Enjoying the Flowers

An atheist man was walking through the woods enjoying all of the beauty that just "happened by chance" when he saw out of the corner of his eye, something moving. He turned his head to realize that it was a gigantic grizzley bear and it was running right for him. He took off in a sprint to try and escape the wrath of this deadly creature. He ran up a hillside and as he looked back, he saw that the bear was gaining on him. He was jumping over logs and sticks and trying with all of his might to run faster and faster, but no matter what he did, that bear was gaining on him every inch of the way. Then, he tripped and fell to the ground and when he rolled over, there was that huge grizzley bear right on top of him, ready to strike him with his right claw. Just then, the atheist man called out, "Oh GOD!". At that moment, time froze...I light shone from the sky directly onto him and he heard the voice of God say, "All of these years, you never acknowledged me, never thanked me for the blessings in your life and led others to stray from me, and NOW you call on me? Now, in this moment, you believe that I can help you? Now you want to be a Christian?" The man responded, "It would be very hypocrytical for me to become a Christian now, but could you at least make this bear a Christian?!" Time began again and the man watched as the bear put down his right claw and clasped it to his left claw, knelt down on his knees and said, "Lord, thank you for this meal I am about to partake in..."

:)I thought that was such a great joke. Pastor Quinten told it in church today and I had to share it with all of you!

Today's sermon was fantastic. We are currently finishing up a series about a "Pure and Simple Faith", and today was all about giving thanks to the Lord. It really put things into perspective for me. Pastor Quinten talked about how one person could go into a field all day and pick weeds and put them into a bag and at the end of the day, that person will take from that field, a bag of unwanted weeds. On the other hand, another person can go into that same field and pick all of the beautiful wild flowers that they can find, and although in many fields there may be a much smaller amount of wild flowers to find than weeds, that person will at the end of the day be so thankful to have taken from that field a beautiful handful of wild flowers.

I know that I need to work on dwelling not on all of the weeds in my life, but instead, being thankful for all of the wild flowers that are in it. And although at times it may seem like all of the weeds are covering up all of the flowers, the flowers are always there and if I try to push away those weeds and let the Lord take care of them, all of the wild flowers will come into sight.

Working today on letting the Lord take care of my weeds so that I can enjoy the flowers!