Author: kenlassblog.net

When it comes to food, most of us have little problem understanding what is good for us and what is not. At least we know that, generally speaking, protein is good, carbohydrates are bad. Fruits and vegetables and unprocessed foods are good. Fried foods and sweets are bad.

This is a challenge, because the foods that are bad for us are more pleasing to the taste than those that are healthy. So we try to come up with a compromise. We eat some of the bad stuff, but try our best to limit it. Sometimes we’re not good at this. We indulge ourselves more and more until we have gained too much weight. Then we must diet and forego the bad stuff completely. Life can become a constant struggle to keep the weight off.

You are not born with willpower. You learn it. It comes when you get your mind off of food. Prayer is an excellent way to create a diversion.

As I write this, there are storm clouds gathering outside my window. There are bolts of thunder and flashes of lightning. A thunderstorm is on the way. I had outdoor plans this morning, but I’m going to have to cancel them. You can’t control the weather. So there’s no point in feeling angry or frustrated about it. Perhaps it’s just an opportunity to find something more useful and helpful to do.

Can you recognize the things in your life you can’t control? And can you stop worrying about them? You can trust that God is in charge of those things. And He always makes the right decisions.

He’ll bring you in out of the rain.

Weeds are amazing things. They pop up in your lawn and garden from out of nowhere. And they are relentless. You can trim them, pull them out or spray poison on them, but a few days later, more of them return. If you put down a tarp around your plants the weeds will grow right through it. They’ll even spring up in the cracks of your sidewalk and driveway. You just can’t keep them down.

As much as they drive me crazy, a small part of me kind of admires them. They survive any effort to obliterate them. Knock them down, they come right back. They have a resiliency that human beings can learn from. No matter what adversity life throws at you, just get back up and keep going. The world may try to cut you down but show it you can’t be stopped.

Keep growing. Be a weed.

Let’s face an inconvenient truth. Doing the right thing is generally not as much fun as doing the wrong thing. Eating broccoli is much healthier than eating potato chips. But it doesn’t taste as good. You just have to trust that the broccoli is going to reward you in terms of internal health, in ways you cannot immediately see or feel.

Living a good, honest, moral and spiritual life is not as much fun as indulging your every whim and focusing on self gratification. You just have to trust that being in a right relationship with Jesus and walking a proper journey with Him is providing for your well being and eternal future, even though you may not be able to see it or feel it now.

The broccoli is for your heart. Jesus is for your soul.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and say to myself “who is that old person?” We all have an image in our mind as to what we think we look like. And it’s usually a vision of ourselves as younger and more attractive. Ever see a video or a photo of yourself and realize you look quite different from your self-image?

Aging is something we can’t stop. Our exterior looks will change over time. You can fight it off with procedures and dyes, but eventually, no matter what you do, you will look older.

Better, then, to focus on how you look inside. There’s no time limit on a kind heart.

I find it interesting that the word used most often in the bible (King James version) is “Lord”. And it’s not even close. The word “Lord” is written 7,365 times. That is 3,000 times more than the number of the second most mentioned word, which is “God”. The third most written word is “man”.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it strikes me as instructive that the three most common words in the bible are Lord, God and man. It reinforces to me the purpose of the Good Book is to reveal God to us. To explain who He is, where we come from, how we are connected to Him, and what acknowledging him as Lord looks like in your life.

So it would seem a good idea to read that book, study that book, give that book to the ones you love. And to get it to as many people as possible. By the way, “people” is mentioned 2,271 times. Fourth most.

One warm summer morning I glanced out of our breakfast nook window and saw a very strange sight. I was stunned to see a beautiful blue heron was walking across our backyard. They are unmistakable, with their extended curved neck, the long, pointed beak, the spindly legs and the blue and white stripes down the head and back. We see them regularly on our trips to the beach, but this was a long way from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

The stately bird pranced across the lot looking lost and confused, appearing unsure of where he was or how he got here. There is a creek not far from our house, and perhaps he was searching for water. Eventually he spread his massive wings and flapped off into the horizon. We never saw it again. We can only hope he found his way to more familiar surroundings.

There are many folks who wander around lost in life like that blue heron. We can do more than hope they find their way. We can point them to it.

One year we suspected there was a mouse in our basement. We set one of those sticky traps to catch it. The next day we found we had instead captured a snake! I wanted to kill it, but Sharon identified it as a bull snake, which is beneficial to people. Bull snakes eat rodents and insects.

So Sharon showed the snake mercy by cutting it out of the sticky trap and releasing it into the backyard. Hopefully, the little slithery varmint paid it forward by gobbling up many rats and mice and mosquitos.

Our lives have been spared as well. God showed us mercy by sending His son to die on the cross for our sins. We need to pay that incredible sacrifice forward also.

But I refuse to eat a rodent.

How long can you hold your breath? The world record was set by a Croatian skin diver who held his breath for 24 minutes and 37 seconds. Most of us can only hold out for somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds. After that, our lungs begin to ache. The heart begins to beat irregularly. Carbon dioxide begins to build up in your bloodstream, and your kidneys and liver go into stress. We can only last so long denying ourselves of air. We need it to survive.

The same is true of a relationship with God. We can deny ourselves of it, but you will only last for so long before you begin to feel psychological pain, and the world begins to break you down. Living under a Godly influence will give you tremendous relief.

You might even say it’s like a breath of fresh air.

You’re driving through town and you approach an intersection directed by a stop light. The light was green, but as you draw near, it changes to yellow. Yellow means you are supposed to slow down and prepare to stop. We all know this, but many of us (read me) can’t resist the temptation to speed up and try to make it through the intersection before the light turns red.

We know this is wrong, but we do it anyway. We do it because we get away with it time and again. There seem to be no repercussions for doing what we know is wrong. And that concept is easy to get used to. This can be a self-destructive mindset when applied to other aspects of our lives. Right and wrong do make a difference.

There will come a time when we are held accountable for our time here. God is the ultimate traffic cop.