It has been several days since I have sat down to write.\u00a0 Partly because like most of the people in the south and east, my family and I have been trying to dig out of snow.\u00a0 I can safely say now, there is such a thing as too much snow!\u00a0 But I want to be careful not to complain, because it has given me an opportunity to spend time with my family which has been wonderful.\u00a0 But after shoveling for parts of the last three days, I can say God has taught me a valuable lesson.\u00a0 I remember shoveling on Thursday morning and thinking, this isn’t that bad.\u00a0 It is going to take a while, but it will get done.\u00a0 Then after a while, it became more and more difficult to keep shoveling.\u00a0 Then Friday came, and I began to shovel again in the morning.\u00a0 I was able to make slow and steady progress.\u00a0 I went back to it on Friday afternoon, and that is when I realized “Wow, we have a really long driveway.”\u00a0 I can remember a point in which I put my shovel in the snow and said “Lord, I can’t do this alone, I’m going to need some help.”\u00a0 It wasn’t too long after that when I went back in feeling frustrated that I still hadn’t managed to finish, that my help arrived.\u00a0 The answer came in the form of my father-in-law in his big four-wheel drive Dodge Ram.\u00a0 I was excited to see them for many reasons, but also thinking to myself “show off.”\u00a0 Not because he had done anything other than just drive his big truck right through the snow like it wasn’t even there, and our minivan still wasn’t making it up the hill.\u00a0 And so after a short time, we were able to get the van up the hill of the driveway.\u00a0 Then even today more help arrived as a wonderful, godly man of our church came over and finished off the snow on the driveway with his tractor.\u00a0 Without both of these men coming and helping, I probably would still be mumbling and wanting to throw a snowball at every truck that passed the house with a plow on the front of it.\u00a0 I like to think I would have finished the driveway today, but it was such a burden lifted off my shoulders knowing it didn’t depend on me to finish it anymore.\u00a0 That was the lesson, I can’t do it by myself, and I don’t have to.\u00a0 Not only in shoveling 19″ of snow off the driveway, but in my walk with Christ either.<\/p>\n
So many times we think that being the man or woman of God I’m supposed to be depends on us.\u00a0 I need to pray harder, read more, serve more, etc.\u00a0 The truth of that is this, that is not a godly attitude.\u00a0 In fact it is a self-reliant, prideful, humanistic answer that doesn’t glorify God in anyway.\u00a0 Jesus taught in John 14:16-26 about the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 He refers to the Holy Spirit as a “Comforter” in this passage.\u00a0 It is also translated as “Helper.”\u00a0 The Greek word for it literally means “one called alongside to help.”\u00a0 The bottom line is we can’t live a Christian life without the Holy Spirit’s power working in us and through us.\u00a0 It doesn’t matter what you are trying to do, as long as you try to do it in your own power, you will fail at pleasing God.\u00a0 God’s help is only a prayer away.\u00a0 He can save you as you cry out to Him in prayer, He can give you the strength to get through a difficult time in life, and He can even send people to help you when you are at the end of your rope.\u00a0 God told Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, “if weakness my power is revealed.”\u00a0 Only when we admit that we are weak, can we see just how strong God truly is.\u00a0 From the bottom of my heart, thank you Buddy and Eddie.\u00a0 You reminded me of an important lesson.<\/p>\n
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has been several days since I have sat down to write.\u00a0 Partly because like most of the people in the south and east, my family and I have been trying to dig out of snow.\u00a0 I can safely say … Read More