Month: June 2022

Meant To Be

What were you “Meant To Be“? Just asking the question, what you were “Meant To Be” has a sad tone to it because it is saying right now as you read these words, you are not what you thought you were “Meant To Be“. Some reading this will be very sad, some will be just a little sad with possibly others being angry. I want you to know, I am sorry for those who had the good “Meant To Be“. This life is to short living with sadness, regret, and feeling incomplete. It is a terrible thing to live with all that inside your spirit.

No one truly knows your pain. They may hear your words of sadness, regret, and the feelings of incompleteness, but if it has not experienced inside their life they will truly not know how you feel. Most people will hear you and go on without a second thought with being content you are in their life. Your suffering is silent and a slow eating away acid dissolving your dream of what I was “Meant To Be“.

You breathe in and out doing your job and fulfilling the expectations of those in your life. Yet, life does not slow down as time ticks by, no matter if you are standing still or walking forward. Your mind is always wishing for the “Meant To Be” to somehow miraculously appear before you as an open door you could simply walk through.

Life has seen you laugh, cry, and appear to be normal as others. A another face in the crowd doing their thing and enjoying life, but underneath your outward face and appearance the longing in your heart is somewhere else. Your prayers and wishes seem to be old and far away echoes fading in the deep distant canyons with gray and dark clouds hovering above as the wind blows them away as whispering ghosts vanishing out of sight.

Your were “Meant To Be” something else than what you are now. God has a plan laid out for all of us that He would like to bless us with. We just made some decisions that detoured us from that divine plan. It was not His fault, but possibly the freedom of our choices or some things out of our control deviated us from that path. None the less, we are not presently what we were “Meant To Be“.

BEAUTIFUL STORY

A man was told he needed to go and visit this house where a potter creates useful vessels. The understanding of what was “Meant To Be” will come clear to him. The man arose walked down to the town finding the potter’s shop. He opened the door as it swung to the right, stepping inside, he saw the potter sitting at his wheel spinning round and round. You could see the potter’s gentle and skillful hand trying to shape the clay into what he “Meant To Be“. Behind him was a shelf with all kinds of different pottery from the large to the small and the beautiful to the average. The room was silent with only the sound of the foot peddle methodically pressing the harmonious speed the potter desired.

The man stood there without saying a word as his thoughts absorbed the life of the clay being shaped in the hands of the potter. It was a beautiful sight to behold as the clay began to take shape of a wonderful vessel. As the clay was smoothly rotating in the hands of the potter something strange was in the clay. Something was bumping the potter’s hand as it came around each time it grew worse. The potter was trying to adjust, but suddenly the clay collapsed and fell inward. His wheel came to a stop as they both were staring at the crumbled clay.

The man stood there shocked at the sad outcome of the clay. His eyes turned toward the potter for his reaction, but there was nothing there except a continual holding of the clay in his hands. He would not let it go. He did not push it off the wheel into a basket for trash. The potter had an atmosphere about him of “it’s okay, I will do something else“. There was no hint “I am mad at you“, “you are no good“, or “I am done with you“. You have made your choice and what you were “Meant To Be” is lost.

The man standing there watching the potter as he slowly started the wheel to spin again. Hope filled the room for the clay to be made again something new. Standing there anxiously, the potter lovingly formed the marred clay into another useful vessel. A smile slowly appeared upon the potter’s face looking with love at the newly born again vessel. Trash was never in his eyes, but what can I do to help you to be what you were “Meant To Be“. Inspired from Jeremiah 18:1-6

YOUR NEW STORY

The above story is a beautiful typology of God holding us in His hands doing His best, honoring our choices in this life, and trying to help us to be what we were “Meant To Be“. We were the clay that marred in His hands changing over to the shaping wheel of sin and the devil. God did not give up, but worked on us from the outside trying to reach our spirit on the inside for good choices. God, the potter of life, came inside a fleshly clay body as Jesus Christ providing another chance. He, the potter of life, walked among us showing us how to handle this world’s spinning out of control wheel of destruction. God, the potter of life, provided us with another wheel He could set us upon.

