on but I hope you see my point.  Regardless of what you are facing, I want you to know that God never promised you wouldn't face trouble.  The only way that happens is after you go to Heaven.  Before that event, you will see trials and tests.

What I want you to understand is that there isn't a situation that can possibly go on in your life that God can't handle.  Now here's where I get in the most trouble.  I have a tendency to meditate the problem for hours.  The thought of meditating God's promise over the situation can escape me at times.  Have you ever been like that?  I have been in situations recently that weren't near as big as I thought they were but because I focused solely on the problem it grew out of proportion.  On top of that, I never trusted God with the issue.

But when I finally woke up and took the issue I faced to God, He was right there waiting for me.  Guess what I didn't have to move at all to get to Him.  All I had to do was turn around and He was right there.  The Bible says He will never leave you nor forsake you.

So if you are going through tough times stop and trust God.  He never said life would be easy but He did say He would bring you through all the trials if you trust Him.

That's Another Opinion of the Minion

One Degree

Today I want to talk about direction and goals.  First of all, is it important to have goals?  Well for some it may not be.  I know some people who's personalities really don't lend themselves to concrete goals.  They meander through life and enjoy it.  For them it is a peaceful way to live and goals really mess things up.  For me, that would be a difficult way to live but I must admit that there are days when I envy them.  I am not a hard core goal nut who has to have a goal for everything in life (at least I don't think I am) but I do think that goals are important.

After all, if you don't know where you are going, how will you know when you get there right?  That's where I think goals are important.  For many of you who read this blog, your goal might be to graduate high school or college.  You may have never thought of it that way but if you are in high school, your goal is definitely to get out right?

Well after we get out of college goals can be a little more vague.  For most, the goal is to get married, raise a family, provide for retirement, etc.  But I know so many people who really don't have any plan for their lives and after we are adults, I think that is not healthy.  Let's say your goal is to get out of debt.  What is the plan?  How are you going to cut spending or increase your income?  Is that plan realistic.  Let me take you back a couple of years to when I first really started financial goals.  Back then, I used budgets to justify going further into debt.  Harry Potter movies were more realistic than my budgets.  So are your goals something you can measure?  Remember if you don't have a destination, how will you know when you get there?

Now I want to get to my point for this e-mail.  Sometimes we set goals for ourselves and we come up with good plans to get where we want to be.  For many of us, it is to be good parents and take care of our children.  For me, one of my biggest goals is to walk closer with God.  Now that goal is a great one but it is a little hard to measure.  When I was losing weight, I could step on a scale and the number it displayed would tell me if I was progressing toward my goal or not.  But with my walk with God, I didn't have as concrete or measurable goal.

But here is what I noticed recently.  I have drifted a little away from the Lord.  Now I didn't backslide to hell by any means and I didn't fall into sin or deny Christ or anything close to that.  However, I did notice I was not a peace.  I hit times that weren't as fun as they should be and I couldn't figure out why.  While this isn't the only reason for my frustration, it is an important one.  I knew I had to get back to a closer walk with the Lord.  As I made a fresh commitment to walk closer to Him, I noticed that I didn't have to turn and run back to where I last felt close.  See He followed me on my journey.  The Bible says He will never leave you nor forsake you and He didn't.  He was right there when I went looking for him.  It was great and definitely refreshing.

One of the big questions in my mind was how did I get to this place were I had lost my peace.  I didn't hurt anyone; cuss anyone; do wrong that I knew of so what happened.  The answer is I got one degree off course.  I didn't take His presence seriously enough in my day to day life.  I quit praying as much as I should.  I quit reading His word and my daily devotional with as much attention as I should.  The next thing I knew I was out of peace.  Did you know that if an airplane starts flying from Fort Worth to Paris and it is only one degree off course it can wind up miles and miles from it's goal?  Well that's exactly what I think happened to me.

So let me leave you with this.  What are your goals in life?  Have you ever woken up to find yourself way off course?  If so, all you have to do is rededicate to your goals and set your course straight.  Then take time regularly to check and see if you are still headed where you want to go.  If you aren't simply fix the course.  Many of you may not be where you want to be with Christ at this particular moment.  If that's so, getting back to where you need to be with him is easy because even if you quit paying attention to Him, He never left your side.  If that's you, would you pray this simple prayer.  "Father, please forgive me.  I strayed from my course with you.  Please help me get back into Your perfect will for my life."  If you prayed that prayer, then you are back at the right place with God.  Now search His will out for your life and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

That's another Opinion of the Minion