What to Remember

Today I want to talk to you about what to remember.  In my next blog, we will discuss what not to remember but let's talk about what we should remember.

I have read the bible many times and one of my goals for every year is to read the bible from cover to cover.  There are many things that I don't completely understand about the bible but one thing I do love is that God shows me more and more about him every time I read it.

So today, I want to tell you about something that confused me for years.  I would love to tell you that I am one of those guys who doesn't need to be told anything twice, that I retain it all the first time through but that isn't the case.  However, most of the time if you tell me a story, I will remember the whole thing.  Sometimes not in great detail but I generally remember most of it.

Well, the Bible repeats the story of God delivering Israel from Egypt several times.  As a matter of fact in the Psalms, David references it multiple times.  Moses even made the children of Israel learn songs about it.   I know that God wanted the Israelites to teach this to their children and I thought for a long time it was just a history lesson.  I thought that God wanted generation after generation of Israelites to know about him and that's certainly true.  But why did he repeat this story so many times in the Bible.  Was it because He knew many of us wouldn't read our Bible and He just hoped that if we opened it a few times we would stumble onto the truth?  Nope, God doesn't work this way.

Now I can't tell you that this is the only reason that God put that story in the Bible so many times but I can tell you one reason that it shows up over and over and over.  See, when David was retelling this story over and over, I locked onto one reason.  He said that he was stirring himself up by telling this story.  When David got in a hard place and it looked hopeless, he would start thinking about all the times that God delivered him in the past and it would increase his faith.  That is one reason God tells this story so many times.  He wants us to stir up our faith in him.  When we see places where it looks like everything is hopeless, we can go back and say, "Wait a minute.  When I was in a situation that looked hopeless before, God delivered me."  I can tell you that there have been many circumstances in my life when I didn't see a way out.

That feeling of anxiety and hopelessness sucks.  I don't like it.  But I can tell you that if I start looking back at all the times that God has delivered me in the past, I start thinking about the time when I needed gas for my car and God provided it, I start thinking about the time when I needed extra money and a check for a few hundred dollars showed up in my mailbox, I start thinking about the time when it looked like my business might fall apart and God supernaturally changed things in my favor, I start thinking about the time when I felt lonely and God brought someone into my life, I start thinking about when I didn't know what to do with my children and God showed me the way.  It's happened again.  I've blogged myself happy.  When I think about His goodness and what He's done for me, I get happy.  But guess what, there are still situations in my life where I don't know what to do, I sit back and remember all the times that God has brought me through before and those feelings of helplessness and anxiety go away because I know He will do it again.

So I want to encourage you.  If you are facing a situation that you don't know what to do with, start remembering all the times that the Lord delivered you or made a way where there didn't seem to be a way.  Start thinking about how He was always there when you called out.  It will make the situation you face now grow smaller as His provision grows larger in your life.

Now some of you may not have many places to draw on for those types of memories.  Don't worry, read.  The Bible is full of places where God delivered people.  Start reading those and mediating on those.  He promised that if He did it for someone in the Bible, He will do it for you.  Test God.  Remind Him of His word and what He promised.  That's not arrogance, that's faith.  God is looking around all over the earth for people who will have faith in Him and His word.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Do I Really Need Help

OK, today I want to talk about a subject that has been a problem area for me over the years.  What do I do when I need help?

Before I can answer that question I have to answer another one that can be much more difficult for me.  Do I need help?  I can already hear all of my friends and family describing in great detail how much help I need.  And yes for just a minute it does make me laugh.

But for me it is a very serious question.  See I have always believed where there was a me there was a way.  What does that mean?  Well it means that I can handle any problem that comes up.  If you have a problem, together we can find the solution.  This is a very good attitude and it has served me very well in school and then in my business and in life generally.  But unfortunately, I took it a little too far.  I got to the point that I began to think I didn't need any one's help.  I knew that I needed God's help with a few things.  Obviously, I could not get to Heaven without Jesus.  I knew that and there were certain other areas that I needed His help as well.  But outside of that I didn't think I needed any help.  I remember telling my ex-wife once that I only needed her for one thing and I only needed her for that because my covenant with her wouldn't let me get it any other place.

So that was a good thing right.  I mean, I did learn to be very self reliant, right.  Well what I told her that day was an incredibly wrong thing to say.  Unfortunately, I was just too ignorant to realize how much help I really needed.

To start with, I needed God's help in so many more areas than I was letting him help me.  I guess I figured, I only needed his help when it came to miracles.  I had no idea how to rely on him like I do now.  Now I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination but I am learning more and more everyday how to rely on him and let him help me in every area of my life.  Here is something you might find interesting.  I enjoy doing little things for people from making coffee to buying dinner.  It isn't a big deal but it does help and bless them.  Now guess what, God loves doing those same little things for me.  It's such a humbling thought to think that the creator of the universe is interested in the little things in my life but it's true.

Now if I wouldn't let God help me with anything, I wouldn't let anyone else either.  I can remember times when I was carrying a whole bunch of stuff up to my apartment and someone would ask to help.  My response was always, "No thank you.  I can handle it."  That was probably true with the groceries to my apartment but I began to realize that there were other areas of my life where I couldn't handle things all the time by myself.  Just take my company for example.  I have several people that work for my company because I am not capable of doing everything myself.  That seems pretty obvious but what about carrying the burden of a failed marriage or how about carrying the burden of some other type of broken relationship?  How about getting help losing weight or changing my financial situation?  I couldn't do these things on my own and guess what, neither can you.  See we all have areas in our life where we need help and not only is that OK but it's very normal.  In fact, it's the way we were designed.  Do you know what the most important thing to God is?  He didn't send Jesus to reclaim the gold or the silver or any other "thing" on the earth.  That wasn't significant to him.  He wasn't concerned about that part of his creation.  He sent Jesus to get the most precious part of his creation back - you.

OK, so now that I have decided to admit that I need help, what should I do?  This is a pretty complex question with a really complex answer.  Are you ready?  I have to ask someone for help.  Pretty deep theological stuff right?  Well for me that can be very difficult to do.  I have learned about asking for help from D.  D is an amazing woman and I am truly grateful for her.  There have been a few times in our relationship that she has asked me for something.  She doesn't apologize for asking.  She just asks knowing that I want to help and it makes me happy to help her.

So one day I asked her to pick up my dry cleaning from a cleaners that is near her house.  I was going to her house later and the cleaners was out of my way.  It would have been a little hard for me to get there before they closed and there was an item that I wanted to wear that weekend.  Guess what, I needed her help and when I asked her, she was glad to do it.  It's a little shocking for me to operate that way.  Now obviously I could have figured out how to get the dry cleaning on my own but her help was certainly a blessing.  D, if you read this, thank you again for your help.  I really appreciate it.

So let me sum it up by saying this.  We all have areas and times in our lives when we need help.  It's not only inevitable, it's the way God made us.  But we have to admit to ourselves first that we need help and then we have to take the courage to ask someone else for help where it is appropriate.

That's another Opinion of the Minion