A Nice Kind O’ Dumb

     So this has been a big week of discovery for Pastor Wrinkles. There have been so many epiphanies I hardly know where to begin. I was sitting at lunch this week with the church staff eating my Greek yogurt. It was a new kind that just went on sale at the market. It is very tasty. My only objection is that they put the yogurt and the fruit in adjoining containers. Well all week long I have been scooping the fruit into the yogurt with a spoon…making a mess of myself, the table and anyone bold enough to get close to my “lunch mess”.

    The youth pastor’s wife joined us for lunch the other day and upon observing my yogurt issue she offered, “You know the container folds in half so that you don’t make such a mess.”

 

the angels in Heaven sang as I discovered the best invention ever! Folding yogurt containers! What genius thought that up?

But Jesus wasn’t finished with me yet! For years I have been having a daily argument with the office coffee pot.

When the coffee is made it won’t come out! You have to turn the top and if you don’t turn it right the top comes off and you end up with a coffee mess. So I usually just take the top off altogether and pour sans top. Usually I over pour and end up with that nasty coffee ring that travels with you everywhere you put your cup down (of course I never think to wipe the bottom of the cup with a napkin that would be too brilliant).

     One of the secretaries noticed me pouring out the other day and remarked “You know you don’t have to take the top off to pour. It will stay on and pour perfectly if you just line up the arrows.”

 

The angels sang and the people rejoiced!

Of course I have taken a bit of ribbing over these discoveries. To all this I say “My elevator may not go all the way to the top. I may be a few ants short of a picnic. Yes I may be dumb, but I am a nice kind o’ dumb!” 😉

Who Are You Really?

    Who are you really?

     Some of us think we are the product of our upbringing or our education. Some of us think we can be whatever we focus our minds on.  Some of us think we are just the sum of our experiences. Yet others think we can never really know ourselves at all.

     Now, Jeremiah, the prophet, indicated that we were clay in the hands of a Master Potter; So I am not sure that anything in the list above is really true.  Sometimes I think our upbringings, educations, experiences, and even our own desires do more to confuse us about who we are than anything.

     After all if God , the God of the universe, took the time and trouble to forge us then He had a purpose in that forging. If that is so surely He made us complete with all the gifts and talents we would ever need to accomplish that purpose.

     Have you ever heard of a tool craftsman who forged a screw-driver to drive nails? No! that would be ridiculous. If a craftsman needed to create a tool to drive nails he would make a hammer. And that item would continue to be a hammer even if it was told all its life by everyone around, it should be a screw driver. Even if it felt in itself it would like to be a paintbrush, a hammer could never do a good job of coloring a wall. Even if a foolish carpenter tried to use it as a pair of pliers the hammer could only ever be a hammer. You see, it was created for a purpose and could  only ever be successful in that purpose.

     Who are you really?

     The truth is down deep inside of you. Your identity was forged with you in the womb. God knew you and imprinted your identity deep inside you before you were even born. Yet the moment you came into the world everything in the world began trying to steal your identity.

     The power of sin exercised its strength upon you and told you, you were a thief, an alcoholic, or a homosexual. Yet none of those were part of the original design. Sin stole your identity.

      Who are you really?

      Relationships rose up in your life and took the place of God. Suddenly what people thought about you took the place of what God thought about you. An earthly father told his son he was weak and the boy gave up His God identity to prove he was no sissy. An earthly mother told her daughter no one would marry her if she gained too much weight; So the daughter gave up her God identity to prove she was beautiful.

     Who are you really?

      You went to school and learned that you came from a monkey and that life was about what you knew and who you knew. So you turned to amass knowledge and influence only to find out with Solomon that it was all “vanity”.

    Who are you really?

     I have done a lot of thinking about this lately. I feel like I’ve spent half my life trying to figure out who I am, by asking the world around me, only to find out that it never really had the answer to begin with.

     I know the answer is found in God alone. He and I are on a journey inward to find the answer that He spoke into my life long ago. I know that when I put away sin, my fear of what others think about me, and even my varied life experiences, when I gaze into the Word of truth and apply it to my life I shall know more than ever before who I was made to be.

     Who am I really? I am a child of God made to reflect His image. I was made a little lower than the Heavenly beings and I was clothed with glory and honor. I was made to be in fellowship with God and to draw other men into that fellowship by my life. I am who the word of God says I am regardless of what the world, the flesh, and the devil tell me I am.

… And if you will accept it THROUGH CHRIST so are you!