Tanner Life

Things God is trying to teach me this week:

Here are some rambling thoughts going on inside my head about things I've read this week in my devotional books. (Yes Katie, your blog got me started on rambling about it. Figured I needed to stop hijacking yours and ramble on my own.)

1) "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering." Romans 12:1 (The Message)

I love this, really love it and am working on memorizing this one. I love that it's not only the big stuff that God is concerned with, but he wants us to give him glory, thanks, praise and control over the "ordinary life" just as much. I may never be a missionary in a foreign country, may never stand in front of hundreds to share my testimony, may never work in prison ministry or start an orphanage. Those things are amazing and thankfully God has equipped others to do those things. I have had the priveledge and honor to pray with a child at children's camp when they accepted Christ as their personal savior in a little cabin in the mountains, I have been able to teach children the song "Jesus Loves Me" when they'd never heard it before at preschool, I've been able to hug a child at a back yard Bible school in an inner city that probably doesn't get many hugs, I have held the door open for elderly ladies in the grocery store and chatted a few words of kindness, told the cashier that she had a great smile after she'd just dealt with an unruly customer in a patient way and prayed for my preschool babies every morning of school. I've done these things, but how many things have I missed? How many blessings to others and myself have I missed by not committing the little things to Christ? Just a few months ago I posted one of my favorite songs by 33Miles "Thank You". I want to remember what that song says about starting each day with thanking God for all he gives me or even what he takes away. Because he provides me with what I need and he loves me, what else is there really?? I also want to commit to him the little things, the ordinary things: the driving in my car, working with kids, going out to eat, hanging with friends, being with family, working with others, being a wife, daughter, friend kind of things.......

2) "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins - offer hospitality to one another without grumbling" 1 Peter 4:8-9 (NIV)

Yeah it's that "without grumbling" part that gets me in trouble. I am human and a prideful one at that. If I do something good, way too often I want recognition for it,
I want someone to notice. That's not the way God wants us to serve him, serving others. I do things with a smile on my face and grumbling in my heart. That isn't
doing any good for anyone involved. I'm the one missing a blessing! I need to work on this, complaining comes way too easy and I need to concentrate on the spirit in which I do things!

3) Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, truthfully administering God's grace in it's various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 4:10-11 (NIV)

I use the excuse way too often "I don't have the energy, the resources, the time, etc..." to serve in a certain capacity. I don't want to drive to church every Wednesday night
to work with kids because gas is so high, I don't want to join the group going on a mission trip because we don't have time this summer, I don't want to volunteer in the community because it's way out of my comfort zone. I have volunteered before and I know the rewards in my own heart and that it is what's expected of me as a Christian. We aren't to sit on our rears and watch the world go by. We're to be "his hands & his feet" around us. I love this says that we'll have the strength God provides, we just have to seek it!!


***So there you have it, thoughts from a woman just pondering "out loud" this morning about what God wants for her life. *****