Brown's Daily Word 11-20-09

Good morning,
It is Friday now, but Sunday's coming. We approach Thanksgiving with joy and thanks for all that He does in our lives. He orchestrates the order of the entire universe, and yet takes the time to listen to each child's prayers. Praise the Lord, for He is Good, and His truth endures! The Good News of Jesus Christ our Lord is simple yet so profound. The late Dr. D. J. Kennedy ( One of my favorite preachers)used to say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is so simple that even a little child can understand, yet it is so profound a Ph.D. can not comprehend it.
Our Lord made an audacious declaration when He said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you". He exhorts us to learn to live our lives, focused on Christ and His Eternal everlasting Kingdom.
William H. Hinson was a great pastor of the First United Methodist Church, Houston. Some time ago he entered the church triumphant. He told a story of why animal trainers carry a stool when they go into a cage of lions. They have their whips, of course, and their pistols are at their sides, but invariably they also carry a stool. Hinson said it is the most important tool of the trainer. The trainer holds the stool by the back and thrusts the legs toward the face of the wild animal. Those who know maintain that the animal tries to focus on all four legs at once. In the attempt to focus on all four, a kind of paralysis overwhelms the animal, and it becomes tame, weak, and disabled because its attention is fragmented. (John Maxwell; Developing the Leader within You, (Thomas Nelson, 1993). When we are attempting to focus on too much at once we are become distracted and in some ways paralyzed. We lose the ability to attack, so to speak, because we are not focused.
Tim Sanders, the former chief solutions officer at Yahoo! and author of Love Is the Killer App, shared the following thought about establishing priorities:
Take your life and all the things that you think are important, and put them in one of three categories. These three categories are represented by three items: glass, metal, and rubber. The things that are made of rubber, when you drop them, will bounce back. Things that are made of metal, when they get dropped, create a lot of noise. But you can recover from the drop. For example, if you miss a meeting at work, you can usually get the notes. Or, if you forget to balance your checkbook and you lose track of how much you have in your account, and the bank notifies you that you have been spending more than you have, that’s going to create a little bit of noise in your life, but you can recover from it.
Then, there are things made of glass. When you drop one of these, it will shatter into pieces and never be the same. Even though you can piece it back together, it will still be missing some pieces and it certainly won’t look the same. Neither could you actually fill it up with water, because the consequences of it be being broken will forever affect how it’s used. The thing is, you’re the only person who knows what those things are that you can’t afford to drop. More than likely, they have a lot to do with your relationships, including your marriage, your family, and your friends. (Tim Sanders, www.sanderssays.typepad.com.
How may we begin to anticipate God’s renewed blessing in our lives? We begin by seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness first in all things. Our relationships with the Lord and with the people we love are precious and to be prioritized. Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all!
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC617kE1maU