Excellent Living

Growing up my mom had a rule for all of us kids. Whatever food we put on our plate we had to eat it before we could leave the table or do anything. Of all of my siblings I tended to stay at the table the longest. I had a bad habit. I would see all the food and I would pile my plate with more food than I could eat. So my mom would make me sit at the table till my plate was clean. Sometimes I would sit there for a couple of hours.

I hated this so much but it taught me something. There is only so much food that I can eat at one time. My body has a limit. There was so much good food at the table I wanted to eat all of it, but that isn’t physically possible. I started to hate eating at the table till I learned to only get what I could eat and enjoy.

I have been thinking about the lesson I should have learned from this a long time ago today. The chapter I read in “Pushing to the Front” this morning caused me to think about this. Today was about excellence in all that I do. I should never do anything half heartedly. What I do should be done excellently or not at all.  

Thinking about this anyways I started looking at my life to see what I am doing excellently. I see now that in a way I never learned the lesson my mom tried to teach me. I see that there is so much to do, so many good things to be involved in. So I take too much on my plate. I take and say that I will do too much. So most of what I do is done with a half hearted effort. Or it is done last minute and I don’t learn from it.

I think I need to learn to only take on as much as I can do excellent. If I can’t put the time into something to make it excellent I should not spend time doing it. This doesn’t mean I am to be lazy or only just do less. I just need to take what I am doing and have on my shoulders now and do it perfectly and to the best of my ability before I take anything else on me.

I am thankful that God is teaching me each day so much.

Is your life lived excellently?

Our Magnificent Creator

Picture a man choosing a spouse. He chooses a girl that He knows will be unfaithful to him. He knows the exact day she will sell her body into slavery with adultery and yet he marries her. Knowing that this beautiful girl he has married will soon find another man to love and will sell herself to him. Knowing that she will become so indebted by her lust and sin that He will have to pay a great price, even his own life, in order to set her free.

Yet still at the end of the day when the vows are said and they are driving away. Knowing what will soon transpire, He says that the marriage is good. That he has chosen well.

This story doesn’t make much sense. No one would ever do this you say?

Well in a sense so much greater than this, God did this for us! He didn’t marry us, He created us!

Did you know that when God was creating the first man, Adam, He knew what was going to happen! God created men knowing that he would have to send His only beloved Son to die on the cross for their sins.

God created man knowing that man would reject Him and follow after his own lusts. He knew that Romans 3:10-18 would be true of His creation and yet He still calls His creation good. Genesis 1:31, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

God knew that man would never seek Him until He first sought after man. That man would become His enemy and be corrupt. God created man knowing that He would become so deep in sin He would have to die to save him. Yet God still created man.

God created you and me knowing this. Not just man in general. God knew every sin that I would do. Every thought I would have. Yet God created me.

God created men knowing how sinful they would be that He might die for them. God’s love is incredible! There is none like it. God’s thoughts and ways truly are not my ways or thoughts. We serve a great and magnificent Creator!

1 Peter 1:20 “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,”

My mom sent me this in a email and I thought I would share.

When I was a kid, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work.
 
On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned biscuits in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his biscuit, smile at my mom and ask me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that biscuit and eat every bite!
 
When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the biscuits. And I'll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burned biscuits."
 
Later that night, I went to kiss Dad good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, "Your Mom put in a hard day at work today and she's real tired. And besides - a little burnt biscuit never hurt anyone!"
 
Life is full of imperfect things.....and imperfect people. I'm not the best at hardly anything, and I forget birthdays and anniversaries just like everyone else. But what I've learned over the years is that learning to accept each others faults - and choosing to celebrate each others differences - is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.
 
That's my prayer for you today. That you will learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of God.  Because in the end, He's the only One who will be able to give you a relationship where a burnt biscuit isn't a deal-breaker!
 
We could extend this to any relationship. In fact, understanding is the base of any relationship, be it a husband-wife or parent-child or friendship!
 
"Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket - keep it in your own."
 
God Bless You...Now, and Always...So Please pass me a biscuit, and yes, the burnt one will do just fine!