Master planner

In life, unexpected surprises come. But nothing takes God by surprise, He is the master planner! Family may turn against us and friends may turn their backs. Face it, life is pounded with illnesses and problems that seem to attack from every side...but in it all, God still has a plan for all of us.

Joseph is a great example of surprises in life. Sold as a slave into Egypt by his own brothers, Joseph was betrayed and imprisoned. No doubt, he must have wondered where God was and what He was doing.

But after years of preparation, Joseph was placed in the highest position in the land, second only to Pharaoh. Joseph was chosen by God to orchestrate His plan for saving the world from famine. It appeared that the Lord had surprises of His own. After Joseph rrevealed himself to his brothers, he summed it up beautifully:

 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, in order to bring it about as [it is] this day, to save many people alive. .” (Genesis 50:20)

When our situations are difficult to handle and downright impossible to explain, we need to remind ourselves that God said, “I know the plans I have for you.”  Just as He had a plan for Joseph, He has a plan for us. He is the Master planner and in Him we can place our trust!

Don't waste the dog food!

At our house, we have 3 dogs. We have a little bitty dog (Maggie), we have a meduim size dog (Jasmine) and we have a very large dog (Lucy). When it comes to feeding these dogs, it takes a bunch of dog food! We have a big container that we store the dry dog food in. It will hold a 40-50 pound bag. It is easy to scoop out what we need from this container, however, the difficult part is pouring the food into 3 smaller bowls.

Apparently, the scooping from the big bin is the easy part. Carrying it to the bowls outside is the hard part. If the scoop is too full, food will fall from the overflow or most likely, fall on the ground when trying to fill the smaller bowls. It is wasted food.

As Christians, I envision God's blessings like that big bin of dog food. There is plenty. His bin is full to the brim. But when we scoop up His blessings, many times we are careless and we allow some to fall out of our hands and they lay on the ground, just being wasted.

PSALM 23:5,6 "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. (6) Surely goodness and mecry shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

When the dog food falls onto the ground, there is no way, especially with our large dog Lucy, that one drop will go wasted. She will not only get the morsal in the bowl quickly, but what is outside of the bowl. God's portion is great, and He wants us to enjoy all that He has for us. Not just what we can contain, but the Psalmist reminds us that His cup of blessings will run over!

I wonder what it would be like if we responded to God's blessings like our dog Lucy ... and didn't waste one morsal of all that our Master had to offer!

THANKFUL THURSDAY...whats the name?

Have you ever had your name printed on an announcement but only to find out that your name was incorrectly spelled? Worse than that, is to have someone introduce you but not pronounce your name correctly. The first instinct that I have when this happens is to correct the one speaking. After all, who wants their name known as something that it is not!

"You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name" (Exodus 20:7, NIV)

Obviously, God takes his name very seriously, and he doesn't want anyone misusing it. Consider this:

In ancient times, Kings would use messengers to communicate with other nations. When a messenger delivered a message, he would first announce the name of the king who sent him. This official announcement was very important. Once he used the king's name, his message carried the authority and power of the king. So, if the messenger delivered an inaccurate message, then he had "misused" the king's name because he said something with the king's authority that the king never told him to say.

The above verse in Exodus says that we should not misuse God's name. Like the messengers for the Kings, we are God's messengers. Misusing God's name means acting or speaking in ways that keep others from hearing the gospel message. This may include using God's name as an ugly swear word, but also it means doing things that go against His Word like gossiping, immorality or treating others unkindly.

I am thankful that there is power in the name of Jesus! Just speaking IT brings victory. May we all be sure that we do not misuse His name, so His message can be conveyed to everyone, correctly!

I will be hosting TT next month and look forward to seeing all of you here. Please join your grateful heart with ours today though over at Lynn's place as we all rejoice and be thankful! HAPPY THANKFUL THURSDAY!

WEDNESDAY WEEKLY WORD...there is power in the tongue

RIDDLE: What can taste sweet but have a nasty odor? ANSWER: Our tongue!

It is amazing that the same thing that enjoys sweet and delicious things such as a plump, juicy, ripe strawberry can be the same thing that spews out a foul and nasty odor such as the smell of dead fish. Our tongue not only has the ability to recognize good taste from bad, but it has the ability to speak good or bad. There is power in our tongue!

I came across an illustration recently that clearly explains why some people use their tongues as daggers:

“An advertisement appeared in which the devil was putting all of his tools up for sale. On the day of public inspection, each one of his tools was marked with its selling price: Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Doubt, Lying, Pride, and so on, were each on the block. Set apart, however, from all the rest of the pile, was a harmless-looking tool, well-worn, but priced very high — it was discouragement!

Someone asked the devil, ‘why is that one priced so high?’ He replied, ‘Ah, that one is more useful to me than all the rest. With it I can pry open a man’s heart and enter, when I cannot get near him with any other tools. Once inside, I can lead him any way I choose. The tool is very worn because I use it on almost everyone, since few people know it belongs to me.’”

The enemy loves to sow discouragement — but believers have a tool much more powerful — encouragement! In last week's YOUR OPINION MATTERS POLL, I polled the readers the following question, "Who is the last person to encourage you?" The top 3 responses were...

