Monday, January 13, 2014

Take the Test

Hello Everyone,

Today I want to talk with you about test taking.  We all love to take tests right?  Well I normally don't.  They are a lot of work and what happens if we fail.  We can get a bad grade and if we fail too many times, we have to take the whole class over.

How many of you have a driver's license?  If you do, there is a very good possibility that you had to take a test before you were given one.  In Texas, I took Driver's Education class, I practiced and then I took the test with someone riding in the car with me.  I will never forget that day.  I believe it was my 16th birthday.  It was the very first day that I could take the test and I was sooo excited.  I couldn't wait to get my parents out of the car and hit the road on my own.  It was a day of great achievement.  I could finally drive my mom's 1975 Oldsmobile Omega by myself.  We called this car the splotch because it was many different shades of ugly green.

On that very memorable day, I pulled out of the parking lot with the Department of Public Safety officer in the passenger seat giving me directions.  I was a little nervous but that was OK.  One of the first things he asked me to do was parallel park and I did almost as badly as you can do and still not completely fail the test.  I hit the curb with the car sticking out into the street.  It was bad but not catastrophic yet.  We pulled away from there and drove across Jacksboro Highway into a nearby neighborhood and went through the rest of the test.  I got a couple of points taken off due to the way that I backed down the street and I ended up with a 77 on the test.  It wasn't pretty but it worked!  I had a driver's license.

But what would have happened if I failed the test?  Guess what, I would have taken it again at the next available time and continued over and over until I passed.  Here is something else, the State of Texas would let me take it over again.  So why am I telling you this today?

Well many times life is like that driving test.  There are things in this life that we want to do, have or be.  Maybe you want to be a better friend.  Maybe you want to be a better mom or have God do something wonderful in your life.  It could be that there is some bad habit that you just can't seem to shake.  In times like these, you may feel discouraged and feel like giving up.  You may even feel like God is mad at you.

There are also times when you don't want to do something hard.  Have you ever avoided a conflict because you don't like the uneasy feeling that comes from conflict?  Have you ever wanted God to promote you in some area of your life?

Well most of the time to accomplish any of these things, we have to take a test.  Many times God will test us before he gives us something to see if we are ready for it or not.  What happens if we fail one of those tests?  Sometimes the devil will tell you that it's over.  Whatever you are hoping would happen will not and you should just quit.

Let me tell you that God is a loving God.  He wants you to have many of the things you want and he will never stop giving you chances to take the test and pass!  So if you fell down and didn't achieve your goal, stand back up and dust yourself off.  Then get right back to studying for the test.  Then keep taking the test until you pass!  God will continue to let you take the test as many times as you need until you pass.  He's not mad at you if you fail.  The test isn't impossible to pass.  God can show you how.  Also remember this - He is pulling for you and so am I.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Sunday, December 8, 2013

The News

Hi All,

OK before I start, let me say that I mean this first part in jest.  Let's take a look at the news for a few minutes.  As I have stated before, I live in Fort Worth, TX.  Over the past few days, we have had an ice storm that shut down most of the city.  We did need the news to tell us which schools are closed and which businesses are closed and we did watch it for that.  But what we didn't need the news to tell us was what was going on outside.  When I looked out the window, it was white outside.  There was sleet on the ground and ice in the street.  When I looked at my wife's car the windshield was covered and so was the top of my Expedition.  The conclusion I drew from all this was that there was sleet on the ground and that the roads would be bad.

Fortunately for me, I didn't need to look outside because for the entire news broadcast, they went from one person to another showing sleet on the ground.  Each one of them would take their cue and act like they were breaking a story worthy of some type of national news prize.  It would go something like this:

Newscaster:  Now let's go to Frank in downtown Fort Worth.
Frank:  I want our camera man to zoom in on the gutter by the side of the street.  Get a tight shot of the white stuff.  As you can see from our close up, the rain that came down earlier was affected by the drop in temperature.  When the temperature went below 32 degrees, this liquid turned to a solid and it's now sleet!!!

Newscaster:  Thank you Frank for that information.  Now let's go to Sue who is in Berkeley.  Sue, what do you have?
Sue:  What we're looking at here is the total coverage of an entire front yard plus their bushes with sleet!!!

This scene goes on for 30 minutes!  Why is that when we got it the first time?

OK now on a much more serious note, we do need to be careful of the amount of time we watch the news.  Remember news companies get paid to sell stories and for the most part, bad stories sell much better than good ones.  The last time I watched the news, there were three stories about bad things happening to people, the weather, one bad story, sports and ending it all was one bad story.  If you feed yourself on those things, you can start to meditate and focus on these bad stories.  Before you know it, fear can begin to creep into your life and the next thing you know, your eyes are on more of the bad things going on in life than the good things that God can do for you.

I made a decision to spend very very little time watching the news and like one of my favorite preachers said, I missed several crisis that were on that I didn't even know about.  They didn't bother me in the least.  If you are going to spend time watching the news, I suggest you pull out the Bible and see what the news is on your future!

That's another Opinion of the Minion.