Intentional Disciples Newsletter September 2022
It’s Poop!
Two weeks ago, my wife showed me a hysterically funny video of a 2 year old eating a Sloppy Joe sandwich for the first time. (It's Poop!! on YouTube) The boy looked at it, picked up the top of the bun, made a face and declared, “It’s poop!” His mother kept telling him that she would never feed him anything bad and that it was a Sloppy Joe. But the child was convinced it was poop. No matter what she said, he believed this was poop.
At times, I am this two-year-old child. God gives me something good, and I think it is poop. Sometimes it is big; changing jobs, moving across the country, loosing a friend, a bad illness, and others are small; being stuck in traffic, being insulted, things not going my way at work. Every morning I surrender my life to God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Every night I review where and when the surrender was not complete and frustration ensued. I look back at what I thought were the big trials in my life and years later I see how they were given in love. I know the Truth in my heart. God loves me more than I can imagine and He gave his son to suffer and die to save me. But still, sometimes, I believe the lie, that He gave me poop.
St Paul thinks of this as discipline. HEB 12:5-7, 11-13 “Brothers and sisters, you have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children: “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.” Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline? At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”
Jesus tells us in LUKE 11:9-13 “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
So, everything is a gift, every breath, every heart beat, every traffic jam, every insult, every tough day at work or home, everything. So tomorrow, when something goes wrong or seems difficult, don’t believe the lie that your Father in heaven can give you something bad. Believe the truth. No matter what comes your way, thank God and say, “Jesus, I trust in you!”