Sweat Equity
I can still remember the day I learned to ride a bicycle. We were living in Kenya and I learned on the nice soft grass so I wouldn’t hurt myself too much when I crashed… and besides, the roads were all dirt on the mission station. It was later that I learned that falling on the road wasn’t a good idea. A friend and I crashed and I ended up with a broken collar bone.
When we moved back to Canada, my parents bought me a bike or two, but I remember when I had to buy my own bike for the first time! There was a significant change in how I treated that bike. I went from riding down the street, up the driveway and jumping off the bike to let it crash on the lawn, to using a kickstand!
I valued the bike more since I had some of my own equity in it. When my parents blessed me with a bike, I had a tendency to treat it with less respect.
When God is taking me through a hard time and I’m having to work harder than I think I should for an outcome that I know he wants in my life, I have to remember that the more sweat equity I have in the process of life-change, the more I will value it.
Thankfully, just because God can do something for us, doesn’t mean that he will do something for us!
Talking WITH God
Prayer is another critically important habit to have in your daily routine. Far too often the only consistent prayer time we have is just before we eat! And that prayer is often routine and rote. I read a book years ago written by a pastor of a very large church. The title of the book: “Too Busy Not to Pray.”
Far too often prayer is something we participate in when we need God to bail us out of some circumstance instead of keeping the lines of communication open in the most important relationship of your life.
Life’s Not Fair
Every parent has heard the words. Every leader has heard the words. Every mediator has heard the words. "That's not fair!"
There is a root thought that causes us to want fairness and it isn't a desire for fairness. A root cause for 'fairness' is actually greed.
In Luke 12:13-15 there is a brief account of a man asking Jesus to tell his brother to divide the inheritance his brother was going to get. In that day, the oldest brother got everything. The younger brother got what was left over. The younger brother was asking for life to be fair. I find it interesting that Jesus didn't challenge the cultural norm of the day. Instead he drilled down to the heart of the matter.
Jesus pointedly addresses that the young man was not motivated by fairness, but by greed. "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
There are many lessons in this statement of Jesus'. The fact that he goes to the issue of greed emphasizes that this young man wanted what was not his. This is the essence of greed.
When you're feeling like you want life to be fair, check your own heart. Are you really wanting something that isn't yours in the first place?
Fasting
Have you ever had that one meal that when you finished you sat back and said, “Wow, my appetite is satisfied once and for all!”? Of course not, our appetite is something that cannot be permanently satisfied. In fact, feeding your appetite actually increases, not decreases, your appetite!
Fasting isn’t an inherently spiritual activity – meaning that there are a variety of purposes to fasting. Fasting is normal before getting blood work done for your annual (or less frequent if you are male) physical. It is normal before a surgical procedure. Fasting is a part of some health regiments to remove toxins from your system. What turns fasting into a spiritual activity is the purpose. I’ve known people that have joined a fast that a church was promoting because, “I need to lose some weight anyway.” That is the wrong motive.
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