Time To Recycle? Or Is IT??

"No temptation has overtaken you but such as common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.  (1 Cor. 10:13).

Hey Gang,  In preparing for this final message for 2013 my research took me back to the final message of 2012 and it rang my bell.  Let me know if it rings your bell. 

The festivities are over!  The tree and tinsel have been taken down and the house has a kind-of-bare look about it. Time to take the things that don't fit back and battle the return lines. Time to get back in the same routines we kind-of put on hold for a few days.  In other words, it is time to recycle and get back in the same ruts we were in before.  Right?   Well, not necessarily so!  Oh, you certainly can do that if you want, but you choose.  This is a New Year with new opportunities.  

I read a story recently about a couple who had reached that point where the dark clouds had blocked out the light and they could not see any escape to the problems in their marriage.  The husband, in preliminary conversation with the divorce lawyer, had laid out a scenario of woe that was filled with about every negative his wife had demonstrated in their years of marriage. 

At the conclusion of his description of what had to be a terrible, unsolvable marriage, the divorce lawyer leaned back and said,  ‘I will prepare the divorce papers- but before I have you sign them and proceed with the divorce, I want to challenge you to do something that I ask all  to do who come here seeking escapes from their marriage.

 I want you to put all of those complaints in a little box and put them in the back of the closet and every time you feel that she has done something right I want you to compliment her.  I also want you to go to the florist each week and get flowers and just place a note thanking her for the things she does, that we men take for granted.  

Several weeks passed and no call from the husband and then one day he showed up at the lawyer’s office.  The lawyer took out the completed forms and laid them out for the husband to read and sign; the husband very calmly took the forms and folded them neatly and put them in his pocket.  He had learned a very good lesson in the weeks of ‘giving instead of complaining’. "You reap, even in relationships, what you sow"! 

A New Year, yes, but will it be a spitting image of last year?  All it takes to make it like last year is to use the same seed-planting program you used last year.  If you sowed seeds by the road side, or in very shallow soil where they could not take root, or in the midst of one of the many thorn patches, you will probably not enjoy the crop.  Perhaps it is time to take heed and follow the example of the husband listed above. 

If interested, check out the rest of the story presented by Jesus in his message of the seed planter.  Jesus gives us a better course of action that is available to each and every soul that seeks a life filled with the joy of the Lord.  He said, "Some seeds feel on good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty, He who has ears, let him hear".  (Matt. 13:8-9)

Soooo, good gals and buddies, there will be opportunities to plant good seeds into the lives of family and all of those you meet this day.  It may be a simple word to the check out person, a smile or volunteering to work in the nursery at church this Sunday.  But most important, make sure you are planting positive seeds in the good earth in your marriage, family and home.

So, did you plant seeds in good earth or.....?Blessings to you this New Year and keep in mind that God loves you and so do we

Gramps and Gma