I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. John 15:5 KJV
As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord
As I have mentioned in a previous article, I am a people watcher. Not so long ago I realized that as I was watching the lives of others I wasn't just a spectator, I was also a student. I was learning from the successes and failures of those around me.
It might seem to some people that the only way to learn from others is to watch only those that are successful and living the kind of lives that we want. They'd say its pointless to pay attention to those that are worse off then us or those that are in the same position as us. If you want to move up then you have to look up to those that are there. In theory that seems very logical but I have come to a different conclusion.
I have come to believe that everybody is, or can, teach me something. Everybody that I come in contact with
over the course of my life teaches me 1.)How to do something, (2. How NOT to do something, (3. that I have
been wrong in something that I have believed, or 4.) re-affirms my faith and beliefs. God can use anyone
at anytime to teach, correct, or instruct someone. Yet so many times we don't get the message because we
don't recognize the messanger as someone (or something) that is relevant to our lives or our situations.
There are so many reasons people give for rejecting the messanger. Some of the reasons that I believe people
do this are....
So often we pay to much attention to the messanger and completely miss the message. We are so sure that if God wants to tell us something that he will do it in some grandios sort of way and only use the best of the best to communicate. We take no thought that he often used "cracked vessels" to convey his messages. And he still does that today. We need to stop critisizing the vessel and start looking for the lesson.
I now spend every minute of every day looking for messages from God. In every person that I encounter and in every situation, both good and stressful, I am looking to see if God is trying to talk to me. I just recently realized through the help of a friends situation, that in some past events where my husband and I were at odds, he was actually right. It didn't seem like it at the time, back then I was so sure he was wrong and just being stubborn or whatever. But now I can see that he was completely 100% right in his assessment of the situation and I in turn was right to back off and let him have his way. Did God send some rich well to do person to my door to tell me this...NO! Did he send the most educated person he could find to relay the message...NO! He just used a friend in need, an ordinary every day friend that wanted advice and in turn got me thinking about the things I had been through that related to her dilema and BAM!! There is was....God used her to teach me something at a time when I wasn't even thinking about it and wasn't even looking for an answer.
No matter who comes into our lives we should never reject the lessons they can teach us. We should never judge them based on whats going on in their lives or how they present themselves to the world. God can and does use vessels of all races, genders, social standings, financial standings, and so forth. I am always learning and always growing thanks to those around me. I am thankful for every single person I come in contact with, because those people are helping me to become a better person, whether they realize it or not.