Cheerios Sawdust

 

I am frustrated when I get to the bottom of a box of ___ .  Whether it’s Cheerios cereal, Stouffer’s Whales, or Goldfish crackers, the bottom of the box is hard for me to deal with.  I certainly don’t like to pour the bottom bottom of the box into my bowl.  It is a mix of round Cheerios, broken Cheerios, and Cheerios sawdust.  Goldfish are worse: no tails or fins, just scales.  I usually pour the bottom stuff into a preliminary bowl, and then pick out the round Cheerios, depositing them into the final cereal bowl.  Then the preliminary bowl is dumped into the trash.  God reminded the Children of Israel to be careful to discard any left-over manna.  Moses recorded in Exodus 12:10, “And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.”  The Lord was teaching them not to hoard.  And that’s a great lesson for me: God will provide; I don’t need to hoard.  If I give stuff away, God will give me more stuff.  And the Lord will meet your needs too.  Yes, He will!

Gentleness

 

Pastor Jamie has been preaching a series on the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22&23, and three Sundays ago was gentleness.  He related how that he used to shoe horses, and the gentlest horse that he ever shoed was a giant Percheron workhorse.  And I could relate to his assessment.  When I was about 8 years old, my granny Whitely had a hundred-acre farm in West Virginia.  She had a hired hand, Thermond A., who worked for her.  Thermond had a big draft horse that pulled the plow, the cultivator, and the sickle bar.  When Thermond came to the house for lunch, he would rub down his horse first before he ate his meal.  He took care of his horse, and his horse took care of him.  I remember Thermond setting me on the back of that big horse.  My little legs stuck straight out like I was sitting on the dining room table!  When Thurmond and his horse would cultivate the fields, the horse would shuffle his giant hooves down the rows of little corn plants so as not to step on the growing plants.  That horse was big, but he was a gentle giant.  Often, we think of gentleness as weakness, but it’s not.  Moses was the leader of millions of Israelites, but Moses is described as a meek man!  Numbers 12:3, “(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)”  Moses was a great example of gentleness.  May we be gentle today, is my prayer

Renter Mentality

 

Twenty years ago, our neighbors bought a new house, moved out of the old house, and decided to rent their old house out to generate some income.  So now, we have a rental house beside us.  Some renters were great neighbors and some … well … were just renters.  One dad threw fireworks at his kids as they waited for the school bus.  The kids giggled, but I wasn’t too sure about that family.  The last renters stayed about seven years.  I know how long it was because I noticed when their baby boy was born.  And three years later a baby girl came along.  The dad played baseball with the little boy.  The mom was a stay-at-home mother.  The little girl stayed close to the mother as she planted flowers in the front yard and vegetables in the back yard.  Mom made a flower bed in the front yard with those Knock Out roses, and she planted a beautiful Clematis in another bed that grew beside the house on a trellis.  A birdhouse on a pole and a bird feeder made birds feel at home.  But the family built a house near his parents in Wood station, and they moved.  A new family moved in last November.  This spring, the new renters enjoyed the hard work of the previous renters, although they seldom come outside to see the flowers.  Reminds me of many people today.  They live in a free country because of the sacrifice of patriots 250 years ago.  They have salvation available because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.  Some people accept the gift offered by Jesus, but most people neglect it.  They just don’t appreciate what Jesus did for them.  Paul reminded his young preacher boy in I Timothy 4:6, “If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.”  It is a Christian’s responsibility to call attention to the things of God; to bring up spiritual discussions.  Hey, wake people up to the opportunities that they have because of what Jesus Christ has done for them. If you do, with Timothy, you will be a “good minister of Jesus Christ.”