Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Planting God-seeds in New Year


Happy, healthy, God-filled New Year!!


"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:  The festivities are over!  The tree and tinsel has 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 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.   Well, not necessarily so!  O, you certainly can do that if you want, but you do have alternatives, options and choices.  Hey gang, this is a New Year with new opportunities.  

I read a story recently about a couple who had reached the 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 and 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 others 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, but the air seemed to be much lighter.  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 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 it 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 who seeks a life filled with the joy of the Lord.  He said, "Some seeds fell 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) Bad news, that parable works in the negative also.

So, good buddies, there will be opportunities to plant good seeds into your marriage, the lives of your family and all of those you meet this day.  It may be a simple smile and word of encouragement to the check-out person at the super market, volunteering to work in the nursery at church this Sunday, or even emptying the dish washer and putting the dishes away.  But most important, make sure you are planting positive God-seeds in the good earth in your marriage, family and home.

Blessings to you this New Year and keep in mind that God loves you and so do we.

Gramps and Grandma Peanut!

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