May 2, 2011

"For now we see in a mirror and are baffled; but someday we are going to see Him in His completeness, face to face. As yet my knowledge is incomplete, but then I shall know in full, as I have been fully known." I Corinthians 13:12

My house is decorated with beautiful pictures my wife has cross-stitched. We even have a joint venture of a clock I built and she made the face for. Beautiful works of art that tell stories and preserve memories. But if you take one of these pictures down from the wall, turn it around and hang it back up, you will have a ugly mass of colors, twisted yarn and knots that are most often un-discernible. On one side her beautiful needlework crafted in skill and meticulous work. On the other side an unattractive, disjointed and rather ugly mess of strings. The problem is that we can only see the backside of our lives. We do not share in the Master Artist's vision of producing something beautiful. God does not always share with us His specifics of what He is doing in our lives. However, He does promise us that His will for us is perfect and beautiful. He will never give us second best. Many things will happen to us in our lives that on the surface appear to be ugly and confusing. Some things will happen in our lives that we will not understand at all. We may understand later and we may have to wait until we get to heaven. But be assured, just as my wife patiently wove the thread into the cloth to create a beautiful picture, your Father is working in the background, planning and implementing events that will make your life everything He wants it to be. Be patient looking at the back side for now. One day you will grace His home as a choice work of art, just like the pictures in my house.

　

Thought for the week: "Stress is when you wake up screaming and then you realize you haven't fallen asleep yet."

Funny for the week: "The Night Shift"

A man got a job as a night watchman at a factory. There had been a lot of thefts by the workers on the night shift, and so every morning when the night shift workers passed through his gate it was his job to check their bags and pockets to make sure that nothing was being stolen.

Things were going along very well the first night on the job until a man pushing a wheelbarrow of newspapers came through the gate. Aha, he thought, that man thinks he can cover up what he is stealing with that newspaper. So he removed the paper only to find nothing. Still he felt that the man was acting strangely, so he questioned him about the paper.

"I get a little extra money from newspapers I recycle, so I go into the lunchroom and pick up all the ones people have thrown away." The guard let him pass, but decided to keep a close eye on him. The next night it was the same, and the night after that. Week after week it went on. The same guy would push the wheelbarrow of newspapers past the guard's checkpoint. The guard would always check and find nothing.

Then one night, about a year later, the guard reported for work only to find a message had been left for him telling him to report to the supervisor. He walked into the supervisor's office and before he could say a word, the boss said, "You're fired!"

"Fired?" he asked in total surprise. "Why? What did I do?"

"It was your job to make sure that no one stole anything from this plant and you have failed. So you're fired."

"Wait a minute, what do you mean failed. Nobody ever stole anything from this place while I was on guard."

"Oh, really," the boss answered. "Then how do you account for the fact that there are 365 wheelbarrows missing?"

How often we miss the obvious.................... Chaplain Barnes

Last week’s answer: Why did Jacob flee from Canaan? Because Esau vowed to kill him. (Gen. 27:41-43)

This weeks question: Who was the first redhead recorded in the Bible?