Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Matthew 7:7-8

      I have to admit I’m a little bit nosey at times.  I have heard a lot of prayers and I have heard people share their answers to prayers.  It is always encouraging to hear God answer prayers.  What we don’t get to see is the inner workings of God….just how does He answer all those prayers.  It is the details I want to know about.  How about you?  Do you wish to understand how God works it all out? 

      The story below explains just how God answered the prayer of one little girl.  Don’t be surprised to find sometimes that God uses you to answer someone else’s prayer.  When He does, you may not even know it. 

      A pastor had a little kitten stuck up in a tree, and the kitty would not come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and drove until the tree bent down, he could then reach up and get the kitten. As he moved just a little too far, the rope broke. The tree snapped upright and the kitten instantly sailed through the air and out of sight.

      He felt just terrible and walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they had seen a little kitten. Nobody had and finally he prayed, “Lord, I commit this kitten to Your keeping,” and then went about his business.

      A few days later, he was at the grocery store and met one of his church members. In her shopping cart he was amazed to see cat food. Now this woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it, so he asked her why she was buying cat food when she hated cats so much.

      She replied, “You won’t believe this, but I have been refusing to buy my little girl a cat even though she has been begging for one. Finally I told her that if God gives you a cat, I’ll let you keep it.

      “I watched my child go out into the yard, get on her knees and ask God for a cat. Really, Pastor, you won’t believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky with its paws spread out and landed right in front of her. Of course I had to let her keep the kitten because it came from God...”      (from The Daily Dilly)

       Be encouraged today, because God is always at work.  We may not get so see behind the scenes…but He is at work. 

Blessings,

Pastor

“…but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13-14   

      Do you ever struggle with keeping the main thing, the main thing in your life?  The real important things in life can get swallowed up in the minutia of everyday battles.  It is as if Paul is reminding himself of what is really important to him in this passage.  I have to keep reminding myself of what is really important as well.  In order to pray more, I have to set aside more time to pray.  If I want to study the Bible more, I have to set aside time to make sure that happens.  Why?  There is always something going on in my life to eat up those moments I want to give to the Lord.  It is a battle and the only way to stay victorious is to keep reminding ourselves of what is important.  Below is a story I reread every-so-often to remind myself to do the important things first. 

A while back an expert on the subject of time management was speaking to a group of business students.

After speaking to them for a while, he said, “Okay, it’s time for a quiz.” He set a one-gallon, wide-mouthed Mason jar on the table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks & carefully placed them, one at a time, inside the jar. When the jar was filled to the top & no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone in the class said, “Yes.”

“Really?” he said. Then he reached under the table & pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel into the jar & shook it , causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.

Then he smiled & asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time the class was on to him. “Probably not,” one of them said.

“Good!” he replied. And he reached under the table & brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in & it filled all the spaces between the rocks & the gravel. Once more he asked, “Is this jar full?” “No!” the class shouted. Again he said, “Good!” Then he grabbed a pitcher of water & began to pour in the water until the jar was filled to the brim.

Then he looked back at the class & asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager beaver raised his hand & said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit something more into it!”

“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is this: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

      Make sure and to put the BIG ROCKS in your life first this week! 

Blessings,

Pastor