Blessing Meadows Ministries

I am distressed today by the lack of consideration for the well being of our neighbors, and how so many people are slipping into vindictive acts, revenge, and uncaring with their hot headed reactions to the mistakes of others. 

Sometimes we’re not even waiting for someone to make a real mistake, but we push past them in anger, assuming they’re too slow for us, less intelligent than us, or not living up to “our” standards of excellence.  The trouble is, that standard we’re talking about – we never bothered to put it into practice in our own lives first! 

We don’t HAVE a standard of excellence operating in our lives, but we demand that everyone else have one! 

Has someone made a mistake that irritated you, or cost you time, or interfered with your plans?  Maybe something you ordered was not done correctly, or at all.  Maybe someone assumed something about you that was in error, but from your viewpoint it only served to cheat you out of something you wanted. 

Do you have more instances of being cheated, or your plans being detoured and let down than you do of them coming to pass with success?  

Perhaps the reason is that you are living your life in anger and revenge, and NOT giving others your very best excellent self.  Maybe at work you don’t give 100% of performance in both your production AND your attitude.  

Even if you do what the boss expects of you, if you’re steaming mad inside and murmuring against your boss or the job in general, then you are NOT the excellent employee God is looking for. 

Do you know that the Bible says we’re to do everything we do “as unto the Lord”, meaning as if we were doing it for Jesus? 

There is SO much advice in there and description of what attitudes and efforts are pleasing to God and what is not.  It talks about people getting bent out of shape who do what is expected of them but receive no special award for it.  In order to get extra credit, you have to do more than just better than the next guy.  You have to be EXCELLENT. 

Excellence is a word we have almost dropped from our language because it is so taken for granted that we misunderstand its importance.  (We all expected that we’ve got it, and therefore paid it no more attention.) 

God rewards those who are obedient, and He gives special reward to a person who goes beyond the expectations and demands made on him. 

Why would you do that?  Why would you spend extra time at work, though you might not be acknowledged or rewarded by your employer?  Because God sees in secret and rewards us openly.  Because time spent in excellence and practice in our chosen field prepares us for promotion.  Because when our hearts are clean and we know we have given 150% in anything, we automatically draw to us more than the average blessing due a man. 

There was a whole group of God’s people who were destroyed because they griped and complained about life.  They were rescued, protected, fed supernaturally in a wilderness of sand and rocks, given water and meat and bread from Heaven, and the presence of the Living, Awesome God day and night with them, but they still complained bitterly and said it would have been better if they had died in their enemies’ hands. 

Don’t laugh!  We’ve ALL taken our turns being ungrateful for something that somebody prepared specially for us.  Don’t think you have?  Think again.  You weren’t even aware of it, you were complaining too hard. 

What more could God have given those people?  Did they want palaces like the Pharaoh they had escaped?  Did they want limousines or chariots to ride in?  Did they want servants and money and to be treated like something off a Fox reality show? 

God said David was a man after His own heart.  David was a simple boy, a keeper of sheep, but he didn’t just sit around daydreaming about the clouds that passed overhead while the sheep grazed.  He took his job seriously, working the books for his father’s sheep business.  Planning wise investments perhaps, counting the cost of the sheep and their care, personally going out when there was danger and handling it himself, as well as employing workers in the herds to be there when he was busy elsewhere. 

David faced danger fearlessly, trusting that God would protect Him because it was spoken in God’s Word that He would. 

He defeated wild attacking animals using his bare hands and simple caveman tools.  He was in good physical shape and ready at a moment’s notice to fill another task his father needed done. 

When he had to be with the sheep, he learned to play music well, and he loved to write songs and lyrics.  He engaged his body, his mind and his heart in everything he did.  No wonder both God and the King admired him, and his brothers were jealous of him. 

When King Saul called for David to come to play the harp to drive out the tormenting demons in his mind, David added that chore to his ever-increasing workload, and he handled everything well and in proper order. 

He did not anticipate failure or evil or fill his mind with “what ifs”.  He didn’t spend time gossiping or telling others what had happened with so and so, or ruining anyone’s reputation.  He didn’t hang around with those who did those things, or who criticized his father or king. 

Everything with David was upright and yes and amen, just like God because David knew what God said and believed it was a true report. 

Joseph, the boy who was sold into slavery by his brothers, didn’t sit around crying that his life was ruined and his father’s riches gone!  He worked hard and studied under the master he had, learning about building and architecture, learning about what made a city work and an empire.  

When the master’s wife tried to tempt him into her bed, he didn’t hesitate one moment in thoughts of having his master’s wife.  He immediately told her no, and was falsely accused of raping her because of the woman’s anger of being rejected.  He went to prison for the crime he did not commit and STILL didn’t gripe and complain about his situation or standing. 

