Perfect Problems

So I was reading in Luke about the woman with an issue of blood as well as the feeding of the five thousand and I came across verse one in chapter nine that says “Then He called His twelve disciples together…” and I had a thought so I went to Chapter Twenty-Two where Christ was betrayed, and I found the verse that I was looking for “…and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve…”  Now Jesus handpicked his twelve dudes, so that means He picked Judas purposely, and He also knows the future right?  Right.  So Jesus KNEW that Judas would end up betraying him!  My point is that Jesus PURPOSELY picked Judas – a problem – to put in His life even though it/he was a problem.  Now the immediate thing that probably comes to your mind is “well Jesus NEEDED Judas so that He could fulfill His mission that God sent Him on”…EXACTLY my point!!  Jesus picked someone really bad to be in his life - someone He knew would ultimately hurt him – for the greater good, and for HIS purpose.  What struck me is how that applies to us, and how Jesus kinda ‘led by example’ so to speak.  So for us God might ‘pick’ a really bad problem for our lives – something that might hurt us or cause some major problems – so that He can use it for HIS purpose for our lives or (like in Jesus’ case) someone else’s life, for something really good.  So next time something bad happens remember that Jesus PURPOSELY had problem in his life that ultimately worked out for something REALLY good.  The reason you might have ‘that problem’ or ‘this problem’ in your life, is because God needs it there so that a certain part of His plan works.

Levi 

Small. Tiny. Itsy-Bitsy. Little.

Song of Solomon 2:15 “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes”

The book of Song of Solomon is really like a love book the Solomon wrote, and to be perfectly honest, the only part of it that I’ve ever read is the second chapter.  Anyways, I read it today and the fifteenth verse popped out at me (obviously).  To be honest I’m not sure what the original context is, but I read it as the verse saying that the little things in life make a big difference.  In my life time management is a big deal.  Thos of you who know me and our family know that.  On thing that is constantly stressed is that one minute here, or three minutes there, can REALLY cur your day up and at the end you’ve wasted two or three hours!!:/  Individually each of the wasted minutes is SMALL, but combined they really really add up.  The same thing applies to our spiritual lives as Christians.  The little sins or wrong-doings individually don’t dramatically affect us, but over a period of time the build up into something big and make a big difference for the worse.  And the problem with it being one small thing at a time is that it’s hard to catch because each thing is so small, we dismiss it as ‘being small.’  I’ve heard it said that if you consistently do something for twenty-one days it becomes a habit.  So if we’re doing something small consistently, forgetting to pray, adding some worldy slang, dress un-modestly, etc, after awhile it will majorly affect us without us hardly noticing it until it’s gotten to be a decently big problem.  So think of something small that either you’re doing that you know you shouldn’t do, or something that you know you should do but you’re not doing, and start doing it if you know you should, or stop if you know you SHOULDN’T be doing it.  Start small with one thing and work on the one thing until it’s conquered, then move onto something else that’s either the same ‘small size’ or a little bit bigger.  After all it’s the small things that make the big difference.

-Levi