We can be (key words) born again as a new vessel in Christ with the smile of God upon us allowing another chance to be what we were “Meant To Be“. The first wheel of God was natural of the earth mixed with His Spirit of Life in the clay. We (Adam/Eve, mankind) marred ourselves in a bad spiritual decision choosing to follow the devil’s lies corrupting our clay and spirit. We all are now born on the wheel with sin as the potter. The second wheel of God was made of His Spirit mixed with a pure fleshly clay vessel. He can now take us from the wheel of sin and place us upon the second wheel making us new creatures in Christ creating all things new (2 Cor. 5:17).

You can still be what you were “Meant To Be“, but in a different and new way. It may not be exactly as you envisioned here on the earth, but the completeness and the fulfilled goal of your soul is still attainable. God will not let go of you or throw you away. You are not trash to Him. You are not replaceable like the devil looks at you when it comes to how God feels.

BEAUTIFUL SECOND WHEEL

God’s beautiful second wheel is in the man Jesus Christ mixed with the one true God’s Spirit on the inside (Col. 2:9). Jesus/God came to take away all, I said ALL, your marred sins inside your clay and spirit. Jesus is the powerful wheel of God that the Potter of Life can once again reshape you into a good vessel. God can fix the path He had hoped you would choose, but you did not and you can once again be what you were “Meant To Be” through Jesus Christ.

Let God take your sadness, regrets, and feelings of incompleteness into His hands allowing Him the chance to fix what was “Meant To Be” in your life. On this wheel you will never be the same again. The power of God’s life and guidance will be inside your clay beside your spirit all the way through this life and carry you into the next. It is the greatest thing to be born again, set free, and have God as your roommate inside your clay with your spirit.

How can I be what I was “Meant To Be” in God? It is simply to repent with regret for the marred sins in your clay from this life, be baptized in Jesus name applying the potter’s blood, which is in the name for forgiveness that he shed on the cross washing away all your sins, and the final touch upon your clay is receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit of God with power of God speaking from within your clay through your voice praising God in a language God gives you, which is a sign to you that your clay has been totally born again of the water and of the Spirit (Jn. 3:5), made new in Christ Jesus inside and out (Acts 2:38).

POTTER AND THE WHEEL

After you are born again of the water and of the Spirit you now have the Potter and Wheel inside you. He can, if you allow Him, help your spirit to see the truth of things and enlighten you with His wisdom from above that is first pure, peaceable, gentle full of mercy and good fruits, easily to be given to others, without partiality, and without hypocrisy (James 3:17). Doesn’t that sound beautiful to have inside your life? This is a greater “Meant To Be” than this life could ever offer. I am no longer spinning on the wheel of sin in confusion, but now a life of clarity from God.

Now, you and I can be like the potter and the wheel through the power of Jesus Christ to reshape our attitude and adjusting to things in this life that we thought we were “Meant To Be” and doing them in the way God opens the door for us to do it fulfilling what we felt were our shortcomings.

If call on Him He will answer us directly. He will wrap his loving hands around our struggling times and touch our hearts where no man can go and comfort in a way no one else can reach. We can do something about our life with the power of the Potter (God’s Spirit) and His clay (Jesus). I want the Potter’s attitude about life when it seems like it is falling apart to not give up and throw it all away, but to hang on and try again.

First, be born again finding in God what you were “Meant To Be“. Spend your everyday wisely walking in the fellowship with God and His Word because you are exchanging what you do daily from a day given to you out of your life. We are all in the count days and life is to short to live with sadness, regrets, and incomplete. Be all that you are “Meant To Be” in God. May God bless you with an overflowing cup of fellowship all the days of your life.

Crumbs of Approval

It is the small things in life that count. A crumb is tiny thing that you see lying upon something far bigger than it is. A crumb is a small particle from bread, a cake, and other things broken off as a tiny portion of a bigger thing. We all have seen them on our counter tops, tables, and floors. A crumb is looked upon as something tiny and insignificant. A crumb is usually swept up by a broom, wiped with a towel, blown off a surface, or vacuumed away. A crumb is not counted as important due to its size. It is not considered, but simply overlooked as trash.

A crumb can be compared to many things in this life. People can be considered crumbs. Big companies, organizations, and governments could see the workers and its people as small crumbs that can be done away with and replaced with something else. A person could be a small crumb to a big company, but a full size important person to a family or loved ones.

