[Faith-talk] Fw: [Christians_Today] Daily Thought for Saturday, June 4, 2016

Sat Jun 4 16:20:59 UTC 2016

Sorry to have left you folks out, but here it is nonetheless.  Better 
late than never.  Paul
Forwarded message:

From: "Paul Smith paulsmith at samobile.net [Christians_Today]"
 <Christians_Today at yahoogroups.com>
to: circleoffriends at emissives.com
Subject: [Christians_Today] Daily Thought for Saturday, June 4, 2016
Reply-To: Christians_Today at yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2016 12:11:00 -0400

Well folks, it's another humid but not necessarily hot day in the
Baltimore-Washington metro area, and I suppose the same can be said for
other areas of the mid-Atlantic region of our country. At any rate I
hope that your day is going well today, by God's matchless grace and
His providential care, no matter where you live in this world of ours.

Diane Stark is a writer from Indiana, and several years ago she wrote
an article that just might cause many, if not most, of my readers to
stop and take notice. The title of her contribution is "The Plank In
My Eye," rendered as follows:

"Ugh, why did you have to make meat loaf for dinner?" one daughter
complained with a wrinkled nose.

"Yeah, why couldn't we just order pizza?" another griped.

I sighed. "The car is broken, remember? It's going to cost a lot of
money to fix it, so we're not going to be eating out for a while."

"We could just have the pizza delivered," the second child reasoned.
"Then we wouldn't be going out to eat."

"The pizza costs the same, even if they deliver it, honey," I said.

"Yeah, and it tastes a lot better than meatloaf," Daughter One said.

"Girls, we're not going to be eating out, but we could make pizza at
home tomorrow night. Wouldn't that be fun?"

They shrugged. "It's not the same, Mom."

My patience was wearing thin. "You need to adjust your attitudes and
just be grateful that you have good food to eat."

"Meatloaf is not what I would call good food," Daughter One muttered.

I sighed again and bit my tongue. I was tempted to bring up the
starving children in Africa, but I knew it would do no good. The
children and I were all in a foul mood. Because my car was in the
shop, we'd been cooped up in the house for days. The kids were grumpy
and bored and I was stressed out about the huge repair bill I knew was coming.

We sat down at the table and determined that it was three-year-old
Nathan's turn to pray. He folded his hands and made sure all of his
siblings did the same. He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut
tight. "Dear Lord," he began. "Thank You for food. Thank You for
loving us. Please help Julia be good. Please help Lea be good.
Please help Austin be good. Please help ..." He glanced up, trying to
decide which sibling still needed to be prayed over. "Oh yeah, and
please help Jordan be good. Amen."

The kids and eye opened our eyes and exchanged amused looks. "Nathan,
how come you didn't ask God to help _you be good?" I asked.

He shrugged and said, "I'm already good."

I couldn't help laughing, despite the stress of the day. The older
kids and I agreed that if anyone in our family needed some divine help
to be good, it was definitely Nathan.

After dinner, we read a chapter in the Bible, which was customary for
our family. Ironically, that night's chapter was Matthew 7, a chapter
about not judging others. My oldest son, Austin, read v3-5, which
says, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye
and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to
your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time
there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank
out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck
from your brother's eye."

When Austin finished reading, my youngest daughter, Julia, said, "Mom,
I think Nathan has a plank in his eye."

I smiled, glad that she had understood the verses. "You're right,
Jules. Nathan needs to focus on his own behavior before worrying about
what other people are doing."

In that moment, I realized that I too had a plank in my eye. I'd been
lecturing my kids about being grateful, but I hadn't been focusing on
God's blessings in my life. I'd been so worried about our car repair
bill that I hadn't even thanked God for the provision He'd already
sent. That very morning, I'd been asked to complete an unexpected but
well-paying writing project. The money I earned would probably just
cover the repairs, but I hadn't even murmured even one word of thanks.

I sat down and bowed my head once again. "Lord, thank You for taking
care of our family, even when I'm too busy worrying to notice Your
care," I prayed. "Help _me to be good and help _me to be grateful.
Thank You for showing me the plank in my eye. Amen."

I opened my eyes and overheard my children arguing over who would get
to put the pepperoni on tomorrow night's homemade pizza. I sighed and
closed my eyes again.

"Lord, just one more thing," I added silently. "Help me to remove my
children's specks with love and patience."

When reading this previously, the question came to mind, one which I'd
like some of you thoughtful readers to answer: If you are criticized
for something you did or didn't do, whether constructively or wrongly,
how can you tell that the criticizer has removed his/her speck? I've
wanted guidelines in this direction for years now, not only because of
my criticism of people whom I barely knew, like politicians, but
against people, say, in my own neighborhood? Maybe some of you have
asked yourselves this same question. Just something to think about, right?

And that will do it for today. Until tomorrow when, Lord willing the
weekly Bible trivia game will be posted, may the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these
last days in which we live. Your Christian friend and brother, Paul

__._,_.___

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Posted by: Paul Smith <paulsmith at samobile.net>

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