1. 44% of those voting said it was their spouse.
2. 33% voted and said a friend.
3. 11% responded and said a parent recently encouraged them.

I wonder if I had changed the poll around to say "Who did YOU encourage last", would the results would have been different? One of the things that I noticed about this weeks poll is that nobody said that they had been encouraged by a stranger. Yep - 0% on that one. That made me think about the sales clerk in Wal-mart who is having a really bad day ... do I encourage her? It made me also think about the airline employee who just got their face ripped off by the disgruntled customer in front of me ... how did I encourage them when it was my turn at the counter?

God places opportunities in our path every day to speak "life" into others, but somehow we miss it many times. We have our thoughts on our busy schedules, the kids ballgame later, what to cook for dinner, etc. We are focused on what is in our world instead of recognizing that ministry of encouragement to someone who is in desperate need.

HEBREWS 10:25 "Do not forsake the assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near."

I want to be an encouraging Christian, not just to my family and church friends, but to the strangers that cross my path each and every day. It's time that we show the enemy that his tool of discouragement is not worth much anymore because we have no use for it!

A PIECE OF MY HEART...what am I sensitive to?

If I had to describe myself to someone, I would say that I am a sensitive person. It is of great importance to me that those around me are being taken care of. In a Mary/Martha world, I would say that I am a "Martha". I am the one busy making sure all of the dinner guests have exactly what they need. I sit down last at the dinner table. If someone needs a refill on their beverage, I jump up to get it. It is important to me that all the details have been thought out and that each and every person who comes to sit at my dinner table leaves satisfied.

For anything less to happen would crush my spirit. It would simply devastate me. I am simply a sensitive Martha in my own flesh who wants to create a happy place for everyone!

I put so much into everything that I do, whether it is a family dinner or a well planned out Sunday School lesson. To know that someone was less than satisfied because of something I did or didn't do would simply break my heart. To one degree this is a good characteristic. Like Martha, it is good to plan, prepare and work hard. But on the other hand, it can be a stumbling block.

The Martha's in the world can lose sight of what is really important. When we busy ourselves with too many details, we often  miss out on the ministry opportunities God places before us. We not only become stumbling blocks to those that we could be ministering to, but, we stumble and become more sensitive about the event than God.

ROMANS 14:13 "Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this - not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way."

Today, my heart's cry is that I would stop being so sensitive about what others think and be more sensitive to what God thinks. I enjoy being a Martha but I don't want to miss out on sitting at His feet because of my over-sensitivity to creating happy places.

and this has been a piece of my heart today;

New Design

This past weekend I worked on a new design for my blog. I have been thinking about changing it now for awhile, a new face sometimes gives new life and new perspective. So I hope that everyone likes the new look of WOMEN TAKING A STAND!

Sometimes, when I think about my life, I wonder if I too need to have a new design applied. Face it, some days are better than others. And some days are better off forgotten! I don't know what your yesterday was like, it could have been the best day you ever had or it could have been the worst day. But today is a new day and God's Word says that His love is new every morning!

"His great love is new every morning. Lord, how faithful you are!" - Lamentations 3:23

Today may be the day that a new design needs to be applied to our lives. The old is put away, a new perspective is put in place as we trust God and remember that He is in control of ALL things. His love is new every morning, so there is no reason to stay the same way we were yesterday!

Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say REJOICE!

Whose responsibility is it?

R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y... something that we all agree others should have, but yet we struggle to maintain it ourselves! It seems more and more, there is a decline in personal responsibility. It is difficult to own up to our own mistakes - we see it in politics, we see it in business, we see it in the headlines and we see it in our living rooms.

Lack of responsibility is not just a problem with the rich and famous. Many times all we have to do to find an example of someone giving excuses is look in the mirror. It is so easy to give excuses for our actions. And it is very easy to find fault with others because it is easier to place blame rather than take responsibility.

ROMANS 2:1 "When you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things."

The mistake that I make so often is looking at what I think others should or should not do instead of looking at myself. It is easy for me to say or think, "it's not my responsibility!" and refuse to change my ways. I have to admit there are some things around our house that I just do not enjoy to do and I wish someone else would take the responsibility for it. I really don't like having to change the toilet paper roll every single time I go into our bathroom. I also do not like to carry the trash out. I especially do not like to pick up every one's wet towels off of the bathroom floor. Why does it have to be my responsibility to do these things?

In last week's YOUR OPINION MATTERS POLL, I asked the following question, "What responsibility do you have that you really wish you didn't have?" The top 3 answers were:

1. 36% of those voting said they wish they didn't have to pay the bills.

2. 18% voted and said they wish they didn't have the responsibility of washing the dishes.

3. 18% responded and said they don't like having to balance the checkbook.

We all have things that we wish we didn't have to do, but pushing our responsibility off onto someone else is not God's way of showing love to others. When others do not live up to their responsibility, instead of becoming annoyed ... ask God to help you to fulfill your duties and then forgive others when they fall down on their responsibility.

Change yourself and then let God change others.