A crumb can be compared to thoughts, ideas, and plans. No one hears your words because they considered them tiny and insignificant. Your ideas do not carry value to them thinking they are to small to matter in the bigger picture. Your way of thinking is not important to them because they feel they are bigger and more important than your tiny crumb plans, ideas, and thoughts.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is about the Gentile woman whose daughter was tormented by an evil spirit. She came to Jesus hearing about his delivering and healing power requesting mercy for her daughter. Jesus did not answer right away, but his Jewish disciples asked Jesus to send her away due to in that day it was not acceptable in mixing Gentiles and Jewish people.

I love how Jesus extracted from what was not seen by others. The disciples saw only this Gentile woman as the big picture, but Jesus saw a tiny little thing inside of her he wanted everyone to see. So, Jesus said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Ah, the disciples sees Jesus recognizing the big picture of Jews and Gentiles. That tiny thing inside the woman was strong and did not give up coming to Jesus worshipping him and saying, “Lord, help me“.

Jesus laid out the big picture of his mission as a shepherd seeking the lost sheep of Israel was his focus at this time. See how tiny she seems to be compared to the people? Jesus was finding these lost sheep and feeding them the truth of God filling and pointing their faith in the right direction. The disciples were still seeing a Gentile woman and her one daughter verses the Jewish people’s needs.

Jesus says to her, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.“. I see a table with the Jewish disciple children sitting around it with God breaking bread for them to eat and the woman said, “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Now, I see the table with plates full of bread in each child’s plate with crumbs that have fallen onto the floor, though tiny as they may be the dogs have come around filling their stomachs to what they consider a full meal.

One person’s crumb could be another person’s full meal just like the saying of “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure“. Jesus extracted the words from within that woman’s heart. The big picture was a Gentile woman to all, but the tiny little hidden crumb of faith was most important for all to see and Jesus said, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

The woman saw with understanding the bigger picture of being a Gentile and the status she was put in with society, but her faith as unseen and unknown to people no matter how small was the greater than all divisions in the world.

I can relate to this woman when I think about my past. Once you see the things you did that was wrong and sinful the feeling of not being worthy begins show how low a person could be. The sorrowfulness of your past reminds you how the small things of acceptance and kindness are huge to someone who was once very low in sin. Your gratefulness never goes away.

As I was listening to this passage of scripture I began to pray to the Lord and the words came out of my mouth saying, “Lord, if only I had a crumb of approval from You that would be enough.” As my ears heard those words the love in my heart grew that the smallest of approval of God is the greatest a sinner could ask for. Once a sinner is born again with a second chance a desire to please the one, Jesus, who saved you becomes automatic. A desire of “I want to please God” and “to be accepted“.

A person is grateful being accepted and loved even though you come from a place and status in life that is not a good one. You may feel like you are nothing, tiny and forgotten, but your small spark of hope, love, and desire in God is greater than all the demons and evil sins in the world. Never forget where you came from and be thankful for all the small changes you have in God.

When people say bad things about you, want to run you off, or make you feel you don’t belong just keep going on that tiny crumb of faith towards God knowing it will reap a full size answer. God will not turn away your faith. If anything He will extract your love and faith showing all around you He can take the outcast and work miracles in their life shaming the better off than you in life.

Faith the size of a mustard seed is comparable to the size of a crumb… “…mustard seed…is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:” (Mark 4:31), but in the end that tiny portion to the fullness of its size can be enough to move God’s heart into moving heaven and earth for you. It doesn’t take a whole lot, just use what you got.

Just a crumb of Your salvation, just a crumb of Your love, just a crumb of Your understanding, just a crumb of Your guidance, just a crumb of Your power, just a crumb of Your spoken words would be enough from God to overflow us with blessings we could not contain. I would love to hear from the Lord, “…Well done, thou good and faithful servant…“, but I would be glad just to have a crumb of approval from the Lord.

Start your walk with the Lord today. Don’t worry about how big or small your belief in Him is. Just take whatever size it is like that woman and seek him until you find Him, ask Him to fulfill your need, and the size of the faith filled knock on His door will cause it to open to you. It is easy, just believe if you repent of your sins, go down in water baptism in Jesus name removing your sins, and receive the gift of the God’s Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) your soul will be saved and the size of your faith will be plenty enough for God to do miracles in your life. What is small to mankind is huge to God. Just a “Crumb of Approval“.

GENTILE WOMAN

Mtt. 15: 22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.