He spent his time again learning from all those around him, and the guards.  He also used his supernatural gifts of understanding dreams and that won him regard and position with the Pharaoh.  

In the end, he became the second in command of a country, only below the Pharaoh, and was able to save his family because of the horrible set of events that had happened to him in his life.  If his brothers had never sold him off and if his master’s wife had never lied about him, his father and 11 brothers and all of their household including servants and animals would have perished in the famine that was to come. 

Wow!  That is excellence!  If I’m delayed or detoured a bit from my plans for the day, my face starts to pout and my mind looks around for something else to build up a pity party with.  I might look for some vice, some chocolate to overdose on, or somebody to call and spill all my ugly heart’s feelings to.  WRONG!! 

My first response should be, “your will be done Father, what is it that you want me to take notice of, or do for you today?” 

Pastor Stan says that when him and his wife bump up against walls like that, delays or car troubles or something that stops them from their plan for the day, they have learned to look around because there is usually somebody who needs help that God has put them there for. 

Someone to help, to witness to, to be an example of what God can do in the lives of His people who are chosen and obedient to the call.

So I am striving to live by these principles, though I have a long way to go to perfection. 

• Break no laws, either man’s or God’s.  This means even the small things like ethic and social codes, seat belt laws, speed laws, taxes and copyright laws and anything that could cause someone to knock on my door one day and disrupt my happiness.

• Harm no one, either directly by actions or indirectly (and secretly) by thoughts and words to myself.  (Evil tongue and heart, unwarranted jealousy, anger and selfishness.)  Judging others, being angry without a cause.

• Always give more than I take.  Give good value for what I get.  Leave everyone better off than when I met them.  Cause no one any trouble or loss.

• Give happiness when possible, but remember that I am not responsible for the happiness of others, only for the counsel/advice I give them.

• Live in peace and harmony.  Strive to eliminate disharmony, disquiet and chaos in my life.  My house should be a sanctuary of calm.

• Owe no man, and be beholden to no one.  Pay the bills I owe, first to the people I know face to face, and then to those at a distance.  Rely on God to provide the money for my needs and to pay these debts clean, by walking in His will and paying my tithes. 

• Get ahead of our finances by thinking ahead to the needs of the family for the month and year.  Spend less to have money ahead and not in arrears. Provide for the family’s needs, and have money for the expenses of running a household and a life.

• Live in a constant outpouring of love, kindness, well-being and help for all of mankind.  This is God’s character and where I want to stay.

• Shame no one and live without shame.  I don’t want to be embarrassed by things said or done in front of others.  Even in front of God.

• Confess our faults one to another and pray for each other.  Attend church.  Worship God, study together, strive to see my family’s worth.  Make the days of the calendar have meaning by taking thought and preparing in advance.

• Do not harm my body, it is where God and I dwell on earth.  Sustain and maintain it, keep it in good running order. 

• Honor God first and my body/self second, my family third and then the other people and things.  I am responsible first with what I do with my own life.  My family came later and do not negate my responsibility to myself.  (I cannot neglect my health or need for solitude and rest.)

• Make my words that I speak and the expectations of my heart be what God has said in His Word.  Be obedient.  Do not borrow trouble, do not anticipate failure.  Always assume that God’s answer to my prayers and needs is yes and amen!

• Strive higher for excellence, for personal integrity, for more wisdom, more education, more love, more responsibility, more achievement and more success.  Become more like Christ and believe stronger, have more faith, daily.

If you will turn off your “anger as first response” button and begin thinking more deeply about who you are, who you are in Christ, what you mean to Him and to your family, and why you were put here, you can begin to take your life to the next level.  

This life most of us have is actually not a life at all but an idling and going nowhere waste of time.  We have not engaged ourselves into our life’s purpose or achieved much of anything to have written in our obituary when we’re gone. 

Today I was privileged to read an obituary a friend of mine had written for his father who just passed away.  I read on and on through the positions he had held, both at work and in civil service, non profit organizations, local government and military service in his life.  

I read how many people he had influenced, children raised and conditions or problems of people he had addressed and made better for his neighbors in the small town he had lived in.  

This was not a scientist or lawmaker.  He was a simple man who worked at a loan company, but he had not wasted his life idling or on standby.  He didn’t waste it in murmuring and complaining.  He took what he was dealt by life and with his intelligence made the very best of it.  

He was born in the 1930’s a time when depression and lack wracked the country and griped the minds and hearts of most people.  This man didn’t let anything stop him.  How did he do that? 

Perhaps he lived his life with the standards of God, the heart of God, and the understanding of the answer to the question “What is man?” 

The Bible says God created man a little lower than Himself*, in His own image and likeness, equipped with similar tools**. 

Now I ask you, if you knew that God had made you just like Him in every way, empowered with supernatural abilities and with authority over every created thing and every living thing, human and superhuman, … wouldn’t you DO something with your life??